Текст книги "The Clan"

Автор книги: D. Rus

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"Shit!" the General spat, unmoving.

He looked over his fighters getting back to their feet and turned to Dan. "Please. It's time to forget those real-life reaction times. I understand that this motherfucker beeped like an impact grenade, but we're immortal now, right? Anyway. Soldiers! The castle has been taken and purged, the portals are blocked. Whoever wants to squeeze us out of here has got a real job on his hands. Restore order in your units, make a list of prisoners and inventorize our takings. Preliminary debriefing at ten hundred tomorrow. Dan, get me everything I need to know about this mysterious third party."

The General was still busy barking orders but my inner greedy pig was already deaf to the world, dancing a jig with abandon. His hour of triumph was near—the sharing out of booty!

Chapter Five

 

A n excerpt from the Veterans clan treasurer's memo:

 

The final loot inventory leaves us with the following picture:

One Bastion-class castle: 3,400,000.00 gold

One Colossus-class Dome Shield artifact: 1,600,000.00 gold

Stationary mana accumulators, 41 (all empty, 24 beyond repair): 1,700,000.00 gold

The Castle treasury: empty. A hidden strongbox discovered in the Commandant's office containing 220,000 gold.

Warehouses and clan depots containing:

Miscellaneous ingredients (pertaining to alchemy, weapon making, forging, etc.): 122,311 pieces, of which Rare: 1,311, Epic: 14, totaling 423,000 gold

Workshop finished articles: 1,488, of which Rare: 36, totaling 172,000 gold.

Elixirs: 14,670, of which Rare: 212, Epic: 2, totaling 155,000 gold

Miscellaneous ordnance (arrows, crossbow bolts, throwing knives, hatchets, shurikens, etc.): 153,300 pcs totaling 19,000 gold

Miscellaneous (crafting tools and fortification equipment, etc.): 611,000 gold

The items dropped by slain enemy soldiers traditionally become property of the combatants. As such, they are not reflected in the inventory, excepting the eight items dropped by the Сamos and turned over to the security department.

Grand total of loot: 8,300,000 gold

Raid expenditures: 155,000 gold, plus:

Payment to mercenaries, 70,000

Payment to Drow, 200,000

Payment to Max, 1,240,000

 

Mr. Simonov's resolution: I deem it reasonable to undervalue the loot by fifteen percent and raise the price of the unverifiable consumables by twenty percent. That would allow us to diminish our payment to Max to the sum of 1,030,000.00.

 

Security department resolution: I'm in accordance. One million gold is well enough for a newb. Signed: Dan.

 

General Frag's resolution: I object. If it ever surfaces, we'll never clear our name. Max's contribution has virtually tripled the loot. Without his exercise in lightning assault, the best we'd have managed to get would have been the castle's bare walls. Pay him in full and consider adding a bonus.

(End of excerpt)

 

* * *

The attendance of the next morning's meeting was less than usual. We'd had too many things to do so virtually no one had gone to bed the night before. The Vets were busy improving the castle's defense potential and negotiating some of the more sensitive issues with the allies as well as making an inventory of the loot and building the castle into the clan's infrastructure.

About fifteen people had gathered in the small hall which hadn't suffered much during the storming of the castle. The officers rubbed their tired eyes and drank gallons of coffee. The iridescent tobacco smoke hung under the ceiling creating an inappropriately festive atmosphere and making Frag wince. He didn't say anything, though.

I kept nodding off, too. All through the night, the castle had been buzzing—literally, like a high-voltage transformer. The loot crew kept tapping the walls poking their noses into every corner while the others checked every nook and cranny for the last holed-up prisoners. The universal enthusiasm had got the better of me and now I was deeply missing the lost hours of sleep. Only my inner greedy pig diligently listened to every report making mental notes in my memory and marking the most relevant points in red.

An officer from the analytics group was summarizing the reports received, voicing their recommendations.

