The Clan (15 page)

Blessed Steel: a weapon buff adding +25% to magic fire damage.

Spell duration: 2 hrs.

Cooldown: 24 hrs.

There is an off chance of the buff never wearing out, leaving the weapon forever enchanted by the divine word.

And so on and so forth. The skill list was long: the god was trying a bit too hard to push the worshipper into earning Faith points, elevating him through the ranks and offering him the chance to choose yet another uber freebie. Wonder if it was the result of the god's already being forgotten once? Meaning that now the divinities would appreciate their earthly following, hurrying to get them out of trouble and showering them with skills.

It looked as if I was in it for the long haul. I lay my shield on the black sooty floor and sat cross-legged on top of it. Let's have a look!

The next dose of shock I received when I made my way down the list to Morana's name. The goddess of winter and the wife of Koschei
—the Slavic god of death. The very first ability made me sit up:

Life Cycle: by using this skill, a player will gain one level per second, including all respective racial and class bonuses. Upon reaching level 200, the character's life cycle comes to an end and he receives an XP penalty as he would have in the case of death at the hands of a mob. Cooldown: 24 hrs.

How very unusual. I wasn't even talking about its combat properties: they required quite a bit of combined thinking from me and my calculator. Still, the fact was that this particular ability was my long sought-after suicide button. Plus giving you a couple extra minutes to beat the hell out of your adversaries who wouldn't know what had hit them. As somebody who'd done my time suspended from a hook in the Cats' torture cellar, I knew the true potential of it.

Still, it was never a good idea to bet on a dark horse you'd never seen even though you might have heard that yes, it's a horse and yes, it might be able to run.

I queried the Internet service for everything they had available on Morana. I had barely made my way through half of her skills when they contacted me. Did they have an AI in their customer service or something?

I opened the file and started reading, my heart sinking with every sentence. I really, really didn't like her. Not a good deity at all. Very vicious. Her symbols: the Black Moon, a few skulls and a scythe that she used to cut the thread of life. Holy moly. How sure was I that summoning her wouldn't be a blunder to end all blunders? What if my name would be cursed for millennia for summoning the goddess of death into a deathless world? Laith the Traitor, the Immortality Thief. Did I like the moniker? Not really. Couldn't I find just one out of these hundreds of deities with similar skills and a nicer temper?

I spent the next few hours scanning hundreds of pages of fine print. My head was buzzing on the same note as the mana flow: either from the information overload or from the proximity of the altar. And I couldn't even move aside as I still needed to be in direct contact with the stone. All discomfort aside, I had to admit that few things were more gratifying that studying the skills and abilities of the average Pantheon, especially in a world where gods weren't just manipulation tools in the hands of corrupted priests. Here, they were a force to be reckoned with and the knowledge of them remained a vital tool indeed.

I kept turning page after page. A god, a goddess, a Titan, a dragon...

Zhelia, the goddess of sorrow, sympathy and weeping. Logically, she could do: lots of interesting skills, like blocking pain sensations in battle. To my chagrin, she didn't have what I needed most: voluntary death.

Karna, her sister. Mourning the dead, eternal grieving, greeting the fallen ones on their way to the world of the dead. Same thing: lots of bells and whistles but not the one I needed most.

Finally, when I'd made my way through not only Slavic gods but also Scandinavian, I found it!

Macaria. The daughter of Hades and Persephone. The goddess of blissful death. In Greek mythology, hers was a bit part: apparently, she sacrificed herself at the altar in order to win victory in battle for her brothers. As a goddess she didn't account for much, her skills being mainly passive, but they all dealt with one thing only: an easy death, beneficial and even enjoyable.

Second Chance: a passive skill giving a 10% chance of immediately respawning on the spot in full armor without any XP losses.

Always At Hand: a passive skill giving a 25% chance of your grave teleporting with you to your bind point.

Smile of a Goddess: a passive skill giving 1% chance of receiving extra XP in case of death, equaling five times the XP penalty in case of death at the hands of a mob.

Grace of God: a passive skill giving 10% of not losing experience in case of death.

And, finally, that was it:

Blissful Death for Another. The skill grants and easy and painless death while sharing the experience lost equally between the Goddess, the Fallen One and the player of your choice. Cooldown: 1 hr.

Bingo. I sent another Internet request for more information. The answer was quite reassuring: the girl had no backstory of any scary or questionable actions, a perfect faceless prospect, virtually a new skill tree with no Hades, Morana or Koschei lurking behind it to pull any strings. Or so I hoped. True, it was unlikely the girl would strengthen the Fallen One, but that wasn't the idea. The sheer voluntary death option would preclude any kidnappings or forceful imprisonment, bringing all perma players—at least a hundred thousand people—under the Fallen One's banners. That was even if you didn't count some totally cool passive skills that could cut your experience losses a good 25%.

I stole a look around, making sure the Fallen One wasn't listening in. He could well have his own ideas about his Pantheon, and there I was, suggesting Macaria the Blessed
as his sidekick. I highlighted the line I needed and pressed
Yes
, whispering,

"This is none of my fault. You should have let me in on your plans."

Bang!
Once again, the floor shuddered. The shield I'd so comfortably been sitting on slid from under my backside like a dog on ice. I dropped onto my back, noticing a cloud of a thousand lights appear under the dome and thicken into a luminescent figure.

Pantheon alert! A new force has entered the world! Macaria, the goddess of easy death, has joined the Pantheon of the Fallen One.

Dark worshippers! Now you can choose your patron god. In order to do that, visit the temple of your chosen deity or address yourself to one of the Fallen One's priests.

