Inferno (Play to Live: Book # 4)

  Play to Live

  by D. Rus

  Book 4

  Inferno

  Play to Live

  Book 4: Inferno

  Copyright © D.Rus 2015

  Cover Art © Kadziro

  Translators © Irene Woodhead, Neil P. Mayhew 2015

  All Rights Reserved

  Also by D. Rus:

  AlterWorld (Play to Live: Book #1)

  The Clan (Play to Live: Book #2)

  The Duty (Play to Live: Book #3)

  Chapter One

  A fragment of intercepted AlterWorld communications. From an anonymous email:

  I humbly kiss the Sun God's feet. I desire nothing other than to demonstrate my loyalty to Him, earning the Highest God's grace.

  Allow me to report that the minion of the False God has cunningly avoided all the obstacles we so cleverly planted in his way and laid his hands on the first fragment of the Heart of the Temple. Moreover, he bribed the Shimmering Beast by granting her the name of Tigress, thus tricking her into surrendering the treasure to him. Allow me to enquire in trepidation: is the remaining Heart fragment safely hidden from prying eyes? My wits leave me at the thought that the Great Artifact may be brought back to life within the domain of the Dark Pantheon.

  * * *

  "Children, class time! Group A, math lesson! Group B, off to the Arena for your fencing practice!"

  My Mom clapped her hands in the inner court of the First Temple, attracting the kids' attention and cutting short their overactive lunch break.

  I smiled. Should I get her a school bell, maybe? Or hire a goblin to walk around ringing it?

  My Mom. It had only been two weeks since the tragic day of my — initially so triumphant — homecoming. But Mom, posing as an endlessly rejuvenating dark-haired Elfa, had already fitted in, becoming an integral part of our motley community. Unexpectedly even to herself, this retired teacher was now in possession of perfect health, a rather matured son and a swarm of uncontrollable kids bossed around by the devil-may-care Lena.

  "YEAAAAAAH!!!!" the noisy brats charged toward the Castle's Kindergarten Wing with all the enthusiasm of unchaperoned first-graders quite capable of trampling down an adult.

  As I watched them scramble past, anxiety clutched at my heart for the umpteenth time. So many of them! Seventy-two tiny human beings whose lives entirely depended on the route I would take. In a week's time, the First Temple would lose its immunity. Once that happened, our lands would swarm with hordes of freebie lovers on all sorts of epic quests and mass events generously dished out by the priests of Light.

  The responsibility weighed heavily on me but it wouldn't bring me to my knees. My shoulders, considerably broader these days, defied their load, redirecting it to my steely spine that actually welcomed the challenge. We weren't the only ones who shaped the gameplay: AlterWorld, too, was molding us to its own template. An occasional mirror check in the morning now sent shivers down my spine.

  My position as a clan, alliance, and raid leader had taught me to be tough.

  My ownership of a Super Nova castle complete with an adjacent valley and its population was gradually, bit by bit, squeezing all ideas of democracy out of me while meting out enough kicks in the butt to shape me into a third-rate medieval baron ready to snatch his duke seigneur's crown.

  My stare had become frozen; my eyes, having witnessed slavery and torture, had surprisingly turned black from watching the seamy side of life which the all-permissive game had blown out of all proportion. Add to that the loss of a loved one and my experience in Lloth's den. I had no idea what kind of infernal developments radiated in my gaze now, but even Spark the Hell Hound couldn't stare me out these days. In a very doglike gesture the powerful beast would drop to her side, whimpering, as she'd part her armor plates exposing her unprotected belly, submitting to my leadership.

  It had actually seemed funny at first, but now it was making me uncomfortable. Never mind. It's not worth pondering over the inconceivable. Life would sort it all out. I really didn't want to go down in history as the first crazy evil overlord of this young new world. So I counted on these kids to save my mind from going perma into a world of madness.