"...the castle's defense potential has been restored by twenty percent. Three mana accumulators have been fully charged and talks are under way to convince the alliance to temporarily allot us three mages as mana generators. Unfortunately, due to the excessive speed of mana siphoning," he cast me an accusing look, "over half of the unique crystals have been destroyed to a total value of two million four hundred thousand gold. I strongly recommend we find resources to order more accumulators."

Frag waved his recommendations away. "We're not millionaires. The clan's purse has its limits. There're more important expenditures to consider. Even with the remaining crystals the dome is a cut above the one we have in the East Castle. I'd love to know which of the Cats came up with the bright idea of using a shield three classes higher than the castle itself! A Colossus dome in a Bastion castle, who would have thought of that? Not in a Stronghold or even a Citadel but in a Bastion! Actually, we have to thank them for that. Both them and Max. Without him, we'd have still been bashing our heads against their shield barely affecting its regen levels and becoming the whole cluster's laughing stock, much to the Cats' delight. Dan, that's something you should have taken into account."

"My fault, Sir," Dan mumbled habitually, making a show of knitting his eyebrows as if saying, we're not mind readers to have spies everywhere at twenty-four hours' notice.

The officer waited for the General's nod and continued, "We have already started repairing all the non-regen damage to the buildings incurred during the attack. We expect it to be completed by the evening. We can't really improve the castle's defensive potential as the Cats have already maxed out everything they could: the height of the walls, the number of towers and all possible hits. Bastion is its limit. We could install minor dome shields over certain areas, I suppose. The main gates, for instance. But that would be overdoing it, I have to agree with the Cats on this one."

"The emergence of the High Spell," Frag murmured, "makes it more like a new reality. I'd like you to leak information about our supposed mole at the Cats' who had presumably helped us to get access to the Shield Artifact. That will do two things: detract attention from Max and placate our allies as the sheer possibility of penetrating a dome shield within a few minutes overturns the entire clan war strategy. We've been hearing from other clusters about such lightning attacks before, so it's very possible Max isn't the only proud owner of this uber toy. Another thing. We need to assign some people to buy up all available Reset Potions. Price is no object. This is now a seriously strategic product which will decide the outcome of many a sensitive situation."

Upon reflection, I had to agree with him. I contacted my auto buy and ordered it to monitor the market and buy up the precious elixir at a price of up to twenty thousand gold. Yeah, you could call me sleazy, I suppose.

The officer went on, "As you probably know, a class-five castle allows us to hire NPCs up to level 100 for the sum of 2% of the refund value using the following formula: 200-(category*20). In our case it results in sixty-eight thousand a month. Ninety percent of it was spent on the guards, mainly archers and ballista operators. The good news is, if we hire them through the castle interface, the prices are one-tenth of what independent mercs charge. The remaining funds were spent on service and maintenance staff. Mr. Simonov insists we lower alert levels clan-wide as quickly as possible in order to relieve two-thirds of the guards. At the moment, the upkeep of all four castles costs us over two hundred thousand. We could consider some alternative solutions, I suppose, like raising the clan tax from five to ten percent of the loot. I would also like to attract your attention to the fact that the numbers of new clan members grow significantly slower than its territories and the real estate it controls. All this forces us to spread the existing human resources very thinly. The analytics department recommends stopping any further expansion and concentrating on seeking out new perma players. More than that, we strongly recommend reviewing our hiring practices switching our attention from individuals with combat background to those with gaming experience. Actually, this is the chief of the security section's opinion so I suggest we hear him out."

Frag glared at Dan. "Speak up, then, Major."

Dan rose and opened his mouth to speak when a teleport popped open, letting in the White Winnie. He cast a look around as if he owned the place, grabbed at the chair closest to him and dragged it toward the fireplace.

"You piece of shit!" Dan roared like a wounded bear. In one lightning-fast motion, he drew a knife and threw it at the creature's furry back.

