A Song of Shadow Page 34

  “How long can you maintain the Arras, Nigella?” Eben asked anxiously.

  “Five hours, no longer,” came the tense voice of the First. “If they succeed in hitting me, the spell channel will collapse.”

  “Make sure to keep Nigella’s safe,” Evolett immediately ordered into the raid chat. “Paladins, keep two bubbles on her at all time. If the Arras goes down, they’ll rout us in an instant.”

  But the First had already seen to her own safety. Sprouts appeared on the trampled earth, growing and forming an impassable hedge of stalks and branches around Nigella. A myriad flowers opened their buds. Some exhaled useful auras, others snapped with bristling maws.

  Without hesitation, Bogart and I hid among these thickets, sincerely hoping that the Piranha Plants would deal with the occasional demons that aggroed us. For some reason, the renegades ignored my person. I suppose this was due to my Shadow alignment but it could also be that they simply did not perceive me as a serious threat.

  “Eben, where are the reinforcements?” The First asked her spymaster. “Where are the other members of the Council?”

  “They will not be coming,” he answered quietly. “I contacted the Fourth. Soon after we left the Tree, disturbing news came from the Lair. It is under attack by hordes of blighted animals. The remnants of the Council went to relieve the Lair and are now defending the Lair, the Fourth is preparing for a possible attack on the Tree.”

  “So, there will be no help.”

  “But this is no problem now,” remarked one of the players, pointing to the soothing glow of the mini-Arras. “We are safe and can gather our strength, and perhaps reinforcements will arrive later.”

  “I don’t think so,” Dirk joined in, pointing his finger at me. “She recently led us through the same Arras. And that means that other blighted biota can pass through it.”

  “So let them,” Lipo shrugged. “Geranika has no control over them on blessed ground.”

  “That’s true too.”

  It was too bad that (virtual) reality foiled all expectations. One of the blighted biota approached the Arras where it intersected the blighted ground, stood at the border and extended his hand to a demon beside him. As soon as their fingers touched, the demon passed through the Arras. He was immediately greeted with arrows and spells, but similar ‘passages’ began popping up all over the section of blighted ground that lay beneath the mini-Arras.

  “Tanks, close those passages! Mages, splinter the earth, set fire to it, place ice walls—do whatever you must to keep the blighted biota from approaching the Arras.”

  The players did everything they could, but the enemy still filtered through the gaps in the defense. And if the small fry did not pose any particular problems, then the appearance of the Archdemon in the company of Kodiak and the Fifth again upset the battle’s delicate balance.

  Carelessly brushing off the blows of the players, the raid bosses rushed toward Fresia, who was still praying to Sylvyn and maintaining the blessed ground. The magisters of Kartoss managed to occupy the Fifth in battle, but Kodiak and the Archdemon continued toward their target. The latter, in passing, opened up four more portals right in the midst of the players’ ranks, forcing them to meet the new threat.

  Speleus, as always, took on Kodiak, tying down his brother in battle. And it was Eben who met the archdemon. The spymaster whirled near the red giant, fluttering like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. The First helped as much as she could, summoning flowers to bloom throughout the blessed ground. Some opened predatory jaws and tore at the Archdemon’s flesh, others buffed the Seventh and still others hung various debuffs on his opponent.

  “I will never make fun of the nerds ever again,” Bogart solemnly put his hand to his chest, admiring the fight with the air of a fan was getting a chance to see his favorite band free. “Hell, I’ll even let off trolling them.”

  “Why, did you used to do that?” I looked at him in surprise and almost missed the moment when the dead stirred and began to rise from the ground.

  During ordinary gameplay, corpses in Barliona vanished once the loot had been pilfered, but for some reason this was different in the Hidden Forest. The tattered, burned and mangled bodies of the dead now rose to their feet like broken puppets and set upon their still-living friends. Screams of horror sounded here and there, as well as curses directed at the Sixth. Astilba, with her customary indifference, went on raising more and more undead to join the battle on the side of Shadow. Those who returned to non-life outside of the Arras were unable to cross it, but there were plenty of zombies on our side too. The dead, demons, Shadow pirqs—it was getting pretty claustrophobic under the mini-Arras—when the Forest Sentries that Geranika had corrupted came trudging from the direction of the renegades’ camp. Five sluggish, ponderous giants walked past the parting minions of Shadow and calmly crossed the Arras.

