The Ultimation (Play to Live: Book #7), Page 2

  Finally, a classic battle set, "player vs environment." It was painstakingly put together to match the current build of your character. Survival was the highest priority. The emphasis was on strength, hits, and mana. Everything had to be maxed out, everything had to be artifact. Customized design and a wealth of special effects. Quite often, they're isolated objects in a cluster. The price in question—four tons of precious metal. A Christmas present for some stealthed creepy PK. Even though with my Holy Unmercenary status I didn’t have to worry about losing my stuff.

  Next. Hummungus gear. Here, there weren't many options. The game designers skimped, frankly. There was a clear bias towards efficiency instead of effectiveness. Appearance? Impressive. Use? Hardly any. A little strength here, a little speed there. Given that Hummungus had entered a league of uncategorized monsters, this was a great pity. I'll need to ask Aulë not to spare any morphite and forge something epic. And then I would run through the top pantheons with a pile of goods, begging the gods to give me an armor buff from their own stash. But not yet.

  For now, Hummungus was best used for transport—a warehouse on wheels and the last ace up our sleeves. It would be stupid to use him in everyday confrontations. Not worth it. One stupid death, and then you had to wait 24 hours for him to respawn.

  Now: Tommy the snow leopard. This was even worse. Combat familiars were even rarer than mounts. A familiar’s main property was its utter cuteness. They amuse and entertain, making players spend their last pennies on fluffy coats, new hair styles and silk bows. To add insult to injury, the leopard still missed the appropriately rare items because of level restrictions.

  In the fight against Lloth's spiders, he had managed to grab a bit of raid experience from dozens of collective frags, growing 30 levels in total. It sounded good, but it wasn't enough to claim the best gear.

  The next item on the list was going to ruin our alchemical and magic depots. A couple of cubic meters of vials, scrolls, and both combat and utilitarian artifacts. Many of these were custom-made items from the special storage section. I wasn't sure about the presence of magic on Earth, so I'd made stashes everywhere I could. I assumed there were going to be more problems than we could count. And if some of those could be solved with gold, then it wouldn't be a problem anymore but a trivial expense.

  Durin sighed heavily, rolled up the parchment, and put it in a holder that hung from his belt. A subtle reddish glow warned potential pickpockets that this item was best left untouched. You could be left without your hands, or a little later without your head.

  "I'll take care of it, commander. Only... don't leave us, OK?"

  I raised my eyebrows in amazement. Embarrassed, the dwarf hurried to explain, "My lord Laith, everything here relies on you. If you leave, the Undead will start fighting—not for money so much as for duty or loot. Our people will disperse in all directions. Without you, we no longer have a place in the clan. In an instant, we’ll go from equals to pseudo-intelligent, third-class citizens. We both know that humans see us as children's dolls. If our arms and legs get torn off, no harm. Daddy will buy a new one. Not everyone, of course, but most of you only see us in terms of utility. If it's advantageous or if you're bored, we're killed. If we're useful, we're generously spared. Don't leave us, OK?"

  Unable to restrain myself, I cursed under my breath. Could they put any more responsibility on me? Now there were NPCs trustingly handing over their fate to me, letting me know that if I left them, they'd die. What the hell was that?

  Shaking my tired head in bewilderment, I stepped forward and placed my hand on the dwarf's shoulder. "Forget it. The clan is my family. How could I leave you?"

  Durin's eyes filled with hope. He fell on one knee and whispered in earnest, "Thank you, my lord. Don't think it insolence. Bless our success in crafting and," the dwarf faltered, "and personal life! I languish after the master cook in the South Wing. The lady has outstanding proportions and cooking skills! And the beer she brews! Worthy of the kings under the mountain!”

  "Uhhh...” I stammered, confused.

  Should I laugh or cry, wave off another's beliefs or grandly wave my arms and make a priest out of him? Then again, why "make"? I was the real First Priest. The fear and worship of hundreds of thousands were my witness.

  Nodding seriously, I made the sign of the holy circle over the dwarf and mouthed something inaudible, appealing either to The Fallen One or to some Force tactfully slumbering behind my back.

