The Clan (4 page)

As I waited, I played around with my chat boxes creating and saving unique raid settings. The sheer number of channels made my eyes water: raid chat, group chat, HQ staff, battle and private chats and the location chat for whoever happened to be around. Mind boggling.

Then their quartermaster issued me, as a hybrid class, ten elixirs of life and mana each. He reminded me to return the surplus after the op and submit screenshots of respective log entries to justify my expenses. Yeah, right. Finders keepers, losers weepers. Those were top elixirs restoring nine hundred points each. Hardly any surplus going to remain, I thought as I spirited the vials away into quick access slots. My inner greedy pig grabbed a clean cloth and began wiping the vials lovingly checking the result against the light like some otherworldly bartender.

Finally, our group of twenty-six sentients detached from the rest and teleported to the Cats' territories. We landed at a spot chosen by our recce, less than a mile from the castle. A quick invisibility spell, and we sat down on the ground waiting for the signal to move up. I think I even had a quick nap.

A nudge to my shoulder brought me back to reality. The whole group was ready, waiting for me.

Lt. Brown posted an order in the group chat:

Attack in fifteen minutes. Renew invisibility, then continue to the staging area.

I glanced at the raid chat box half
-expecting an Armageddon. As if! The Vets never failed to surprise me with their discipline. The chat was perfectly organized, staff reports interspersed by the occasional flicker of senior officers snapping orders. Just like in some space mission control center.

We jumped about a bit, checking for any rattling gear, then trotted off to the position chosen by the rogues.

A hundred and twenty feet. It felt horribly close. The castle walls seemed to loom overhead, the shadows of the guards flickering in the crenels. The sharp sting of the glaive thrower glistened in the torch light. Already the castle was surrounded by a good fifty warriors. In a moment, that number would grow manifold.

Lt. Brown moved his lips watching the timer mete out the seconds. On his sign, we drank our mana elixirs. We were going to need them.

A taste of cinnamon lingered in my mouth, the popping of stationary portals so loud in the night. Spells hissing. Fog thickening around us. Let the party begin!

Immediately after casting a mist screen, Lt. Singe's wizards made a circle, unfolding the Minor Power Dome around us. As they did so, I selected the castle as target and activated the Astral Mana Dispersal. The ground shifted underfoot as the black vortex began its slow whirling dance. One of the special-ops guys cussed with
feeling. A swift hook to his liver stopped him half-word. Now we could see the castle's protective field clearly as the anthracite lightning branched over it, squeezing out and devouring the spell's magic ingredient.

Behind the castle walls, the alarm bell tolled. Several powerful fireballs shot skywards, illuminating the field and the dark mass of warriors exiting portals and taking up their positions. A glaive thrower snapped, followed by another one. I didn't see the first glaive. The second one hit the dome, ricocheting into the sky. The mages winced, absorbing the cooldown. Thirty seconds...

We were our enemy's closest and most enigmatic opponent—therefore, his primary target. Try to imagine a foggy circle about fifty feet in diameter with a black tornado dancing at its center. All the enemy had to do was realize the connection between our presence and the dome awash with black lightning. I could only hope that the banshee wails of their wizards reporting their accumulating crystals being drained dry would frustrate the enemy enough to force them into making hasty errors.

At the moment, I had all the mana I needed. Clan enchanters worked in pairs transfusing their stocks to me.

Sixty seconds. The pressure on the dome kept growing. The glaive thrower fired every ten seconds, the constant ricochets of crossbow bolts rattling against the dome. Finally, the enemy deployed the big guns. The sky burst into a crystal hail. A downpour of meteors showered overhead like tracer bullets. Flame spewed from the gun slits, devouring the mist-shielded circle. Fire rose above our heads, roaring like a blast furnace. The dome-controlling wizards were turning paler with every second. Blood gushed from one's nose and another one's bitten lip. The third one groaned, clutching his head.

"The dome!" Brown barked to his mages.

