Clans War Read online

  Vimes’ merry band of guards did its job to a T. During the three weeks since my last sojourn in my castle, nothing of note had happened. Mr. Kristowski had come by with some unknown persons to visit the storage vaults, after which new contracts appeared in our clan. At the current moment, our storage vaults were at 70% of capacity, of which only 30% was taken up by my clan’s assets. Everything else consisted of items that other clans had entrusted to the Legends of Barliona under the storage contracts. Viltrius concluded his report, but did not hurry to leave me. Judging by the way he keeps fiddling with that lapel of his, he’s clearly expecting something else from me.

  “We should hire some hobgoblins!” Viltrius blurted out what was eating at him. “Without the hobgoblins, the castle’s empty. There’s not a soul in it. Nor is there any defense against the almighty beings of this world. Master, couldn’t we reach an agreement with Lady Anastaria to have her remove the alganides?”

  The goblin gave me such a pleading look, that I couldn’t refuse this trifle and called Stacey then and there. We’d entered the game at the same time, so she had to be somewhere in Barliona.

  “Darling, I’d like to remove the alganides from Altameda. ”

  “Not even a question. Are you in the castle right now?”

  “Yes. I’ll summon you.”

  “Hang on a minute, I’m talking to my dad. Actually — I formally grant you access to my room and to my personal chest. You can remove them yourself. By the way, let me know when you’re done with the castle and I’ll summon you to our location. There’s a matter to discuss here.”

  “Has something happened?”

  “Yes. War has been declared on our continent. Haven’t you checked your mail?”

  “War? Who?! No — I haven’t had time to get to my mail. What’s in my mail?”

  “If I understand correctly, you should have several offers in your inbox. Dan, we opened Pandora’s Box. Everyone wants the Tomb of the Creator. And everyone wants you, the owner of the Original Key as well. We’ve been issued an ultimatum…I don’t want to overload you right now, so deal with your business and then head our way. I’ll send you the coordinates by mail, and my dad’s granted you access to his castle.”

  “Viltrius, I’m granting you access to Anastaria’s room and her personal chest. Remove the alganides from the castle,” I said automatically, still in shock from the news. Was the Tomb of the Creator really such a vital game object that an entire continent had decided to attack ours? Didn’t they have enough Dungeons of their own? There’s no arguing that the Celestial Empire was full of absolutely amazing players — the average level of their top clan was 380 and the highest-level player in Barliona played there too — a Level 433 Warrior with a difficult to pronounce name. And in view of the fact that two of our Level 300+ players had been sent to the mines — I mean Hellfire and Donotpunnik — our position was an unenviable one. To try and stand up to monsters like that amounted to nothing short of throwing away Legendary items. Meanwhile, trying to battle them with any other items was pointless — they’d crush us without bothering to figure out what our names are. The only factor that could help here was that generally players in the Celestial Empire weren’t much interested in PvP. If I recall Plinto’s words correctly, anything that doesn’t earn XP is viewed as worthless in the Celestial Empire, and players who specialize in killing mobs might encounter some difficulty fighting players experienced in PvP. And yet, it doesn’t matter one damn bit what a player specializes in when the level disparity is 100 Levels! They’d blast us out of existence in a matter of moments and head back home! Why did the Tomb attract their attention? Do they know something we don’t? The Celestial Empire certainly could…

  “Master! Master!” Tearing me from my burdensome cogitations, Viltrius appeared before me glowing with happiness. The joy the goblin radiated was so contagious, that I couldn’t help but crack a smile myself. “We can hire hobgoblins! Four of them! No, five is better! Master, the alganides have been tossed from the castle! Nothing is keeping us from installing a defense worthy of a Level 25 castle!”

  Understanding that if I don’t hire some new employees for my castle this very instant, the goblin might suffer a fatal shock, I got up from my rocking chair and sat down on my official (and uncomfortable) throne. Hardly had I stuck the crown of the Owner on my head, when the castle management interface appeared before me. The first thing that caught my eye was the castle’s ‘green’ status and a note indicating that the castle’s durability was currently at 100%.

