Dan glanced at the General who nodded. He then heaved a sigh, his character begging for more haggling, but obeyed the unspoken order, accepting my conditions. "Very well. You have our preliminary consent. I'll forward you our standard contract for the acquisition of information regarding class A objects. You need to fill it in attaching all the screenshots and coordinates of the field, then seal it with your digital signature. We'll send our men to make sure the place answers your description. If it does, the money will be on your bank account the next morning. Please don't think we don't trust you. We just want to make sure you're not mistaken. It can be a different type of Fly-Trap or some visual illusion... ever heard of mirages?"
"Very well," I said. "When's Eric coming?"
Dan checked his internal interface, "He's on his way."
The General raised his stare at me as he rolled a dozen purple cartridges in his wide hand. "One more thing, Max. I really hope that if you happen to find more of the same, your findings won't spread uncontrollably over the entire cluster. You must understand the dangers firearms bring into our world. But personally, we would greatly appreciate having more samples... for research purposes."
Now what was that for logic? What's yours is mine and what's mine is my own? I decided against making an issue of it, giving him a noncommittal nod. He was welcome to interpret it in any way he wanted. By then, my inner greedy pig had smeared his venomous drool all over my heart, ogling the gun I'd just parted with. I shouldn't gift anyone another one of those in the near future if I didn't want to finish Mr. Piggy off. And what would I be worth without my resident treasurer? I'd splurge all my riches before I knew it.
Hurried steps resounded down the corridor. The door swung open, letting Eric in. He sprang to attention in front of Frag.
The General nodded. "As you were."
Eric slumped in the chair. Then he saw me, grinned and poked my shoulder with his giant fist. "That's what it is! I couldn't understand why they'd want to haul me over the coals. Sorry, Comrade General!" he glanced over the table groaning with various leftovers and twitched his nose, doglike. "May I?"
Not waiting for an answer, he scooped a few cookies.
"I thought the guards had eaten half an hour ago?" Dan asked.
"Ah!" Eric waved his objection away. "That was then!"
"Very well. If you can listen while you eat, you'd better do so. Command has confidence in you," Dan raised a meaningful finger. Eric frowned, surprised. His type wasn't used to command's confidence.
"You're about to fill a unique post. You'll be the clan's priest. Quit looking at me like that. You have Max to thank for that. But remember that the posting isn't interminable. One slip-up, and I swear on my immortality I'll make you swallow dust twelve hours a day as a second ammo carrier in an NPC gun crew of the defense ballista of the seventh tower of South Castle. I'm not joking. What with your level and your track record, you're long overdue for a promotion. If you really can't overcome the perma mode euphoria and if your healthy body and your immortality mean so much to you, you'd do better joining the Pratz. They love goofs like yourself. Is that clear?"
Watching Eric was breaking my heart. His drawn face paled, his doglike expression miserable and begging forgiveness. He jumped up, pressing his hands to his chest.
"Sir! I'm sorry, I mean it! It's like the devil's playing with it all the time. I feel like a teenager on his first night of boozing, I can't even walk, I can only hop and run! It gets better, though. I can control it. I still clown around, but it's more out of habit now. I really appreciate your confidence in me, Sir!" he jumped to attention and reported, saluting, "I won't let you down, I promise!"
Dan fixed him with his stare, then rose, adjusting his shirt like one would uniform, and crisply saluted. "Go to it, Lieutenant!"
"'Yes, Sir! Permission to leave, Sir!"
"As you were," Dan nodded, then turned to me. "Your turn. You'd better dedicate your protégé before he loses patience and races off not even knowing why or where to."
Impressed by the change in my best friend's behavior, I looked up the necessary skill on the priest's abilities list, selected Macaria as patron god and pressed the virtual button.
Millions of little bells filled the room with their gentle chimes. A cloud of glittering sparks swirled under the ceiling like a snowstorm, creating an opening into some other plane that revealed Macaria's happy and (I think) tipsy face. She peeked out, studying Eric, then gave him an encouraging smile, nodding. The opening collapsed, sending the colored snowflakes flying all over us. As Eric stood there open-mouthed, my internal interface reported a growing number of priests. Now we were already eleven out of the fifty. I'd love to know where the other three Dark temples were. I had big plans regarding them. We had to expand the Pantheon as soon as possible. The more people I could enlist, the fewer besiegers we'd find one day under the Castle walls.
Eric heaved a sigh. "What a woman!" he clearly couldn't forget the celestial apparition.
I just hoped that this was a temporary adolescent crush and not the ritual's side effect. I still felt obliged to warn him, just in case, "Eric, she and the Fallen One are an item. So you'd better keep your ideas to yourself before you get him on your case. You won't like that, I assure you."
"You think?" the freshly-baked priest glanced warily upwards. Shaking the heavenly snow off his shoulders, he went into reverse, "I said it from a purely esthetic point of view, you know. The Fallen One needs it more than... I mean... finding a broad... er, a goddess can't be easy in his situation."
Dan shook his head. "Eric, I think it's a good idea that I cast a silence spell on you a couple times a day or so. That'll do you a lot of good, trust me. If I don't do it, some unhappy god will one day. All right, Your Holiness, you may continue with your duties and dedicate us to the beautiful Macaria.
Eric zoned out for a bit as he tried to figure out his new skills. He must have found what he'd been looking for as he cast an unsure glance at Dan before activating the ability. A pillar of white light veined with black and green enveloped the secret agent, still shimmering when we heard him whisper as he, too, was studying the menus,
"There... I see... patron god... skills... that's the one... One point is worth a grand gold, so! Oh well, here's my donation..."
A string sang softly as another wave of light, pale green this time, poured over Dan. Faith level 1? It sure looked like he'd done it.
"Yes! We'll live!" he exclaimed.
I knew how he must have felt at that moment as the unbearable load had fallen from this immortal's shoulders: the fear of captivity, eternal and torturous.
The mother-of-pearl snow was melting under our feet. Curious, I peered at its stats:
Sparks of Divine Presence. An extremely rare crafting artifact that allows you to transfer any kind of magic to a scroll and seal it, creating a one-off spell scroll.
So! I scratched my head. I'd never heard of anything like it. Having said that, it didn't change anything: the very expression extremely rare pointed at the item's high value. It was worth taking.
Stepping closer, I scooped a handful of vials out of my bag and crouched, sweeping in the colored flakes.
Dan cast me a puzzled glance which then glazed over as he scanned the messages on his interface. Then a miracle happened. What else could you call it when Dan made an almighty leap across half the room while reaching into his pocket for a vial, then plopped down onto his stomach next to the shrinking pile of snow. Paying no attention to the damage sustained, he was stuffing the melting sparks into his vial.
Casting me a wild stare, he shouted, "Shut the fucking lid before it evaporates!"