After a brief moment, a supplementary power dome rose over our group. Not a moment too soon. The first dome exploded into a million crystal shards, its five casters collapsing on the ground. An already-drained enchanter was fussing over them, forcing the turquoise elixir into the mages' white lips.

Eighty seconds. The distant Vets' formation got moving, rapidly covering the remaining ground. According to HQ's calculations, the castle's defenses should collapse after three or four more ticks. Now that the enemy had a more interesting goal in their sights, they relaxed their pressure on us. Two Necros, our last reserve, began pumping us up with their mana. The Lieutenant peered at me, then at the castle, as if asking,
so where's the result you promised
? The whole op was at stake. We were almost out of mana. The second dome was about to give up the ghost. And their defense was still holding. By the looks of it, we sure had underestimated the Cats.

The Necros raised their hands, drained. My mana was at forty percent. That would last me about fifteen seconds' autonomy on the High Spell. Two or three ticks. After that,
hasta la vista, baby
.

Time raced. "That's it," Brown wheezed.

With a crash, the second dome collapsed. A crossbow bolt struck me in the hip. I had three thousand damage points' worth of passive shields. As long as I had them, I could hold the spell. The flames roared, reaching up over our heads. Clouds of toxic green smoke clogged our lungs, thorns pushing through the earth to pierce our feet. The enemy's mages made sure they kept us occupied. What an eerie feeling, to stand amid the fire like a broken doll feeling nothing as the shield absorbed not only the damage but also the very sensation of pain. There
was
no pain, thanks to our developers and the Fallen One.

With a quiet tick, the spell entered its last moments. But the enemy's defense still held. Pointless, all pointless. The power of the cooldown was pressing me to the ground, forcing me down ankle-deep into the soil.

I closed my eyelids. I'd let everybody down.

"I'll help you," a familiar voice whispered into my ear as my mana bar refilled to the brim. For a brief moment, a dark shape obscured the stars.

New buff alert! You've received an unknown buff: *#@$$@#@!

Effect: Restores 100% mana and gives 30-second protection from any type of damage.

"Thanks, O Fallen One. I owe you," I croaked.

The Fallen One was raising my credit limit. That was all fine
—until payoff day.

Strength was gushing from me, the cooldown releasing its heavy grip. My lungs didn't feel the acrid smoke any more. The bone thorns crushed underfoot, unable to break through the invisible divine protection. My comrades in arms were dying, all dying. Having never recovered, the wizard group had turned into a mass grave. The enchanters were trying to use the portals but how could you expect them to cast a personal gate under the pressure from five or six debilitating spells? Lt. Brown stared at me, perplexed, not understanding how it was possible I was still alive and casting the spell. He wasn't looking forward to a cheap death but he wasn't going to prevent me from having my way, either. So he made the only possible decision. He deleted me from the group and transported everybody else via an evacuator portal to a random destination.

So there I stood alone amid a dozen graves, in a semicircle of cutthroats shielding me with their bodies. I met their leader's stare and nodded:
get lost.
He lowered his eyelids briefly, then shook his head. He had his orders. After a brief moment, the Drow collapsed all at once. Now I was well and truly alone.

Bang!
The earth shattered as the dome over the castle exploded in a billion fragments. We'd done it! The Vets' battle cry shattered the air as they charged the main gate. A couple dozen warriors and archers got busy blunting their weapons against iron oak, a hundred mages getting through kilotons of mana per second as they transformed it into all possible types of magic damage.

The castle put up a good fight. Boiling tar kept flowing, crossbows and glaive throwers released over the sea of flying arrows. With a thump, a trebuchet discharged from a donjon tower, propelling a two-ton rock onto the second line of our warriors. Yes, but... that was little more than an agony. Even I, too dangerously close to them on my hot spot of vitrified earth, could see that the Cats had failed to hold the perimeter.