  I did lots of things these days, working on my reputation, plotting and scheming, trying to win over more allies. One thing I couldn't do was stop our in-house cuckoo: Doc. He'd long lost all sense of proportion. Now he reminded me of a pilot in a burning fighter plane clenching the controls with white-knuckled fingers, sending his machine into its final dive on the enemy lines. There he was, my brother in grief, trying to navigate a raging torrent in his flimsy canoe — but for all his desperate brandishing of the paddle, the rapids were looming ever closer, baring their cliffs in disdainful scorn.

  Immediately after little Masha's miraculous digitization, we'd checked out all the other kids. The giggly redhead had indeed been granted a second chance, but how about the rest? Well, we'd been right all along. Each and every one of the hospice's little customers had already gone perma, successfully missing the Grim Reaper on their way. For a while, it had made Doc the happiest man that ever lived. Shattered by the terrible role he'd had to play, this morgue gatekeeper had suddenly turned into a good wizard.

  The same night he'd somehow managed to drink himself senseless on virtual booze. He stumbled around zombie-like, grinning and groaning, trying to give everyone a hug. Some anonymous joker took a series of screenshots of him which graced the clan's gallery for a long time afterward:

  Doc whispers salacious remarks to the embarrassed Macaria: his hand straying down her waist, his eyes glistening, the imaginary cavalry mustache bristling.

  Doc gives White Winnie a hug (don't even ask how they'd found each other): the albino monster baring his sharp teeth in a Hollywood smile, Doc absent-mindedly scratching him behind his ear which sported a ruby earring (no points for guessing where he'd got that from, either).

  Doc engaged in a heated discussion with the Hell Hound: him gripping the amazed canine's powerful paw and trying to count her razor-clawed toes in an attempt to prove some point.

  It had gotten worse: closer to the end of the party he fell asleep in the dogs' warm lair, laying his head unceremoniously on the nearest monster's side. The entire pack somehow stopped baring their teeth at him, their puppies cuddling around the inebriated Doc like kittens around a hot water bottle.

  You might think it funny but you won't believe what it had taken me to first find him, then shake him awake and finally kick him out of AlterWorld! Eighteen hours of full immersion! Over twenty percent chance of going perma, what had he been thinking of!

  But I had my revenge the next morning as he scrambled up the creaky cellar stairs, all covered in cobwebs and looking pretty lost.

  "So, you're one of us now? Welcome to Eternity!"

  Color drained from his face, his legs giving under him as Doc's avatar dropped down into the lotus pose used for logging out. His still listless hand slapped the air pressing an invisible button. He heaved a sigh of relief, making it clear that the thirty-second logout countdown had already begun. Casting us one last reproachful glare, he disappeared from the game.

  Like all doctors though, he had all the tools necessary to extricate himself from any twilight zone. Three hours later he had already been back, all businesslike, discussing our opening of a new portal directly from the Birches Nursery, the low-level human starting zone.

  My arms crossed, I now stood by the portal's shimmering arc meeting a new column of fugitives escaping reality and their own dying bodies. No, I really had to talk to Doc and ask him to stop this whole exodus thing until we had a little more certainty in the future. We were facing a big punch-up under the Temple's walls any day now. In the mean
time, Lloth could sadistically lay claim to me — seeing as I was living on borrowed time — while some of my more impatient enemies could finally take it out on me too. All this would surely ricochet back onto the kids, very possibly making them hostages in a big boys' game.

  I didn't even have time to worry about my own safety, let alone take care of this liability. I needed to alert everyone to our situation; I needed to mobilize public opinion and join forces to build a top nursery within the castle walls. I was sure such a commotion would attract unwanted official interest, allowing them to call a freeze on the exodus in order to "clarify" and "co-ordinate", buying the bureaucrats enough time to cover their asses in red tape.

  So I was thinking until I saw the first little mite of a girl waddle out of the portal, her tiny fist locked around Doc's finger. Jesus Christ man, this was hitting below the belt!

  I stepped aside, giving way to him. Nodding and forcing a smile, I watched more kids follow, casting scared glances all around. These days we checked the children daily for any signs of going perma. Apparently, age was proven to directly affect digitization times. The kids' minds — young, trustful and open, free from the thousands of inbred taboos — blended with their new reality with incredible ease, entering its embrace to lose themselves in virtuality. At least half of all newly arriving kids had gone perma within the first twenty-four hours.