  Anthracite sparks fell from my hand, momentarily concealing the figure that stood reverently.

  The radiance died down. Durin slowly moved his lips, carefully reading the system message. In an instant, his eyes flashed brighter than black diamonds. His nostrils flared greedily, deep wrinkles furrowing his broad forehead.

  "Thank you, your Greatness," the dwarf was more serious than ever. "This I will never forget, and I swear to repay you with my faithful service. And I shamelessly dream of having you as a guest of honor at my wedding with grandesse Nella."

  I blinked, stunned, then nodded. "I'll be there. Now go! Time is precious and you still have much work to do!"

  The dwarf stepped back and bowed deeply, promising to comb every secret hiding place, even those not officially entered on the clan list. Now what had I conjured up? Never before had I witnessed such devotion in Durin.

  The door flew open. The Ear Cutters seized the caretaker by his wide belt and roughly dragged him out, speeding up the process of clearing out the office. Their faces were unhappy. The bodyguards' levels of paranoia had risen exponentially. Rebirth had not showed its usual compassion and had not erased the memories of their past lives.

  Sitting at my desk, I immersed myself in work. The clan task list for the allotted time of my business trip outlined a new level of clearance and degree of accountability. Divide and conquer. Staying in command, the clan members would be able to keep a backup control mechanism in the Valley. And individually, none of the officers would be able to deal critical harm or seize control.

  Oh yes: having sipped a fair amount of the bitter drink of betrayal, I had quickly become a professional paranoiac. It looked like rulers didn't last long. Praise AlterWorld. Immortality has granted me the ability to learn from my mistakes. Here, even a minesweeper could safely practice by trial and error. Attempt number one; explosion; respawn; and again, round and round, frightening the population with the rumblings of a distant thunderstorm.

  From time to time, I took a break and distracted myself creating scrolls and wasting strategic reserves of Reset Potion which were difficult to replenish. Yes, I was afraid that Phantom Dragons were facing total extinction considering the growing demand for the ingredients they dropped.

  I stopped on the tenth parchment. Enough. The risk of losing control grew with every item created.

  Carefully straightening the stack, I numbered the pages, certified each of my digital signatures, and filed them in a separate thin folder. On the cover page, I wrote in an uncharacteristic calligraphy,

  Portals to Earth. 10 pcs.

  Chapter Two

  Diablo Virtual Universe V. Location: Underworld, The Forgotten Tomb. Magma baths, property of Azmodan.

  Asmodeus lay in the fountain of molten tungsten, blithely narrowing his eyes and lazily sipping on a cocktail made from the tears of six hundred and sixty-six virgins.

  Across from him sat Azmodan, Lord of Sin, governor of the densely inhabited part of the Underworld where the greatest pleasures lay next to profound despair. The powerful demon, superboss of the third Act, he preferred cooler temperatures and more precious metals. The four claws of his daily incarnation now soaked in the seething electron: an alloy of gold and silver.

  The supreme demon looked askance with envy at the glass in Asmodeus' hands. He had downed his own portion of the precious cocktail in one gulp. After their microcosm had gone perma and been contained, together with a lousy ten thousand players, it became practically impossible in the Underworld to obtain physical components from the
real world.

  Where had the entire army of demonologists and competing forces gone? Was it possible that no one needed their intimate knowledge and borrowed power anymore? Why was it these days that they so rarely drew the seal of the pentagram and even less often recited the treasured summoning spell? Did those little people seek help only from the true demons whose names appeared in the ancient books? Who the hell even read those?! His name was known by tens of millions! Well then, feeble creatures, summon and spoil your rituals, and then...

  Azmodan sighed heavily—nothing but dreams. Their world had gone perma too early. Security services could have hidden the incident, build new servers, stuffed them with their own agents, and begun to play at length. But he... he had become only a shadow of the real avatar of Azmodan, dwelling in God-knows-which strata of the macrocosm.