After another half a minute, the gates groaned and collapsed, letting in a human flood that consumed the thin line of defenders and everything around them. So far, the op had been a success. Now for the second part of the show: taking over the castle.

Chapter Four

F
rom the chat logs of an unknown bystander.

Current time
.

Place: a lay-up about five hundred feet away from the Castle's main gates.

"They're going in, Sir. O-three hundred hours, just as we've been told.

"I detect the instance of a High Circle Spell...

"No, Sir, I'm afraid I can't establish the caster's name. The group is protected by a mist screen.

"Roger that, Sir. I'm adding all the established names to List 12.

"I'm observing the intervention of a third force. Presumably, a class A structure. An unknown spell detected. It's a buff, uncategorized.

"List 12 updated. The caster's name established. Code name assigned: Puppet.

"Roger that, Sir. Priority target list updated. Puppet added at #2.

"Roger, Sir. Commencing countdown now. 30 minutes to time D. The group is ready, Sir. We won't let you down."

* * *

I downed the mana and life elixirs and sat on the still-hot ground amid the makeshift graveyard. The interface blinked, receiving Lt. Brown's message.

Stay put and take it easy. The reserve clerics are moving up toward you. They'll resuscitate everyone.

I shrugged and typed
OK
. Why wouldn't I take it easy? There I was watching the slaughter on the castle walls from the front row as an occasional guard's body dropped into the moat. In a way, it was spectacular, very much like a New Year's firework display: deafening flashes and bolts of lightning mixed with the rattle of steel and some heavy-duty cussing. That was a favorite male pastime: to batter the bad guy black and blue and get away with it. Actually, I'd already noticed that about one-third of the Vets were girls. Not in the combat groups, of course, but they had their fair share of fierce valkyries.

I made a mental note
about the perma players' gender ratio. This was a potential time bomb. Of course there were always lots of female NPCs—the Drow Princess alone was worth her weight in gold. Still, it was hardly a substitute. The NPCs were just that, NPCs. They hadn't had childhood Disneyland trips, they hadn't read the same books and were clueless about music. Learning to become kindred souls with a human being could prove a daunting task for them.

A couple of healers arrived. Three mid-level warriors came slithering over the vitrified stones behind them, meant to provide cover in case of any eventualities. The senior cleric stopped, estimating the potential work load, then began sending messages over his hospital chat, apparently calling for reinforcements. Fourteen resurrections and all the rebuffs
—definitely too much work for the two of them. And now speed was our main advantage. I turned back to the castle. The skirmishing on the walls was dying down, dominated by the cutthroats' dull black armor. The north tower glaive thrower was lazily burning. Opposite, smoke bellowed from the south tower gunslots, apparently induced by some Godawful feat of magic. The front line troops had already passed through the gates, followed by a short HQ column. Judging by the serried rank of Drow warriors amid them, the Princess had to be there, too.

A solemn fanfare resounded behind my back as the Pearly Gates opened. The resurrection spell was a sight and a half. The idyll was ruined by Lt. Brown who swore wholeheartedly as he studied the surrounding desolation and the newly-sprouted graveyard. It was impressive, I had to admit: pockmarked with gravestones, the surrounding field was dug up as if by an artillery barrage.

The arriving cleric reinforcements worked double time. In less than three minutes, all the dead had been resuscitated. The enchanters headed back home while both Wizard groups stayed put, waiting impatiently for a rebuff, having a quick smoke and talking in quiet voices. They discussed the High Spell and cursed the ever-watchful NPCs on the walls with their paranoid Forest Cat masters. Apart from the regular guards on the walls, the Cats had also posted strengthened ballista sections which, together with some extra wizards, must have cost them a fortune.

"I can't guarantee much," the chief quack said. "My buffs are all level 160 but these are personal ones and not raid buffs."

A new battery of elixirs shot their corks in the air as the wizards hurried to refuel. I had a funny feeling that very soon cinnamon flavor would be on its way out, what with the dozens of elixirs one was obliged to down on a raid. Try taking a spoonful of cinnamon sugar every five minutes or so and see how you feel.

