The duration of the illusion's occurrence in our world kept growing, reaching 51 sec as of today. Moreover, in the last 72 hours our spectrographs and mass detectors have been registering the growing presence of gold dust in the portal chamber.
Another interesting and equally important discovery has been the fact that the test subjects have managed to improve their casting skills. For instance, they now cast a teleport spell 0,12 sec faster than was standard. While both phenomena still demand some serious assessment, the fact remains that these two discoveries transcend the limits of the feasible, not only changing our entire world view, but also reviewing humanity's potential.
* * *
Still flabbergasted by the miracle that had just happened before us, we were sitting in the glade not far from mother and daughter who couldn't take their eyes off each other. Lena was telling her something, laughing and gesticulating, as her reunited mother listened to her with a happy smile on her lips. It couldn't have been easy for her to recognize her daughter in this Elven maiden even though the changes in her child's appearance weren't that spectacular: the girl had based it on her own picture. In any case, you can't cheat a mother's heart.
Herself, she looked like an alien body in the surrounding riot of color. As we'd frantically texted each other earlier, I'd recommended Tamara Mikhailovna to choose clothes her child could easily recognize. So now our fragile Elfa sat next to a still-pretty woman of about forty years of age wearing a rather short dressing gown and house slippers worn to a state of perfect orthopedic match with her feet.
A barely audible gong floated over the glade. Clouds of anthracite-colored diamonds swirled around Taali and Cryl, glittering in the sun like the lights of a thousand discos. Before I could raise my eyebrows in surprise, I was enveloped in a similar asteroid cloud of crazy diamonds. Yet another gong, and the gems descended into the grass, then disappeared without a trace.
Quest completion alert! You've completed a secret quest: A Friend in Need-2.
Donate the lion's share of your property to help those in trouble.
Reward: A Smile of Fortune-2. Luck will follow you around for one full week. It will increase your crit chances, send you rare loot and do various other things associated with good luck and Gods' assistance.
Congratulations! You've received Achievement: Soul Healer
Reward: +1000 to Fame
Congratulations! You have attracted God's attention and his hand has touched your shoulder.
Reward: unique skill The Help of the Fallen One.
Effect: once every 24 hrs., you can completely restore health of any creature i n AlterWorld with the exception of yourself.
My friends didn't say a word, dumbfounded. Their stares clouded as they read their own interface messages. Finally, I spoke,
"Everyone got the Help of the Fallen One?
Cryl nodded, closing the invisible windows. "Yeah. What's all this about? What's earned us the Dark One's attentions?"
Taali nodded absent-mindedly, still under the impression of all the rewards she'd been showered with.
I thought it was time for me to open up a bit. I had no reason not to trust Taali, and we had to let Cryl in on our secrets as he was one of us now. You couldn't possibly exist in this world without having someone to cover your back. Besides, I was used to having a rogue in the group especially because Bug—with whom I'd done the last twenty levels or so—was still a regular gamer and not a perma. You couldn't really count on him long term, especially confronted with a looming eternity. How long would he be in the game—a year, two? And then? There you were...
"He's not that Dark, really," I said. "By the way, it was him who helped me to escape from the Cats. The siege of the castle wouldn't have gone as smoothly without his intervention. He's neither good nor bad, he's in a league of his own. That's the way he wants to be, without all the clichés and name tags, you understand?"
Cryl looked up at me, surprised. "How do you know all this? You speak as if you met him personally."
I just shrugged, "Why wouldn't a young god want to meet his disciple?"
Deep inside I heard a familiar quiet laughter. The Fallen One? He was getting a bit too much. Raising my head to the sky for some reason, I shouted,
"Three-one-one, are you here? Can we see you?"
The laughter stopped. A barely visible mirror-like dome shrouded the glade, enveloping Lena and Tamara Mikhailovna who sat there oblivious to the world.
A figure entwined within the swirls of the darkness appeared a couple paces away from us, its cloak of night draped around its shoulders. The same humorous glint in his eyes, the same surge of power emanating from him, squeezing your chest like the cooldown from a High Spell.
Involuntarily, both Taali and Cryl jumped up and lowered their heads. I forced myself to remain seated trying to look disinterested and uninvolved. The Fallen One kept eyeing me ironically, building up the pressure, until I felt sweat trickle down my temple.
Finally, I gave up, "What now? Just don't try to tell me you're more interested in dumb worshipping that you are in our affairs."
The god threw his head back, laughing. The invisible pressure disappeared. I managed an inconspicuous breath of relief. Last time I'd felt something like this was in Turkey when I had my picture taken with a tiger. The beast had been apparently pumped up with tranquilizers, his neck chained tight to the concrete floor, but even in that state, his power and God-given fury had been palpable...
"Sit down," the Fallen One motioned us to resume our positions before sitting down first. He looked over us, making sure everybody was ready to pay attention to whatever he had to say.
"You've no idea, Max, how right you are," he went on. "By the very fact of your being my disciple, all of your actions, deeds and even words add to my karma. And the stronger the pressure produced by such events, thoughts, or emotional surges, the bigger the energy flow I receive. One could, of course, just donate some mana, loot or experience—all this will be available once the First Temple is restored. But few things can come anywhere near the kind of force this little girl has released into this world."
The rebellious AI nodded at Lena sitting quietly next to her mother who was plaiting her hair. "Her immersion is phenomenal. She has the potential to mold the fabric of the universe as if it were modeling clay. What a priestess she'd make! An inexhaustible source of power—neutral power, mind you, not a flood of black energy from some overzealous necromancer or a dark Drow rogue who gets his kicks from butchering young players in newb locations. But their power tastes vile and that's exactly what it does, creates the impression of me being a Dark god. Imagine, Max, if someone turned you into a true Death Knight, Morana's messenger, who leaves nothing but desolation and well-fed vultures in his wake? And you, Cryl—would you really prefer to become a thief and a hired killer? I wouldn't, either. Even though I too need power just like you do."