  “We’re fucked,” someone remarked in the chat.

  And I was in complete agreement. We were being crushed by numbers and it was only the two major debuffs that were weakening the minions of Shadow that allowed us to somehow hold on.

  I looked around for a path to salvation. And my eyes encountered the eyes of the Sixth. She stood again, frozen at the very border of the Arras, and once again the fog in her eye sockets cleared and revealed her natural green. A moment. For a mere moment, Geranika lost control of Astilba, but that was enough for her. She took a step forward—and set foot onto the blessed ground. The remnants of the fog cleared from Astilba’s eyes and she sang a vaguely familiar incantation. Three of the five blighted sentries crumbled in a heap of dry, blackened branches.

  Scenario event: You have been endowed with the powers of a Level 300 Blighted Forest Sentry. The vitality channel has not been stabilized and as a result a significant portion of vitality was lost during transmission.

  Your level has grown to Level 176. The respective stat points have been automatically distributed among your base stats.

  Scenario event: You have been endowed with the powers...

  Scenario event: You have been endowed with the powers...

  Your level has grown to Level 476.

  You are unable to cope with such power and are losing your strength. Level loss rate: 1 level per minute.

  Scenario event: The cooldown time of all skills and spells has been reduced to 1 minute. This change does not apply to skills and spells whose cooldown time does not exceed 1 minute.

  “Look at how they’ve fertilized our cactus...” Qupip quipped, shielding his eyes from the unbearably bright flashes that accompanied my new levels.

  “Yah,” Bogart nodded eagerly. “May as well patent this new type of shit and go sell it to the farmers. We’ll solve a crop failure in China and famine in Africa in one fell swoop.”

  Merlin wriggled from under his arm, which Bogart had used to shield the eyes of his beloved, sneezed and sat down to lick herself, blowing off her accumulated stress. It did not work. A ghoul hacked into two halves somehow crawled past the predatory flowers and latched onto the tail of the sabretooth. She barked with fright, kicked with her hind legs and turned to gnaw off the insolent zombie’s hand—but the zombie simply expired. Emanating from the Sixth, the magic fueling the living dead had dried up and the corpses began returning to the ground.

  “What a stubborn lady,” said Geranika, with a mixture of annoyance and respect.

  He spoke calmly, but somehow his voice resonated through the entire battlefield. Meanwhile, the shaman himself stared at the Sixth. She staggered and cast him a hateful look. A meaningful look.

  Geranika extended his arms and thin tendrils of fog began to stream from the dead bodies of the renegades to his fingers. The Lord of Shadow began reabsorbing particles of the power he had once granted and the dead began transforming, returning to their original appearance. As the Lord of Shadow accumulated power, he regained his former sheen and luster. His foppish suit no longer bore traces of blood or burns.

  Unfortunately, the changes were not limi
ted to this: Once more, fog poured from Astilba’s eyes and she retreated away from the blessed ground. Those few who tried to restrain her were instantly rooted with horror as soon as they touched the necromancer.

  I cast about looking for some way of being useful. My incredibly high level came without the appropriate gear; when you factored in the debuffs on me, I was like a Level 200 mage in the best case scenario. A mage with an impoverished arsenal of spells. Small help in battle...

  Help? Help!

  I strummed Asus2 and then Asus#4 and the ghostly figure of Eid (Level 400) materialized over my shoulder to the classic and eerie Tristram theme. So this is the maximum level of the Tenth’s instrument...

  “Stay awhile and listen!” Eid greeted me cheerfully. He adjusted the shield in his hands and added, “I didn’t think that I would get a chance to fight at my full power before I met Cypro again!”