Bang!Boom! Equally as fast, Winnie had used a micro portal to teleport himself behind the chair. The knife sank deep between the lacquered scrolls on the chair's back.

That didn't stop Dan. "You furry-eared rat! Just when I hoped I'd never see you again! How I look forward to seeing your stuffed head over my mantelpiece!"

"Belay that!" the General rose, revealing his enormous height. "You, there, Winnie or whatever your name is! Listen up!"

A black-nosed white head peeked from behind the chair, baring its teeth. I selected it as target, just in case: Destructive Touch never missed. Five hundred hits was plenty to instill the fear of God into anyone.

In the meantime, the General continued, "Now. If we're to live under one roof, I'm afraid you'll have to conform to our social order. Rule number one. You disappear at the first request."

Winnie growled warningly, baring needle-sharp white teeth.

"Stop scowling! Rule number two... I'll tell you later. I haven't thought about it yet. You ask, what are the alternatives? Well, we'll make sure we'll be killing you at every opportunity which is basically non-stop. You can respawn all you want, every minute if you wish. Your whole life will consist of You've died in battle! alerts or whatever you NPCs have. I'm not asking your opinion. I'm informing you. I expect you out of here in thirty seconds. If you need a fireplace, the one in the Trophy Hall will always be kept alight for you."

The General smiled at his own words and rang the bell, ordering a servant to start a fire in the Trophy Hall using the best birch wood. Winnie switched his angry glare from one officer to the next, then growled something that in his language had to be akin to an f-word. With a pop, he reappeared on the desk, right in front of Dan. Three things happened at once: Winnie clawed the steaming coffee pot, Dan cursed, a new teleport popped open. Winnie was gone. Our gun-boat diplomacy had once again proven its worth. Dan was wiping his face with a napkin, threatening to nail someone's ears over his bed.

This Winnie was an interesting type. Not that I was losing any sleep over him—he was a Vets' headache. At the moment, I experienced an eerie sensation of loneliness. Just a minute earlier, I had received the Drow Bank's confirmation of the transfer of one million two hundred forty thousand gold into my account. No less. My inner greedy pig was unconscious, prostrated on the pile of virtual gold while I kept detracting one zero from the amount, visualizing the sum of a hundred-plus thousand bucks. That was the price of a one-bed flat in a nice suburb! Especially because between the crisis, the new Draconian wealth taxes and the new rise in utility bills, Moscow real estate prices had slumped somewhat. Having said that... those few square feet of Moscow bricks-and-mortar were of no use to me any more. This money could still buy me a nice little mansion somewhere in either Original City or the City of Light. Having given it some thought, I decided to secure Mom and myself from real-life bailiffs and sent the bank a request to cash thirty thousand gold. That would be enough to pay off a couple months' credits, and then we'd have to give it another think.

I also made a mental note to buy some boost elixirs. It was high time I started investing in myself and upgraded my gear as befitted my new status. A quick bit of math showed that seven and a half grand every five days would give me an extra talent point and five free characteristics. How's that for tough as nails? Paladin Fuckyall, eat your heart out!

By then, Dan had smoothed his rumpled feathers and went on, "Now. First, a few facts. We seem to be lagging behind in our armaments race with the Top 10 clans. Our increase in force structure is considerably slower. Besides, the average warrior's level in our combat section is lower than that in other clans. You may have noticed that virtually all mercs were slightly above us. Not even to mention the Camos. The problem being that we seem to simply bask around in our second lifespan in this world, enjoying our freedom, our youth and the health we had never even hoped for. We waste our time frequenting our chosen haunts, philandering, fighting in the arena and tinkering with diplomacy. True, we keep leveling our newbs and doing a bit of farming—about three hours a day or so. And in the meantime, what's the output of every schoolkid perma player or, God forbid, some hardcore nerd who spends his whole life in and out of dungeons? Now that they finally have the opportunity of playing till they drop, they try to prove their value to the world doing the only thing that they can do well: leveling. What does it leave us with?—a bunch of level-200 Fuckyall-type sixteen-year-olds. Our analysts' estimations show that long term, the situation will improve allowing our clan to remain in the Top 10 thanks to our discipline, in-depth planning, clear-cut hierarchy and a powerful inner structure. But in the meantime, our ratings have started to sag. We need to double the leveling times for our leading soldiers and lay our hands on a few multi-level dungeons which would give us some relatively safe level-up locations.

