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 stone with a squeamish finger, "is this my Temple?"
"Actually, this is the Temple of the Fallen One. He's the highest 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 girl 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.
Dark Altar of the First Temple. Consecrated to the Fallen One.
Junio r God: Macaria, the Goddess of Easy Death.
First Priest: Laith
Leveclass="underline" 3
Faith points: 12,911
Faith points needed to proceed to the next leveclass="underline" 2,987,089.
Mana flow: 3,000 per sec. Already accumulated: 180,341. Maximum capacity: 30,000,000
Access levels to mana flow:
Fallen One, 90% control
First Priest, 10% control
I broke the connection, cursing. He'd been smart, hadn't he, that clever bag of bones! And I'd wondered why he'd only asked for ten percent considering my rather hapless situation. That shrunken lizard must have known from the start that that was all the mana available to a priest. But how about my own little projects? My baby dragons, my castle self-restoration channel and a tiny one for my own personal use? That wasn't the deal!
"Eh, Fallen One? Need to talk."
* * *
To Dave Rubac, Head of Integration and Development Department.
A memo excerpt:
Dear Sir,
In accordance with the plan endorsed by you we are now working on a number of retrofitted deep implants into AlterWorld. As of now, we have generated 24 class A installations, 411 class B installations as well as over 6,000 items, quest triggers, control modules and legal paperwork.