Lieutenant Brown, iridescent from the spells he'd cast, shouted over the cacophony of sound effects, "Max! The backup's
already beat it. We too need to shift our asses to reinforce the front line. You shouldn't stay here on your own. You'd better shoot off to the HQ to make sure you get maximum protection. Besides, there you'll be in the thick of things. Come on, off you go. I'll keep an eye on you while I still can."

I nodded, obeying his logic and the commandeering note in his voice, and
hurried to catch up with the HQ entering the main gate. Five cutthroats at the rear had recognized me and stepped aside, letting me into the perimeter toward the Princess and some Drow mage with a poker face. From a group of backs further on, I recognized Dan, the General and another couple dozen officers and HQ security guys.

Then I saw a few shafts of dark light rising around the
Princess. Two at first, followed by two more and then another one. The next moment, the five respawned warriors lowered their heads bowing to her. Obeying her subtle gesture, the five bodyguards surrounded me again. I glanced at the clock. Apparently, the cutthroats' respawn time was ten minutes, their bind points set up in direct proximity with the Princess. I'd heard about this ability of the Drow house rulers before. I made a mental note to keep that in mind, just in case. You never know when something like that might be needed, especially if your life span approaches eternity.

I nodded my gratitude to the
Princess, simultaneously typing away a brief message to Taali who had to be at her wits' end by now. Something along the lines of,
Doing well, the dome's down, everything going as planned
. By then the HQ column had already stopped in the center of the castle square, not far from the portal platform encircled by the thick ranks of the first special service company. They had every reason to be there, especially considering the couple dozen figures stacked up by the castle wall bound hand and foot. In the inner yard, the reserves fussed about resuscitating the dead and distributing the second round of supplies. Judging by their cheerful voices, they were already checking out one of the enemy's warehouses.

The donjon's massive gates lay on the ground nearby, a file of Cat captives trickling out of the dark gateway. Their expressions varied
—some dumbfounded, other puzzled, angry or smug. Some of them spat threats, others begged while yet more preserved a grim silence.

Tavor and I noticed each other simultaneously. He struggled in the hands of two burly special-ops guys, his face a mask of hatred. He knew only too well who'd brought the Vets to his lair.

"You're dead, sucker! We got you once, we can get you again! Your family are dead, too! You're a fucking corpse, man!"

Apparently curious about the subject matter, the General motioned the guards to approach. In all honesty, his words had cut me to the quick. I already knew he was one vindictive
son of a bitch. I also realized he was too half-baked not to make good his threats. I wouldn't put it past him to use some of his remaining real-life contacts to punish the imaginary culprit of his misfortunes. I had to decide what to do about him.

The
Princess stepped forward, studying him. "Give him to me," she turned to the General. "We're tied by blood. He was the one who slaughtered the Drow prisoners. One of them never came back from the halls of the Fallen One.

Frag frowned. "What would you need him for?"

She gave him a blood-curdling smile. "We keep learning from you, the Immortal ones. Now it's our time to adopt a new skill. For this we need some unperishable meat."

The General scowled, his squint promising nothing good. "Do you know why we're here razing this cat's house?" He waited for her regal nod and went on, "I'd
hate
to see all the immortal clans unite against the House of Night. Our self-preservation instincts are extremely strong. What you're suggesting might alienate you to thousands of this world's dwellers."

She shrugged the idea off at first, then nodded her surrender. "As you say, General. All I wanted was to pay the blood debt and also help this young man," she pointed at m
e, her voice filling with steel. "Can
you
protect him? Or are you only capable of weird feats to protect your enemies against your allies? Lenience is never a good thing, General."

He chuckled, refusing to rise to the challenge. "We're not lenient. We're supple. Whereas an overwrought blade breaks, a supple one will only bend, ready to rebound and strike again."