He looked around, catching his breath. Everyone went quiet, appreciating the seriousness of the problem. The frowning General drummed his fingers on the desk.

"That's one thing," Dan went on. "Secondly, we're not flexible enough. We're often too slow and unwilling to part with what often hinders us the most: our real-life experience. Take my recent blunder when I dived flat on the floor on hearing that imitation pulse grenade. My reflexes kicked in before I had time to realize there was nowhere for a grenade to come from, let alone remember my own immortality. In the meantime, the prisoner could have escaped. Same goes for our combat skills as the night attack clearly demonstrated. What we lack is flexibility and thinking out of the box. We still tend to confine our thinking within the limits of the physical world and classic combat strategy. Did you see how elegantly they outplayed us by pulling the prisoners from right under our noses? This is sword and sorcery—the world of a thousand unanticipated opportunities. Things like having a numerical advantage, troop deployment, action coordination and coming up with twenty development scenarios are not enough to secure a victory and achieve our objective. Way not enough! What we need is fresh blood, veterans of online battles—people with a different way of thinking! On average, our soldiers have only two months of real-life action experience. Then their column comes under fire or they get blown up by a land mine—and there we have him, a crippled waste of space. Why would he be better than a twenty-year-old student who's never seen a gun in his life but who's spent the last five years fighting in various MMORPGs? Teach him some discipline and put a little fear of God into him—and you'll have an excellent soldier who'll become a good investment for the clan. Would you say that the Steel Visors or Horned Helmets are easy opponents? You wouldn't, I can see that. Good. But did you know that the most of them are under seventeen? That should give you some food for thought. That's all from me on this subject."

The General slumped back in his seat. Silence filled the air as everyone digested what they'd just heard. I tried to shrink myself into insignificance. The Vets had just exposed their weak spots in front of me—either having forgotten I was formally a stranger or believing I was too deeply in it with the rest of them.

Finally Frag spoke, "Very well, Dan. I expect a detailed analytical report from you. We'll need to work out an action plan. What kind of people exactly we need, how we can incorporate them in our system and teach them some army discipline. What can we offer them to make them interested? You have a week to look into all this. Now! What have we got next? The media? Are they making waves?"

Dan nodded, silent, as he hurried to gulp down some hot coffee. If anything, the Vets weren't the suckers for brainless discipline. No dumb respect for rank here: none of the proverbial 'yes, Sir, no, Sir'. Everyone seemed relaxed in a creative working atmosphere. I had to admit this was something I really liked about them.

"Almost immediately, the media launched countermeasures," Dan continued. "Apparently, they followed one of their prearranged scenarios. We were accused of unprovoked aggression, of rocking the boat and of planning to take over the entire cluster. As we all know, the bigger the lie, the easier it is to believe. They took all affordable measures to make waves: forums, hired pens and pressure on the part of some of the stronger clans. Soon after our taking of the castle, though, the pressure faded away. Our enemy knows full well what kind of evidence we now possess and wouldn't risk forcing us to reveal a whole layer of corpus delicti in order to justify our actions."

The General nodded his satisfaction. "What do your analysts and counterintelligence people suggest?"

Dan glanced at his empty mug and the upended coffee pot. One of the more observant officers rose in his seat, passing him an almost-full one.