  Uttering a warlike cry, he buffed the entire raiding party—and immediately aggroed Kodiak. Now unengaged, Speleus immediately hurried to the aid of the players, who were having difficulties with the archdemon and the remaining two blighted sentries.

  You are unable to cope with your newfound powers and lose a level!

  Your level has fallen to Level 475.

  “Lorelei!” Geranika’s icy voice came with a shiver. “You have the chance to atone for your failure and take your place as minstrel at the throne of the new Emperor! Take my side, or the Empire of Shadow will forever close to you. Then you shall be an outsider everywhere you go!”

  All at once, I felt the allies’ wary eyes on me. Eid’s appearance had impressed them, and Geranika’s temptation now worried them.

  “I don’t think I much feel like singing of your deeds, Geranika,” I replied, hesitating only a moment. “I would prefer to preserve the memory of worthy heroes.”

  Em9 to Em9b6 to Em6add9 back to Em9b6 and an ancient tune sounded amid the drone of battle...

  The rusted chains of prison moons

  Are shattered by the sun.

  I walk a road, horizons change;

  The tournament's begun...

  “You have lost much, my failed student,” said Geranika with a disappointed look.

  Reputation status with the Geranika the Lord of Shadow changed to Hatred.

  The blighted biota standing beyond the mini-Arras collapsed to the grass, losing consciousness, and the Sixth and the Second stepped through the shimmering Arras. Though they were now on blessed ground, Geranika did not lose his grip on them.

  Numerous portals began to pop open again and a new wave of demons washed over the battlefield. The new reinforcements could not boast of high levels, but there were so many of them that the combined raid was simply mobbed.

  Taking advantage of this, the Second and the Sixth reached the kneeling Fresia and her defender, the Seventh. Eben adjusted the bloodied daggers in his hands and rushed to the attack, but his body froze, paralyzed by fear. With all her magical power, Astilba inspired an inexpressible horror in the spymaster.

  The Second raised his sword, intending to cut off the head of his immobilized foe, but instead of the pliable flesh, the blade of the Second was parried by Fresia’s sword, yanked from the ground and raised just in time to protect her brother. Sylvyn’s warrior emanated an aura of purification that allowed Eben to cope with Astilba’s mental attack, but the irrevocable has already come to pass—the land, deprived of Sylvyn’s blessing, succumbed to the blight.

  ...The black queen chants

  The funeral march,

  The cracked brass bells will ring;

  To summon back the fire witch...

  You have stepped onto blighted ground and gained Blighted Strength (+50% to all stats. +1% HP for every minute spent on blighted ground).

  The air around me seemed to turn into a viscous jelly. Every motion of the hand, every touch of the strings demanded willpower. Unnecessary, meaningless concentration. Why exert all this effort, when you can just relax and allow someone else to do the mundane things? I wanted to close my eyes and fall asleep, to plunge into foggy dreams. My eyelids grew heavy and sank, cutting off the fuss of the outside world. Only darkness, peace and music remained. My body went on performing the song I had started on autopilot, but someone else’s insinuating whisper urged me to leave even this task to him.

  And then something in me that had been silent all this time rebelled. I was ready to forget about the game because it was just a game. I was ready to allow someone else’s will to take possession of my body—it wasn’t even really mine—it belonged to my avatar—a virtual doll, no more. None of this was real, after all. None of this was that important. But the music...As soon as some stranger tried to take away the only gift I had in this life, my soul resisted, rebelled, fought back and dashed the illusion.

  Telepathic control failed. You have gained immunity to Geranika’s telepathy for 1 hour.

  The gardener plants an evergreen,

  Whilst trampling on a flower.

  I chase the wind of a prism ship,

  To taste the sweet and sour...

  The air lost its viscosity, the sly whisper disappeared and my consciousness ceased to float. Opening my eyes, I could clearly see everything going on around me. The reinforced renegades had already sent a dozen weakened players and NPCs to the Gray Lands. The blighted biota who had recently been unconscious were again among the renegades’ ranks, inexorably marching to the mini-Arras. Geranika himself marched in their midst. His hand touched one of the blighted biota, the Lord of Shadow stepped into the shimmering shroud and...stopped, as if he had encountered a wall.