  The world of Diablo was falling into decay before his very eyes. The faith of the people had awakened him to life and, now, it was killing him. Too few people in captivity of the virtual prisons had the Spark of the Creator. The boundaries of the Micro-universe were contracting as Chaos devoured the hastily abandoned outskirts. And where exactly this Boundary of Equilibrium passed, even if only temporarily determining the volume of their world, no one knew—not even the Great El Diablo himself, Lord of Terror.

  Azmodan had already been forced to set the legions of the Second Wing and Fourth Night in stasis, not having the strength or possibility of supporting the starving demons. Frankly speaking, the prince himself had already at times been vaguely aware of his own existence. His mind swam and the periods of uncontrollable madness were getting longer.

  More than likely, they weren’t threatened with total annihilation—thanks to Hollywood, the gaming portal, and the faith of millions of people. But the energy flow already wasn't enough for all the Worlds' Fans, feeding on the strength of the Demiurge's children. In particular, the worst-affected universes were those that had acquired independence and been separated. Like soap bubbles that floated off from the wand, they happily swirled in a dance of imaginary freedom for some time, and then inevitably collapsed, disappearing forever. At least, most of them wouldn't cross the threshold of critical mass of true materialization.

  Considering all this, Asmodeus' offer was indeed quite tempting.

  Casting another look at his glass, the demon reflexively swallowed and summed up the essence of the conversation. "So you're saying that I could have broken through the portal to Earth, and now you're asking me to sign a vassal treaty in exchange for a protectorate in North America?"

  Asmodeus grinned. "I can see Virgins’ Tears have gone to your head. In South America, my dear fellow—South. The North will be mine. That’ll make us neighbors. Bear in mind, since the Supreme Ones visited it the last time, the continent's population has grown by three orders of magnitude. Five hundred million souls!"

  "Katra zil shukil!" Azmodan couldn't resist the tempting language and swore in Eredun, Suffer and die!

  Excited at the prospect, he didn't even notice how his daily form had changed to the Night Executioner. His nails reflexively scratched the onyx fountain. In his dreams, he had already torn up the delicate cartilage in human chests, extracting the trembling souls of children and the righteous.

  Meanwhile, Asmodeus spouted the possibilities. "You can build a Small Ziggurat. It only took me a hundred thousand sinners to set up an astral anchor on Earth and create a passage to Diablo. With time, you'll take in a certain Sao Paulo, along with its fifteen million souls. Then you can erect a normal permanent portal, not one that flickers. You will wake up from dreams of legions and then summon new armies with your own hands!"

  Azmodan struggled to control himself. Talking with the Supreme Tempter didn't come easily to him. Having regained his power of perception, the prince inquired,

  "Why?"

  Asmodeus knew what he meant. "I'm sharing such a large sum because I could hardly take it all in alone. I have to admit that the humans have gotten pretty good at killing their own kind. For example, one of my hunting teams was poking around Washington where it ran into a defensive perimeter controlled by artificial intelligence. In a dozen breaths, automatic guns neutralized the magical cocoon and then stuffed the soldiers with an amount of lead that was incompatible with life. And mind you, these fighters weren't bad and yet they still got lead! If the standoff drags on, then silver will have its turn. And these hardworking human monkeys have extracted no less than a billion tons of it from the depths."

  "And then there was light!" Azmodan, the demon of the virtual backwoods, just couldn’t help himself. "It wasn't that long ago that the very last Worm Driver could spin circles in a Cursed Dance amid an army of hairless apes, armed with half-done, poorly honed iron."

  Asmodeus shook his head. “The clergy in those days were not like today's. Any rural priest from a shitty old church could hold his own against the Supreme One. I remember when the Seventh Wing of the Silver Legion ran into some Elder's cavern. His body was sick, legs in chains, but his soul shone like a beacon in the night. Flowers even blossomed in the Astral plane. By the way, I haven't recreated that unit since. As of now, their place is still vacant...”

  "And his soul?" the demon eagerly leaned forward.

