Patron God: the Fallen One
Shadow of the Fallen One. Allows you to conceal your name, religion and clan affiliation, temporarily changing your relationship with all races to neutral.
Duration: 1 hr.
Cooldown: 24 hrs.
Shield of Faith. Gives complete mana regeneration and 30-sec immunity to all types of damage.
Cooldown: 24 hrs.
Congratulations! The First Priest has taken his place by the Altar! 5,000 points Fame received!
Fame alert!
Your Fame has exceeded 23,000 points!
You have reached Fame level 6: Your name is written in the history of the world.
Oh. I exchanged glances with my inner greedy pig as we reached out to feel each other's virtual biceps. That had been a generous downpour of freebies indeed. Even though not all of the skills gave you a permanent boost, my character's sociopolitical importance had grown manifold. I still couldn't clearly see all the prospects and potential scenarios for using these particular skills, but my gut feeling was telling me I had been dealt a handful of trumps, not of dribs and drabs.
I looked over at the altar. The cracks in the shimmering stone had resealed, the air around it humming with a powerful energy flow. It felt a bit like standing under an electric power cable of, say, five hundred kilowatt. You could almost see the surge of its physical power rush up to be swallowed by the grimy ceiling, then disappear into some unknown astral plane. Was it the Fallen One siphoning the channel, enjoying a quick mana high? I was going to close the tap on him in a moment. I had my own plans for that mana fountain, not to forget the greedy dragon demanding his share of the mana pie. I just hoped that I was the First Priest not in fancy name only; I had to be able to control the Temple when needs be.
I lay my hand on the altar, highlighting it and activating the interaction regime. It exploded with cascades of opening windows. That got me thinking. I'd just done what any regular player would have, highlighting an object, then right-clicking it. That was my old gaming reflex getting the better of me. Still, the Fallen One was my witness that I'd done so for the first time in the last week. The rest of the time my interactions with game objects hadn't differed from real-life ones: you pick it up—you study it—then use it, no interface crutches involved. Which meant that all the little buttons and menus kept integrating into my new reality, commonplace actions and skills replacing gaming elements.
I studied myself, looking for anything different from the default layout. Anything unusual, anything missing? Immediately I noticed the first thing out of place: the quick access menu. The ten little slots in the corner of the screen had disappeared—don't even ask me when or where to—and these days I instinctively reached for the tiny pockets on my belt without even looking, feeling for the right vial in the heat of the fight.
I counted them: eight. Well. Where were the remaining two, then? Let's try it.
I pulled a new vial out of the bag and tried to shove it down a non-existent pocket in my belt. My fingers touched the hard leather, pushing against the steel rivets, then finally felt the opening and shoved the vial into the little pocket. Nine! It worked!
I peered at the little loop suspiciously, then pulled the vial out expecting the opening to disintegrate. As if! Its bandolier-like dark eye kept staring at me, showing no intention of disappearing. Disappointed, I looked away and blinked, detecting a blurred motion out of the corner of my eye. I stared back at the belt. Eight. Funny that.
Now another test, even more important than the first. I pulled two more elixirs out of my bag and brought the amount of little pockets to ten. Then I relaxed, trying to concentrate on other things, and without looking shoved the eleventh elixir down my belt. Wasn't it great? Well done! Now that could give us a considerable advantage over regular players. That was something to consider and to look into—a new direction to take.
Further inspection had shown that the quick spell access slots had equally disappeared. Now I simply remembered the ten quick access spells without having to leaf through the magic book or transfer them to operative memory. The potential of this was much more serious than just an easy access to an extra vial. Increasing the number of available working spells could give the perma players a considerable advantage whenever they battled monsters or other chars. More spells meant more tactics; more chances to get an extra gram of experience or survive a close shave.
At the moment, it wasn't a good time to look into this mystery, so I left it until later. I had a funny feeling there was more to it than that. My hair was already standing on its end as I'd come too close to the altar—so close I was getting little shocks. A high-voltage transformer isn't a good place for thinking.
I concentrated on the opened interface windows. I'd have loved to rip the arms off the bastard who'd tested the interface's ergonomics and usability. It was as clear as mud. Actually, how sure was I that it had been tested at all? I was looking at the inner workings of the NPC admin panel. More than likely, both the post of the First Priest and access to the altar hadn't been meant for real players to begin with. Very well. There's always the good old method of trial and error. I just hoped the system was foolproof and wouldn't let me do anything stupid to this mind-blowing nuclear kettle. With any luck, I'd stay in one piece.
Naturally, I exercised the utmost caution. I didn't touch any settings, just studied the menus, my absolute memory soaking up their multiple branches. Once I checked all the options, I shook my head, trying to put the puzzle together and build a complete map of altar control. After that, it was time to proceed with caution and understanding.
Consecration to a junior god.
For your information: Every Dark Temple automatically boosts the Fallen One's strength. In addition, it can be consecrated to a junior patron god of your choice.
Pantheon alert! The Pantheon of the Fallen One is empty! You can't consecrate the Temple to an existing subgod. Would you like to summon a new god?
You bet! I pressed Confirm, triggering an enormous list sheet. Hundreds of names flickered before my eyes. I had to sort them all out into some kind of system. Why, for instance, would I need all those Indian ones, all those Agni, Brahma, Varuna, Vishnu et al? It wasn't as if I was on the Hindu's pay roll. I fiddled with the list until I finally managed to get rid of all the unwanted ones and arrive at the list of ancient Slavic gods. I also kept the Greek and Scandinavian ones: I had a soft spot for them for some reason. Both Aphrodite and Odin appealed to me more than Guan Di or Hanuman.
The triage resulted in about thirty ancient Slavic names: the likes of Perun, Belobog, Hors and Svarog. A quick prompt popped up when I highlighted the first of them, complete with a list of bonuses for the god's worshippers. That did it for me. Gods, let me tell you, are seriously cool. Take Perun, the god of thunder, patron of warriors. The skills he could shower onto his worshippers made me want to prostrate myself in awe.
Heavenly Thunder: a powerful discharge of electricity that deals the target 2,000 pt. damage. Cooldown: 12 hrs.
Chain L ightning: targets several creatures standing next to each other, starting with the chosen target. Every new target halves the damage: 1500, 750, 350, 200, 100. Cooldown: 12 hrs.