"They've thrown enough shit at the fan to give us our fair share of cleaning to do," Dan went on as he poured himself another cup. "In the afternoon, we're holding a press conference with the Alliance and top clan representatives. We're going to expose evidence of both torture and slave trade. We'll show them down to the cellar, then allow them to spend some time with some of the prisoners and ex-slaves. Some of them are complete vegetables which is more than enough to impress any doubting Thomases. As you all must know, we've taken sixty-eight prisoners in total. As we found out later, twenty of them were ex-cellar dwellers and Ivan the Terrible's customers. To our regret, we have failed to locate him. One of the prisoners turned out to be an interesting type: one of the more prominent Olders. He cussed at our guys like a trooper threatening them with all sorts of shit. It's true that our men had been a bit heavy-handed with him, but then again, he should have watched his tongue. When they asked him what he was doing in a Cats' castle late at night without minders he told them some story about his observer status at some talks apparently held there. As I've reported to you already, the Olders sent us an ultimatum demanding the release of their money bag which we did immediately according to procedure. All captured Cats are low to middle ranking. We're trying to persuade them to collaborate. We're desperate for any information. But we shouldn't expect much: the fattest chickens had fled the coop immediately after Max's escape."

He paused. I raised my hand to offer a thought that had just started to form in my mind.

"Go ahead," the General said.

"I wonder if we could outlaw possession of the Astral Stone and offer a reward to those who find it? Penalize those who attempt to conceal it. That way we could avoid-"

"Not bad," the General agreed. "Analyst group, I want you to work on it and get a rough concept ready in time for the press conference. Now, the Camos. Got anything on them?"

"Very little. It's an unknown hybrid class: a cross between the rogue, paladin and wizard, specializing in ice spells. This is a killer combination, although tailored mainly for stealth-heavy blitz missions. All this rings a few bells. This is something made to order to suit the needs of various security forces. I never believed they would ignore AlterWorld. And considering the prospects of our independence, they would increase their interest in us tenfold. I don't think that you know but there's an old rumor among electronic engineers that all microchips and processors above a particular degree of complexity have been tampered with to allow, if need be, the usurping of control of the system. Apparently, it's done at the government's demand. The moment the chips receive a coded command via satellite, all radios, phones and computers will happily die. Which is one of the reasons why the use of imported electronic parts is prohibited in our space and strategic missile forces. A slightly similar situation exists with our cell and FIVR providers whom the law obliges to install control and interception devices into their products."

He took a large gulp of his coffee and paused, frowning. "Which leads us to the following conclusion: why, for the sake of argument, wouldn't somebody like the CIA or the National Security Agency obtain a similar confidential authorization allowing them to implant bugs in order to monitor everything that happens here? A special class with some equally special gear, things like that. The few items we managed to take from the Camos support this theory, too. Their PK rating is modest. They didn't drop anything—apparently, their gear is all soul-bound. The contents of their bags, however, were droppable. They're all unknown items, their names evidence of their non-gaming origin. How would you like "ration #6", " stimpack, universal", "first aid kit, large", "poison throwing knife #9". You can see a structure here: developers following exact orders. Having said that, it offers another scenario: that the Camos are the Admin's internal security force. Still, all their body movements remain a mystery to me. It's pretty clear they arrived in order to either capture or destroy the Crystal. What remains unclear, though, is why they couldn't solve the problem via administrative channels instead."

Dan made a helpless gesture. He was done. Frag was tapping his dagger against his cup while the other officers conferred in low voices, discussing Dan's speech. I, too, was worried about this new unknown force. If government security agencies started having the upper hand over regular perma players, that could lead to no good at all. Absolute power corrupts people. It makes them lose any sense of reality. The Cats' example was enough.

One of the analysts in charge of monitoring the media channels rose. "General, the Cats clan has just announced its voluntary dissolution. The remaining two castles are put up for auction. Formally, the clan and its property have ceased to exist. Does that mean we've won?"

"They've legged it," the General spat. "Fucking lowlifes. Those who can will make new characters for themselves. Their permas will predictably escape to the British cluster. Now, take this down: put all the Cats on our clan's KOS list. When we hold this press conference, we'll recommend everyone to do the same."