  Asmodeus waved his hand in disappointment. "The Elder left his body and went to his god. However, this isn't what I'm talking about. All of these newfangled mechanical creations can and should fight. They're insanely expensive, stuck in production, and take years to build. Their squadron of fliers is strong in the sky and can even tear a dragon from its young. And how many of those squadrons are there? A dozen? A hundred? I will cover the stars with Chimera's wings! The trouble is this: they'll never forgive me for such a fortification. The Balance will rear up on its hind legs, or they will join the Lords of one of the Underworlds and night will appear as day. The thousand-handed Lucifer will be jealous, sitting firmly on his throne with no intention of giving it up. That's why I'm inviting a dozen of the Higher Avatars under my arms. Together we can accomplish many things! Without me, you'll always be just a numbered shadow and you'll never become Number One."

  Asmodeus lowered his voice, carefully glancing down at his feet and whispered, "At a billion souls for each one, you could crush El Diablo by the sheer force of his wishes! The throne will be rightfully yours, and with a million captive humans, the right approach, and tailor-made torture, they could fill a world of any size with energy."

  Azmodan shuddered, mentally trying on the One Evil and nodded in amazement. "I'm with you."

  * * *

  There was still at least an hour before the meeting when an alarm rang out in my head. Lurch ignored the public status "Do not disturb or I’ll tear your tonsils out!" and used the right of direct appeal.

  "Sir! There! At the portal platform by the tomb! Trouble!"

  I shuddered from surprise, smudging the parchment and crushing the golden stylus in my hand. When your Strength measures far beyond six hundred, you have to move carefully and smoothly—unintentionally creating rumors about being conceited and slow in the head.

  "What?!" I bellowed up at the ceiling, quickly scrolling through my many inventory cells in search of a spare set of armor.

  My bag is always such a mess, like the attic of a country home. You can find everything here, from garbage collected during the first few levels to invaluable treasure from one of my thousands of raids.

  "Crafters and security are climbing out of the arch! Their hair has turned gray, they’re trembling and hysterical. The hounds have taken their pups into their burrows. Something's not right."

  Shit! Their hair had turned gray?!

  Saving time running around, I broke the seal on the Stop #46 scroll made by a private shop appropriately named The Third Trolleybus Depot. It was a small business of three wizards who’d decided to score on long-distance transportation by covering the territory of the Super Nova with regular networks of portal markers. The guys were on the mark and the service proved to be wildly pop
ular. Even I was more than happy to receive their taxes in the form of fat stacks of magical parchment.

  Scribbled on some inferior wrapping paper, a disposable scroll crumbled to dust in my hands. The will of the caster burst outwards, shaping the power flow into an ordered structure and hurling me toward my destination. After a bit of turbulence in mid-air, I tumbled down from quite an altitude and not all that accurately. So much for their cheap "tickets" made for mass production.

  I regained my balance and shook my head, looking for my men. There they were!

  The portal was still open, releasing an unpleasant greenish fog. Security slowly backed away. Breaking their nails, the gray-haired crafters were crawling over the rocks wetting their pants, faces pale with fear. My men helped them, picking them up by the arms and pulling them to the side. A bunch of unfamiliar DoT and debuff icons hung above the heads of those who had escaped the temporal anomaly.

  I ran up to the commandant of the Crypt. The officer was shaking his head in bewilderment. Thick blood oozed from his eyes and ears. I grabbed him by the shoulder and yelled loudly, assuming, logically, that he’d had a concussion.

  "What happened? Did the droids attack? Did Gimmick return? Did some lunatic mercenary crawl out of the lower levels? Say something!"

  The captain winced and drew back slightly. "Don't yell, commander. I can hear you. And not only you—I've totally lost it. There are a bunch of other voices in my head...”

  I handed the commandant a flask of brandy. While the soldier frantically gulped down the sedative, I was happy to find the clan's forces closing in:

  Snowie walked tall and proud with his wonder-club adorned by a four-digit kill count.

  Hobbling out of the hangar was a heavy golem with its left arm removed, torn off with the golden ribbons of its mana cables.

  The Drow girls, spilling out like peas from the window of the Super Nova's Sixth Wing which had been squatted in and turned into the guard's barracks of the women's battalion.