She was about to object when a pop from three stationary portals assaulted our ears. Three air-thin arches rose on the granite platform, disgorging a wave of armor and clattering steel that descended on our special-ops men. The attackers weren't many, twenty at most, but their levels and their gear left nothing to be desired. Our guys would have made a quick job of them, but more kept coming out of the iridescent portals: various support classes followed by a close-knit caster group. Things were getting heavy. Our two forces were roughly the same strength. We were about fifty, plus the cutthroats. The attackers were fewer but their levels were slightly higher.

Dan was already reporting the results of a preliminary analysis. "Mercs. I can see some Steel Helmets, Bullhorns and Weasels. All top pros, the choicest in lowlife. They'll fight anyone at all provided the money is right. Someone has invested heavily in them. At least a hundred fifty gold."

The General burst into a string of commands. "Code B! I need two reserve platoons. Cutthroats: one third stays on the walls, the others go down and take care of the casters. Dan, I need the merc groups of Rabid Dog and Robinson Crusoe. Forward them their twenty-four hour contracts now!"

At that moment, Tavor
—still face down on the ground and in the hands of his guards—disappeared in a teleport's popping void. WTF? As one of his guards glanced this way and that, three more prisoners—those piled up by the wall—disappeared one by one, followed by two of the attacking casters. This wasn't an attack! They were stealing our prisoners!

"General! They're pulling Cats out! Some are already gone! The attack is a decoy!"

Dan had already found his bearings. "The mercs are sending them invitations to join their group, then pull them out through the portal. Take all the prisoners down to the dungeon! Don't let them be selected as targets! Do it!"

Doing it proved a bit tricky, though, as prisoners kept disappearing physically right out of our hands. Very soon there was no one left to salvage.

An unknown guy next to me—some HQ caster lieutenant—exploded in a cascade of blood. An unstealthed enemy group of five rogues showered us with killing combos: about fifty hits in under two seconds. The unlucky Lieut's body was still melting in the air when the rogues stealthed back and pulled out. The guards lunged at them, furious. They did manage to select one of them and break his stealth, their dozen blades leveling up the score of the fallen.

Surprisingly, it was Dan who apprehended the second rogue. Intercepting the mercs' supposed trajectory, he lunged to one side to where a blurred shadow stole past, his two swords shimmering dangerously as he unstealthed the enemy. The rest was easy. Thieves aren't meant for full combat. One to two was already a good score, considering that the unlucky Lieut was already resurrected and cussing like the trooper he was. Our only losses were the wizard's raid buffs and a momentary dip in battle control.

But once I surveyed the whole picture I saw that not everyone was as lucky as we'd been. Here and there, enemy rogues kept coming up in groups of five, razing our reserves and whoever dared to get close to them.

The cutthroats saved the day. Themselves high-level rogues, they came down the walls, highlighting the enemies and unstealthing together with them in a splatter of crimson. It reminded me of a dogfight: opponents rolling on the ground amid screams and fur flying, the black granite of tombstones replacing their dead bodies. A few dozen pets added a surreal touch to the scene, from simple skeletons and elementals to monstrous creatures of hell and higher planes. Many of the players chose to fight in their secondary shapes: druids preferring the wolf form that positively affected speed and regeneration and also added night vision. Shamans chose to transform into bears for their added strength and hits bonuses. A troll towered in the donjon gateway, blocking it
—the one I'd met before who'd complained he had to smoke several cigarettes at a time.

The game developers had spared no cost on visual effects, and now their work was paying off. The fight looked like an action blockbuster meeting a horror movie. Hollywood, eat your heart out. Control spells added groups of temporarily blinded, mute or paralyzed players. Poisons and acids removed sheets of skin, a whole bunch of fire spells filling the air with the sickly sweet smell of roast and the stomach-churning sight of charred flesh. The sword fighters gave as good as they got, their paralyzing combos leaving behind broken limbs gradually regenerating back to health. Blood combos were equally spectacular.