  I switched over to the personnel tab, cursed silently at the cost of Vimes and his army and then fell into deep contemplation. It was true that I had to hire some hobgoblins — that was a given. And, yes, I already had a small staff of seven NPCs, a portal demon with his own portal, a whimsical majordomo ready to do my bidding, and yet the castle still lacked something. Some small detail, some trifle that would make this already lovely place utterly brilliant. I flipped through the other tabs, but found nothing that extraordinary for Altameda — everything had already been built and everything had already been bought. The castle’s further development depended on improving its living conditions and decorations, but I couldn’t buy this through the interface. The players had to do this on their own. So the idea of upgrading the castle seemed dead in the water, since Gnum alone wouldn’t be able to accomplish much and inviting other high-level craftsmen required advertisement. And pretty elaborate advertisement at that…Here’s a thought!

  “Viltrius,” I immediately voiced my idea, approving the payment for five hobgoblins, “tell me, what would a dinner party do for the castle and its owner?”

  “M-master, did you say ‘dinner party?’” the goblin asked with a stutter.

  “Dinner party. A ball. A party. You can call it whatever you like, but the gist remains — advertisement for the castle and the clan. We’ll invite the Emperor, the Dark Lord and maybe even the Lord of Shadow will deign to stop by if we guarantee his safety. We’ll assemble the belle monde of our continent and hold a tournament.”

  “Master!” squealed the goblin and made a face as if an enormous slab weighing sixteen tons was beginning to press down on him from above. “Can you imagine the funds that this would require?”

  “No, how much will it be?” I inquired, rolling up my sleeves. The Corporation had reimbursed me my hundred million, so why not make myself a little present? I hope that Mr. Kristowski won’t kill me too painfully if I spend several dozen millions.

  “Inviting guests of such a level must be arranged ahead of time. Security has to be appropriately high. There have to be high-ranking officials from all the empires. If you wish to arrange a tournament, you must announce it publically and allow anyone to enter. As I recall it, there has never been an event of such a scale held on our continent, since it’s simply too expensive. I couldn’t even estimate a budget for such an affair, but it would certainly have to be no less than two hundred million gold.”

  “WHAT?!” The sum caused me to jack my eyebrows way up high.

  “Inviting the Emperor and the Dark Lord would cost our treasury no less than 50 million alone. Everyone knows that. I imagine that the Lord of Shadow wouldn’t say no to such a sum either. We would have to upgrade the castle, build a tournament arena, and provide food, entertainment, and above all security, since the Free Citizens might start to fight each other. Or not each other, but NPCs…Who knows what occurs to them. Either way, we’ll have to hire security. All of this is very expensive and I have no idea where to begin in order to provide you with a reliable estimate.”

  “You don’t need to estimate anything,” I immediately started to argue. Had the Corp lost the plot cooking up such prices for inviting Emperor-level NPCs? Like hell! “Calm down. It was just a dumb joke. Deal with the hobgoblins — they need orders and oversight.”

  Viltrius dissolved defeated, while I spent several minutes considering what to do next — go through my mail or go check in on Spiteful Gnum? The castle managem
ent interface indicated that the gnome was in his workshop, so the right thing to do was to stop by and see what he was cooking up in there. But laziness won out — I didn’t feel like zipping off somewhere and talking to anyone right now. I still hadn’t recovered from my meeting with my majordomo and the news that I’d have to shell out two hundred million gold for a tournament. Opening the mailbox, I sighed bitterly at the insane amount of unread mail I had to deal with once again.

  Goodbye the next few hours of my life. No, this won’t do. I really need to do something about this! I guess one option was to hire a secretary.

  ​ Hi Mahan, you famous Scrooge!