  Doc was living on the edge. He couldn't hide all the gurneys traveling up and down the hospice corridors; he couldn't conceal the wardfuls of young patients disappearing, then reentering them already comatose. I was more than sure that some well-wisher had already done their civic duty by grassing him up. The hospice and its chief physician could expect a "visit" from some higher instance any day now. More likely, it wouldn't even come to that. They'd just arrest him without further ado.

  I bit my lip, feeling utterly helpless as I watched his self-sacrifice. Doc had made his choice and I had no right to stop him. All I could do was help him and keep out of his way. When he had needed an arms dealer, I'd introduced him to Dan. When he'd asked me for a good lawyer, a clever PR guy and a journalist — I'd pulled all the necessary strings. Because, despite the first gleams of madness already glistening deep within his eyes, Doc was preparing his last show with exhaustive thoroughness.

  I heard a shuffling noise overhead. With a clink, a few Tears of Stone broke off the wall and rolled over the tiles. Mechanically I ducked and jerked my shoulder back, sliding Jangur's Battle Shield onto my arm and deploying the personal cover. My mind momentarily zoned out, choosing between the combat interface and the alarm macros panel while my eyes searched the wall and the donjon's dark arrowslits overhead for a hired killer or an enemy spy.

  Whew. The five-year-old Masha was waggling her scratched legs in the air, kicking impatiently as she happily glided down to the ground to join her fencing group.

  Who in God's name had cast a Levitation spell on her? It wasn't the cheapest one to make, considering it only worked for a couple of minutes, providing a parachute-like descent: relatively slow, but still fast enough to have your legs broken on landing. Could it be some top level wizard specializing in this particular skill? Unlikely. Even though we had plenty of wizzies to go around, most of them chose classic routes like nukers, portal casters and rapid damage aficionados.

  Our combat section's average levels had reached 170, all thanks to our new ex-merc members. Compared to them, my level 80 paled into insignificance. Well, I just didn't have the week necessary to do any hardcore farming with adequate support! I'd got my last seven levels during our scuffle in the Lost City. Shame you didn't get xp for killing other players. God knows we'd gone through enough gaming fodder. The mere thought made me shudder.

  A blood-red ruby glistened on the girl's index finger, sending out bright spots of light. What an interesting ring. Now how would a mite like this have come across something like that?

  Sorry, kiddo. Breaking all gaming etiquette, I focused on the item, reading its stats. Very often that's exactly how PKs get started: they lay their greedy eyes on somebody else's gear and decide to give their PK counter a spin hoping to help themselves to the rich dude's stuff.

  A couple of days ago, I wouldn't have thought twice about checking a kid's stats: children couldn't read the warning message, anyway. The problem was, my Mom had decreed it was time they learned their ABCs. According to her, children shouldn't walk around illiterate in a digital world. Three hours after she'd made the announcement, I'd discovered her smoking nervously in the back yard.

  "What's up?" I asked, expecting the worst.

  "They've finished it," she gasped.

  "Finished what?"

  "The spelling book! All of it! Fine print included: A licensed digital edition, 2031. Approved and recommended by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation."

  "What do you mean?" I frowned, uncomprehending.

  Mom gave a helpless shrug. "Must be the absolute memory effect. It takes them two minutes to memorize their ABCs, five more to grasp the idea of spelling, and then they just start reading, faster and faster. The funny thing is, I can see that they don't even bother to identify the letters anymore! They remember the words as such, sometimes whole phrases, viewing them as complex hieroglyphics. They don't look at them as combinations of the thirty-three letters of the Russian alphabet: in their eyes, the Russian language consists of tens of thousands of pictograms. How's that for a doctor's thesis?"

  That had been two days ago. And since then...

  I shook my head free of the unwanted memory and concentrated on the ring's stats.