  The First’s spell did not permit such a powerful concentration of an alien power through itself, and even an usher who contained a piece of Sylvyn would not allow Geranika to overcome the magical barrier. The Lord of Shadow jerked his cheek with irritation and folded his arms across his chest, defiantly waiting for his army to solve the problem.

  And, it seemed, he had not long left to wait.

  Here, one of the magisters of Kartoss faltered and collapsed, struck down by the Fifth. Weakened by the blight’s debuff, the embassy could no longer restrain Portulac the Champion of Shadow and was now forced to think only of its survival.

  Eid cast some kind of massive ability and the renegades engaging the raiders turned and piled onto the ghostly knight. The strip of life above his head was falling at a catastrophic rate, but I could not help my companion. The traditional healing spells of the raid’s healers did not work on the instrument soul, and I could not cancel the summons and start channeling my own HP to Eid.

  “The wise men share a coke...” Bogart lampooned somewhere behind me. “You sure picked a long one there, Kiera Crimson. Might last long enough to double for our funeral march.”

  With an academic’s interest, the orc looked on as a pack of beastly demons chewed their way through the First’s thickets of predatory flowers. He dispelled Merlin, unwilling to risk her death, and began taking potshots at the frenzied mobs, marking each hit with a joyful, “Get some!” But this did not make anything better. Another minute or two and we would be eaten, appetizers before the main course which would be none other than the First.

  All this occurred to me almost subconsciously, without interrupting my performance. My attention meanwhile was drawn to the portal growing into focus before me, through which I could see the already-familiar, surreal landscape of the Gray Lands. No one else reacted to this strange phenomenon, which suggested that only I could see this portal.

  Eid’s icon blinked and disappeared, but in the meantime the priests of Kartoss managed to revive three tanks, who somehow held back the renegades’ latest onslaught. Everyone already understood that the battle was lost and was doing everything possible to make the foe pay dearly for his victory.

  The yellow jester does not play

  But gentle pulls the strings

  And smiles as the puppets dance

  In the court of the crimson king...

  For a moment, th
e space separating Barliona and the Gray Lands wasted to a thin line—and snapped, ushering a long-dead soul into the land of the living.

  You have summoned the soul of the Salamander King (Level 357).

  Skill increase:

  +5 to Summoner. Total: 7.

  I was expecting some changes, but Salamander looked the same as the last time I summoned him, when he was only Level 23.

  “It seems that Barliona will never be rid of evil,” he observed, unsheathing his sword and, in the same motion, slicing in half a demon that had broken through to us.

  “Another fan of yours?” Bogart asked, looking on as the crimson king began to dispatch our foes. “You should make him your head bodyguard, heed my advice...”

  “For Barliona!” Salamander’s war cry echoed over the battlefield, casting all sorts of buffs on the allied raiders.

  The legendary king of the past did not have unimaginable power, but he was still a strong leader who could rally the army behind him. And the army did rally. The already well-worn Archdemon fell to the players’ onslaught and his remaining minions followed closely on his heels.

  But there were still too many enemies left and there was no longer any force capable of stopping Astilba and Kodiak as they advanced toward the First. Thanks to the help of the pirq chieftains—Conquolor and Speleus—the Fifth had not yet destroyed the embassy. Eben, engaged in his duel with the Second, was unable to help anyone either. Only Fresia stood at the right hand of the First and cast healing auras on her allies. When the enemies approached, the Third raised her sword and attacked Kodiak.

  “The time has come to punish those who dare oppose the will of the new Emperor,” Geranika announced with a triumphant grin. “As punishment for your insubordination, you, Astilba, will crush the holdouts with your own hands.”

  Amid a whorl of fog, a black dagger with a wooden handle materialized in Geranika’s hand. The weapon traced an arc through the air to the Sixth, easily passing the Arras.

  “Mages, archers, destroy the dagger!” Evollet immediately reacted and dozens of arrows and spells immediately flew at the strange weapon.