  ​ Ten thousand for a unique map isn’t even funny. It’s just dumb! I can see your point — my initial letter was a bit naïve. But in that case…In light of recent events involving the Tomb, the map’s price hereby grows to one million gold and 10% of the loot that you’ll pick up in the dungeon it leads to. I get to come along and gain some of the Experience you earn along the way. As for the location that the map points to, it’s a small cave in the Free Lands, concealed under a magical shroud. By way of stimulating your interest — this is the very cave in which Karmadont earned his power. The cave is inhabited by Level 350+ phantoms, so I can’t do it on my own, but something tells me that you’ll be quite interested in a location that’s related to Karmadont. After all, you’re the Creator of the Chess Set!

  ​ With all due respect and hoping we manage to come to an agreement,

  ​ Hunter Sabantul the Fortunate

  My heart skipped a beat from my agitation, so I jumped up from the throne and began to pace back and forth across my hall. The Ergreis! The crystal that Lait had brought from a different world and which was now in the Tomb of the Creator! The phantoms that Sabantul had mentioned were the mighty Mages of the past who had died when the crystal was activated. I’m sure I’d be able to find out from them what the Ergreis was and how I could overcome it. How has Sabantul acquired the map? Where had he dug it up?! Stop! I already have Reptilis working on finding that cave!

  “Listening,” the kobold grunted into the amulet.

  “Reptilis, this is Mahan…Tell me, please, how is your search for the Crastil coming?”

  “Huh? I already sent you a letter with a report? Didn’t you get it?”

  “I haven’t gotten through my mail yet. I just re-entered the game after the re-launch.”

  “I didn’t find the cave you told me about. I scoured all the foothills of the Elma Mountains, but no dice. Mahan, you promised me that Pendant regardless of the outcome.”

  “I remember. I’ll craft it tomorrow. I need your official permission to use your other half’s image as well as to bind her to the item. Preferably in writing and to my mail.”

  “You got it. What are you going to do about the Crastils?”

  “Nothing. I don’t really need them anymore anyway. But thanks for the help. Write that letter and tomorrow I’ll craft the Pendants. You’ll get the first ones. “

  I placed the amulet back in my inventory bag and went on pacing my hall. Reptilis had failed, which meant that the cave really was impossible to find without a map. My desire to simply pay Sabantul a million gold was so immense that I had to take ahold of myself, open the mailbox and go on sorting it, figuring that doing so would quench my desire to spend money. Before doing this, I needed to weigh the pros and cons, gather some information about Hunter Sabantul the Fortunate and only then make my decision. The whole affair with Donotpunnik had been more than enough for me!

  “Stacey, I need your help. I want to find out anything there is to find out about a player named Sabantul. Who, what, where, when and how…All the way down to who this person is out in reality. He’s offering to sell me a unique item and doing so at a really opportune moment. My paranoia tells me that I need to do due diligence here.”

  “I’ll do it. What’s the item?”

  “A map with coordinates to a cave where the Ergreis and the Crastils were discovered. Do you remember what the High Mage told me? Sabantul wrote me a letter offering to sell me the map for a million gold and 10% of the loot. I haven’t replied yet. I need to understand how a player I’ve never heard of got his hands on such an item. Maybe it’s a fake? Maybe it’s a set up?”

  “That a boy! ” Anastaria replied. “I’ll ask my dad to pull up all there is to know about this Sabantul. Will you be a while?”

  “I’m just going to go through my mail and I’ll be on my way.”

  Having shifted my cares about the Hunter onto Stacey’s svelte shoulders, I created a new folder in my mailbox and placed all the requests for crafting the Pendants into it. To my immense surprise, those who wanted the Pendants were not only limited to our continent — there were several dozen thousand players from other locations. How’d they find out about it? I don’t remember there being a third movie about the Legends and their capers…Did Mr. Kristowski advertise this item to such a degree that even players from other continents were willing to spend a week working for my clan for six hours a day? In that sense, the situation was pretty great, but on the other hand, eighty-seven thousand requests for Pendants really was a depressing thought. At four minutes per one Pendant, it would take me 348 thousand minutes to fill all these orders. And that equated to 241 days, working at 24 hours a day! I would collapse from exhaustion!