  Its icon didn't impress: a few curls of thin wire with a few shreds of burned insulation still clinging to it. A large ruby had been crudely cross-wired to its center.

  Still, the item's stats more than compensated for its lack of visual appeal:

  Mithril Ring of Flight.

  Item class: Artifact

  Durability: 300/300

  Effect 1: +40% to air magic resistance

  Enhancement: The ring contains a stone of Divine Blood, adding a buff of your choice up to level 200. Skill chosen: Levitation

  Customization: This is a unique item, the only one of its kind in the world. +100 bonus to the item effect.

  Holy Jesus. Fencing can wait, kiddo! I stepped toward her, catching the airborne girl in my arms. She tried to wriggle herself free.

  "Wait! Stand still, I tell you!"

  Overcoming the spell's gentle resistance, I set the girl down onto the flagstones and crouched next to her. "Masha? Where did you get this ring from?" I asked in my best stern voice.

  She rose slightly into the air and stayed there, rocking like a hovercraft. I just hoped she wouldn't be blown away by the wind.

  With a frown, Masha hid her hands behind her back. "It's mine."

  "I'm not saying it isn't!"

  Admittedly, that wasn't exactly true. I wasn't going to take a precious bauble like that from a baby, no way. But I'd love to be able to borrow it from her for the duration of some especially dangerous raid or even swap it for something seriously valuable — definitely not for African trade beads.

  This wasn't just any old ring. Levitation was one hell of a useful skill albeit prohibitively expensive and by far not long-lasting enough for a constant buff. And there it was right in front of me! Imagine being able to chase — or escape — your enemy by gliding a few inches above the ground ignoring all the bumps and ditches, soaring across ravines and fearlessly diving down cliffs. Utterly awesome.

  Just think of the disappointment awaiting the gravity mages who deal damage by slamming their targets into the ground. Regardless of what sent your victim flying through the sky — whether it's the whack received from angry mother earth or the touch of a gentle wind — the ring would cushion its bearer's fall, softly setting him or her back onto their feet. I could see the indignant faces of the warriors below helplessly shaking their swords and spears as they were showered by some very painful magic from an impossibl
e height. I loved it.

  The girl frowned. "It's Dimka Khaman, an A group shaman," she admitted reluctantly.

  "Eh? Khaman the Shaman? What are you talking about?"

  "He arrived with the second wave and was nineteenth to go perma. He used to be in Ward Five with the rest of us, the one with the bald head who never left his bed, one constantly hooked up to all those IV drips. Ah, sorry, you don't know about that, do you? So one day we were playing ninjas. All the others were hiding in the walls and on the roofs. But I'm real afraid of heights. So Dimka promised to help me if I gave him two of the red stones.

  I had a funny feeling I knew what was going to happen next. "Where did you get the stones from?"

  She beamed, her fingers wriggling as if stroking an invisible fluffy cat. "White Winnie gave them to me. He's so sweet!"

  The albino bastard! I very nearly said it out aloud. So he'd stuffed his mouth full of stones of Divine Blood he'd stolen from me, and now he was walking around giving them away to all and sundry! "Where is he now?"

  "Who?"

  "Not White Winnie! Actually yeah... where do you think I could find that piece of... fluff?"

  She stuck out a dignified chin. "He won't come to you! Winnie hates adults. He only plays with us."

  I bet! The Temple yard wouldn't hold everybody wishing to nail his fluffy ears over their respective mantelpieces with gold spikes. Never mind. The earth wasn't round for nothing: our paths were bound to cross in the future. Actually, how sure was I that AlterWorld was round? Seeing as our own Galileo hadn't been born yet... "So how do I find this Dimka Khaman?"

  She waved a nonchalant hand at the shady nook concealing the divine throne, every crafter's potential El Dorado provided they knew about it. "Sitting on that boulder of his, isn't he?"

  I peered through the shade. Recently, the dwarf mallorn had grown dramatically, expanding faster than the proverbial beanstalk and concealing the Fallen One's accidental masterpiece within its generous canopy.