I jumped. "You don't mess around, do you? I don't think the Fallen One will like it when he finds out that his blood has become a mail-order trade tool to save some miserable ten grand."
We dedicated the next couple hours to this friendly banter. Finally, both of us suitably hammered, we struck a deal agreeing on sixty grand. Too much, dammit. I signed the contract and gave him his fifty percent advance, after which the dwarf reached into the cabinet for a bottle bleached with age.
"Dragon's Tears, forty years old," he explained proudly, pulling out the tight cork, as a Dwarven maiden carried in a trayful of food.
We downed a shot glass each. It did bring tears to your eyes. Had to be at least 120%. Pleased with the effect, the dwarf decided to show the clueless youngster how to chase it down properly. Taking a sausage off the tray, he grabbed the tongs and pulled a glowing ember out of the fire. Bringing it to his mouth, he exhaled, his alcohol-filled breath enveloping the sausage in a green flame, filling the room with all the smells of a German beerhouse.
"Dragon Breath," the dwarf commented, proud. "With a bit of practice, it can burn a hole through a piece of wood half an inch thick."
He was a piece of work, was this gray-bearded master. He asked me for a week to complete the order, explaining it away by the necessity of having to fly to the Kingdom Under the Mountain to pick up some rare ingredients.
We parted almost as friends. Swaying, I walked out of the building. My head could have done with a bit of clearing after his exercise in hospitality. I needed to find a café that served some really strong coffee and study a map of the city. My next port of call had to be the mercenaries' guild. No way I was going to venture into the Dead Lands alone. I needed a good backup. The next day, if luck had it, I would see the walls of the legendary First Temple.
Chapter Eight
F rom the online newspaper The Daily AlterWorld:
This is weird. The sixth empty dungeon in the past week. The interesting thing is that they all belong to various newb locations situated near large settlements. The last one was the Gnoll Hill, a mere mile away from the City of Light. This low-level dungeon now lies empty, deserted by all the mobs that used to populate it. The throne in the throne room appears to have been removed, the walls of the room itself are covered in obscenities written in blood-color paint.
See screenshot 14: We'll be back you hairless coyotes!
The AlterWorld administration offers no explanation on this phenomenon. All requests to add new low-level locations are met with vague promises without mentioning any particular deadlines.
* * *
The guild building was overpowering. A fortress within the city: its thick walls gaping with gunslits, its fat towers bristling with the steel needles of the ballistas. Two enormous golems guarded the entrance—projecting more the guild's wealth and influence to the world rather than really guarding anything. Each level 230, how awesome was that? I even took the trouble of looking golem-building up in Wiki. Oh well, it doesn't hurt to dream. My naïve hope of getting one of those as a pet one day and building my own zombie platoon was shattered before it even got off the ground, unable to survive the clash with harsh reality. Only a large clan could afford to keep one of those. To get access to golem building, you had to level up alchemy, goldsmithy and forging skills to Grand Master levels. And the prices! To build one could cost you a small fortune: to get some idea of the costs, place your creation onto the scale and keep balancing it with ingots of silver until you weep. And that was only the beginning of a long and winding road.
I stood there gawking at them, estimating their weight, then using my fingers and toes to convert it into silver and gold losing a few zeroes on my way. It was a lot. I patted a golem's warm mithril thigh and stepped into the dark gateway.
A short tunnel led into a gateway tower. Portcullises bared their steel teeth over both entrance and exit. The many arrowslits and suspicious openings overhead promised a bloodbath to whoever dared fight their way through there. Good job I went there personally instead of hiring staff at the mercs' marketplace. My potentially eternal lifespan meant I might have to build, defend and storm this sort of fortification one day.
The inner court was small but welcoming. It was surprisingly crowded—mainly by what seemed to be mercs waiting to be hired. The narrow space between the keep and the inner wall housed a couple of cafés, a pub, two permanently busy combat arenas and a number of shop signs offering supplies and gear repair among other things. The mercs must have let their guard down, I decided as I eyed the close space. During the first siege, all this razzamatazz was going to burn happily, getting in the way of the already-miserable defenders.
The keep's gates stood invitingly open. I walked through. The ground floor housed the actual gaming content: guild masters, traders, coaches and other miscellaneous NPCs. The first floor and above were rented out to the players who apparently had a good manager and an equally good interior designer. The decor was rather businesslike going on medieval, replete with information desk, soft couches in the waiting area, consultants' cubicles and management offices. All of it busy, all in full play. The money flow—which I enviously estimated at two pounds of gold per minute—ran through the marketplace, leaving in its wake a slight residue of guild taxes that aimed to maintain the local grandeur.
I voiced my rather modest request and was escorted to a cubicle: soft inviting chairs and a wall of fragrant plants that shielded us from the rest of the room. The babble of an artificial brook helped one relax and part with his money. I didn't even notice the consultant at first. He was perched on a couch amidst the greenery next to a side table loaded with all sorts of tasty morsels. This had to be a real-world paid employee with a primitive 3D connection—what perma player would agree to act out the miserable part of an office rat? It still didn't explain his choice of a goblin as character, of all things. Despite his hilarious appearance, the green creature listened to me with dignity, nodding in all the right places like a seasoned reporter.
Finally, he summed it up, "So you need a cover of five, capable of handling two or three mobs up to level 150. Objective: accompany you to the Dead Lands. The setup is clear. Now the fees. A team of five level-140 and above will cost you seven thousand. The minimum contract term is twenty-four hours. As for the schedule: the portal city nearest to those parts is Aquinus, a hundred and forty miles from your destination. Beyond it lie the Frontier Lands. A savage area, virtually unpopulated. Lots of feral monsters, one-off lairs and dungeons, high chances of running into trouble. Even though you've overestimated potential mobs' levels, I agree that in this case you cannot be too careful. If I could suggest anything at all logistics-wise, I'd recommend the Ferrymen clan. We have a good working relationship with their representative. You probably know that one top-level wizard can store up to fifty teleport points in his memory so between them, they've got our cluster all covered—apart from the Frontier, but at least their clan guarantees the minimum of one teleport point per thousand square miles. This should at least halve your travel times-"