  ​ To the leader of the Legends of Barliona, Shaman Mahan!

  ​ Greetings to you, oh Creator! We wish to express our esteem of your craftsmanship and your desire to invest this our world with new colors and feelings, depth and unparalleled beauty. We know that you created the Chess Set of Karmadont for this world, opened access to the Tomb of the Creator and received the Original Key to complete it. We are interested in ensuring that our warriors enter the Tomb fist, and therefore wish to offer you the following: You shall receive one billion gold if you complete the Tomb with us. You will receive the Experience, First Kill and title of one of the wealthiest players of your continent. Consider our offer. I await your response in a week’s time. No one aside from our warriors shall complete the Dungeon. Become a unique player on your continent — join us!

  ​ Bihan the First, Leader of the Era of Dragons Clan. Celestial Empire.

  I spent several minutes staring into nowhere. What’s going on here anyway? As soon as I had pried the Tomb away from Phoenix, here comes a third faction trying to snatch it away from me. Well it’s not happening! If this Bihan is naïve enough to imagine that I’ll just throw myself into his embraces upon seeing a number with nine zeroes, then he’s sadly mistaken. He should’ve thought about all this much earlier…

  * * *

  “And that’s how things stand,” I concluded my tale, relating to Anastaria and Ehkiller what had happened. “I received similar letters, though with different offers, from representative of the other continents. Five letters, five billion and everyone wants the Tomb and the Original status. It’s stressing me out a bit, to be honest.”

  “Our situation isn’t much better,” Ehkiller said pensively, staring into the magical fire smoldering in the fireplace. “We came in last at the last inter-clan tournament, so generally the players of Kalragon aren’t really viewed as equals by the others. As far as the player community goes, we’re the weaklings who can be bullied at will. Phoenix has already received three ultimatums — if we don’t share the coordinates of the Tomb and ensure safe passage to it, everyone else will initiate a targeted hunt after us and our resources. And it’ll get underway on our territory.”

  “Coordinates? They haven’t leaked yet?” I couldn’t help but exclaim with surprise.

  “No, but that’s still temporary. There are too many people who know the entrance’s location and it’s too difficult to control them all. Someone will definitely like the idea of getting some clean cash for a few numbers. The Celestial Empire and Astrum is keeping quiet. I’d guess they already have the coordinates, so I propose we proceed on the assumption that the Tomb’s location is already public
.”

  “In that case, we have five high-level raid parties which have up to 100 players each,” Anastaria began to calculate our forces. “The portal between the continents closed during the Cataclysm and hasn’t yet come online. We have a week, at most two, to prepare ourselves.”

  “I don’t think they’ll come through the portal. Why risk their forces?” Ehkiller smiled grimly. “What if we ambush them and repel their invasion?”

  “I get the impression that I’m utterly lost,” I confessed. “What would they be risking? If we kill them, so what? They’ll respawn and head for the Tomb again.”

  “Players from other continents don’t have a respawn point in Kalragon,” Anastaria explained after a short pause. “If they come here to do a Dungeon, the game will respawn them at the nearest cemetery. But they’re coming here to fight other players. In that case, their binding location plays a role — if they want to do PvP on another continent, they’ll need to respawn at their bound location. And lose a level in the process.”

  “Hold up! What level? That’s against the rules.”

  “If the risk of losing a level wasn’t involved, than the other continents would’ve been conquered by Astrum or the Celestial Empire long since. The highest-level players are there after all. With the exception of scenarios, PvP on another continent is the only thing that can decrease a player’s level. Unless of course he’s bound to this continent. And the binding can only be obtained by two means — build a castle or bring an obelisk. I checked. Neither Malabar nor Kartoss have received requests to build a castle. And Geranika doesn’t give castles away, so this option is out of the question. The only thing that remains is an obelisk.”