Too bad. I would have thought that clicking a god's name on the menu would be enough. But apparently, religion was sold piecemeal. What now, then? Was I supposed to set up a portal right in the Temple or bless every worshipper
personally? Wonder how much the Olders would fork out for private protection against kidnapping? And did I really want to offer them that option? That's where my interests could potentially clash with those of the Fallen One. He needed worshippers while I didn't want the skills to disperse around the world. Having said that, I was his First Priest, so any growth of the Temple was also my personal growth. A mind-boggling prospect.

I waved the message windows away and froze. A pretty girl's figure hovered in the air halfway from the ceiling to the basalt floor.

I jumped up, brushed my clothes and lowered my head. "Goddess..."

Macaria turned her face to me, her eyes curious but still trance-like. "Priest. How long did I sleep?"

Oh. Suppressing the desire to scratch my head, I flexed my math muscles. "Over two thousand years."

"That's a lot. Where are the Heraclidae, my brothers?"

How was I supposed to know? She liked asking uncomfortable questions, didn't she? "In the legends," I managed.

"And this," the girl poked the molten s
tone with a squeamish finger, "is this my Temple?"

"Actually, this is the Temple of the Fallen One. He's the h
ighest god here. But it's yours as well, my lady," I tried to sugar-coat the news that she'd have to share.

She frowned, shaking her head. "Never heard of him. This awful place just can't be my Temple. Everything has to be white!"

Following a wave of her hand, the streaks of molten stone shifted on the walls, acquiring the whiteness of the finest marble and the sheen of mountain snow caps. In a flash, gone was the dirt; gold mosaic patterns ran across the gleaming white. Slender stucco columns reached for the ceiling sparkling with the finest frescoes.

I stood open-mouthed, watching the Temple's miraculous resurrection. Had anyone ever witnessed something like this in real life, they'd have stopped wreaking havoc on earth and sought redemption under the banners of faith.

"It's just like back home," the goddess whispered. She clutched at her chest and burst out coughing, blood fountaining from her mouth. The girl sank to her knees, croaking, then collapsed to one side.

I darted toward her and scooped her up in my arms, swinging my head every which way. What was I supposed to do? She kept coughing, spitting red everywhere, dark streaks running from her ears and nose.

I concentrated on my internal interface and slammed the new
Appeal to Gods
button. Tasting the girl's blood in my mouth, I yelled,

"Help me, O Fallen One, quick!"

You have tasted divine blood! Now you will always retain a divine particle within you. Your skills and abilities will be a cut above the rest of the mortal world. But beware of false pride! Do not consider yourself equal to Gods! The stairway to heaven is long and fragile; according to some, it has no end at all.

Jesus. For a brief moment, I even forgot
about the girl who was hosing everything down with her blood. A hoarse croak brought me back to my senses. I swept the message into Junk and yelled again,

"Fallen One, you son of a-"

"Keep your voice down," a calm voice said next to me. "So you're a vampire now, eh? Who is it you're sucking dry?"

He looked pleased with himself
like a cat who'd stolen a pot of cream and chased it down with a double serving of valerian. He looked into the girl's face and gasped, his voice sobering.

"A goddess?"

He rushed towards her and ripped her collar open, exposing a voluptuous blood-soaked chest. He lay his hand on it. Groaning threads of energy stretched from the altar toward him, pumping enormous amounts of mana in double record time. The veins bulged on his glowing arm. Shaking all over, he stood there unmoving, scowling, siphoning kilotons of mana into the wasted goddess. As I watched the altar's glow fade, I grew restless. What if AI 311 had botched up the system it had taken me so much to restore?

The old 311 hadn't let me down, though. Soon the umbilical cord connecting him to the altar started to wither. Heaving a sigh, the Fallen One breathed in the last drops of energy and waved his hand, severing his connection with the altar. His legs gave way; he lowered himself onto the blood-soaked floor next to me.

"Stupid girl..." he whispered looking at her, his voice strangely gentle. The girl's face was clear now, her breathing level. You'd think she was asleep.

He turned to me, raising his hand for a high-five. Mechanically I slapped his palm, celebrating our victory. The familiar gesture symbolized the finding of the Temple, the double resurrection of the goddess and our shared closeness on the bloodied floor. But once I slapped it, I quickly retracted mine. Wasn't I a bit too fraternal with a god? We weren't basketball buddies, after all.

The Fallen One smiled, understanding. "It's all right, Max. You've done good. Congratulations on your priesthood. Now you're the first man on earth after God. Make sure you carry your title with honor. My special thanks for the altar and," he paused reading the information unseen to me, "for Macaria. She is much more significant than she might seem. And when millions of players start worshipping her, they'll make her a true gem of my Pantheon or even something much more important..."

He grunted, getting back to his feet, and walked over to where the gi
rl lay, crouching next to her. Then he smiled, listening to something, and took her hand in his, whispering.

In the meantime, my inner greedy pig had come to and demanded my attention. Knocking himself on the forehead, he winked at the crimson puddles of potentially precious waste. God's blood, oh well. I glanced at the Fallen One's back and reached gingerly into my bag. Trying not to make much noise, I felt for the alchemy kit and produced five empty vials. Dunking them quickly into the priceless ingredient, I
sealed them tight and shoved the vials deep into my pocket. Why not? It was going to be wasted, anyway. I might end up mopping it all up in a minute. Wiping God's blood away with a dirty cloth, yeah right...

I rose with a sigh and dragged my feet toward the altar. While the Fallen One was there, I still had to sort out one other thing, namely the promise I'd so stupidly made to one greedy ex-dragon.

I lay my hand on the dark stone, glancing at the status menu.