The remaining discussions dealt with some minor clan issues. I apologized and sneaked out.

Once outside, I paused wondering whether I still needed anything there. Then I activated the teleport and headed for the East Castle. Yawning, I dragged my feet to my apartment—Winnie-free, to my delight—and collapsed into bed.

I woke up late in the afternoon when Taali who by then knew my personal preferences had crept through the door and placed a plateful of Russian salad right under my nose. By then, I was half-awake and smelled my favorite chow at the second whiff.

"Supper in bed!" she announced, filling a clay mug with kvass. "Go ahead, munch away. I expect all the details once you've eaten. I've been choking on their forums and their tabloid lies. Dan has a really sick imagination judging by the search requests he wanted me to monitor."

I'd almost finished sharing the news with her when Cryl PM'd me. Wassup? U here? Fancy coming to the small hall?

I typed OK and turned back to Taali. "I want you to meet Cryl. He's cool. He's in perma mode too, so he's one of us."

We walked down to the small hall and stopped in the doorway, unsure whether to enter. A girl stood by an open window, her stare frozen in front of her. This was Lena from the Cats' castle. I didn't even know they'd rescued her. Cryl was fussing around her, his eyes suspiciously moist. Noticing us, he placed a finger to his lips and whispered something to the girl, soothing her, before walking over to us.

He gave me a strong handshake. "Thanks, bro. I won't forget what you've done for us."

I waved him away and nodded toward Lena. "How is she?"

He sniffed. "Not good. She blocks everything out. You can take her hand and lead her wherever you want like a stray calf. If you give her an apple, she'll eat it. If you put it on the table in front of her, she'll just sit there without noticing it."

Taali's eyes filled with tears. She covered her mouth. "Is she the girl you told me about? Lena, right? The one they raped?"

Cryl answered instead, "The Vets' doc says he doesn't think she's been raped. She doesn't appear frightened when you ask her to remove some items of clothing. She just blocks you out. According to him, the combination of stress and fear had triggered a shut-down: she's locked herself inside her mind, bolted all the doors and windows and thrown away the key. So now she just can't get out."

"Listen, guys, we've got to do something!" Taali said in a low voice, grabbing our hands. We nodded in unison.

"Doc thinks all she needs is lots of positivity, care and attention. Alternatively, a strong emotional shock could do the trick, preferably a positive one. I'm thinking of taking her outside the town wall, finding some nice spot there. But I don't know the area very well yet..."

"I know a place," I said. "There's a lovely spot nearby, lots of sunshine and flowers, some non-aggressive bunnies running about. Have you already changed your bind point to the castle? Then take Lena and let's go. Still, I don't think it will be enough. I have an idea, though. Tell me what you know about her, every little detail."

Putting my idea into action took me another day and cost me over twenty grand. My inner greedy pig silently handed me the money, sharing our enthusiasm for the cause.

The next morning was sunlit and quiet as our group arrived at my favorite spot. Butterflies fluttered over the flowers still wet with dew. Cryl caught a baby rabbit and handed it to Lena. Although still spaced out, she fingered the bunny's ears thoughtfully as the creature calmed down, enjoying her touch. Unfortunately, that was the extent of her progress.

Then we heard quiet voices and the shuffling of footsteps approaching. I tensed up, my heart pounding at 200 bpm's. Taali pressed an unfinished garland to her chest, anxious. Now...

"Lena?" we heard a woman's voice, indescribably warm and comfy.

The girl startled. Insecure, she turned her head. Her eyes opened wide, filling with tears that poured out, striping her cheeks.

"Mom? Mommy?"

She jumped up, dropping the flowers from her lap. The scared bunny leapt off and disappeared. Stumbling as she ran, her legs tangled in her skirt, the girl rushed toward the kneeling figure. The woman cried openly, reaching out to her.

"Mommy? Where have you been? I've been waiting for you..."