True, the air over the vial hovered, misted. I hastily sealed the vial and checked the contents. The vial was nearly full. Eric and the General had already joined us, but still our combined trophies weren't that much: we'd barely filled five vials.
I surveyed our team sprawled on the floor amid iridescent pools of gaslike liquid. That made me smile. The informal meeting of the clan's religious leaders with its administration. I shared the thought with my friends and the office shattered with their guffawing.
The air over the conference table thickened, materializing the White Winnie. Casting a puzzled glare in our direction, he made the screwy gesture against his temple, grabbed a couple of meat pies and reached for an open folder. All documents in it were lying text down (that was Dan and his professional vigilance). Dan growled a warning as a throwing knife glistened in his hand. The weapon glowed crimson, dropping sizzling sparks onto the floor.
Winnie snatched his paw back, baring his teeth, then kicked the folder off the table right into the pool of water. The room echoed with a simultaneous popping of a teleport and the sound of cold steel piercing wood.
"How I hate him," the agent groaned, fishing out the waterproof pages. "I dream of the day when I retire to my rocking chair by the fireplace, sipping brandy and relishing my cigar, admiring two white ears nailed to the wall."
Eric added, apparently missing the two pies, "I just hope that by then it'll be the only unique pair of ears ever available. Let's pray this creature doesn't propagate. In that case, you can forget about a quiet retirement. These teleporting monsters will pop by every two minutes to borrow a cigar or to help themselves to a shot of brandy. Privacy will become problematic, even for matrimonial purposes."
"Touch wood," I whispered, knocking on a table leg. Everybody followed suit. Soldiers are superstitious by definition, and the above prospect justified a couple of rituals just to be on the safe side.
The General leaned forward, groaning and forcing himself back to his feet like the old man he in fact was, then jumped up effortlessly: the mental inertia of an octogenarian in a young healthy body. This is how inexperienced astronauts use their entire body weight from their back muscles to their ankles in order to get to the space station's dome instead of just sending their body there with one well-directed nudge.
"Now, Dan, you owe me an explanation," the General said. "What's this stuff we've been filling the vials with? You jumped at it like somebody dying of thirst seeing an oasis."
"Haven't you copied its stats, Sir?" Dan asked innocently. "My educated guess would be that this ingredient is AlterWorld's long-sought Holy Grail. It allows one to create spell scrolls. Any spells—Unique and High Ones included."
The General raised his eyebrows. He grabbed a vial and brought it up to his eyes. "Holy shit."
"What about it?" I asked. "Would you like to create a one-off teleport scroll so that magic-deprived players could use it in case of emergency?"
"You might," Dan answered. "You could use a gold shovel to clean the snow off your driveway, too, I suppose. You could also use it for more appropriate things. Teleport scrolls are already on the market—expensive, it's true, as they call for some unconventional ingredients, but it's simply a question of money. But locking a High Spell in a scroll..." Dan gave me a meaningful look as if estimating how many Astral Mana Dispersal scrolls he'd love to have in the Vets' arsenal. "Or a unique spell like the Inferno portal that has recently been auctioned by some painfully familiar auto buy..."
Oh. Apparently the Sparks, while solving a lot of problems, were at the same time generating a whole new bunch of the same. A Dome Shield Removal scroll, if auctioned, would win the People's Choice award and fatten up my wallet no end. But it'll also bring new headaches. First, someone would suss out the principle behind the dome removal and the scroll itself might later resurface in some truly unsavory place, raising a lot of dirt in the process.
Dan was watching my face, apparently pleased with seeing my furrowed brow and not the idiotic joy of a tramp who'd just found a suitcase full of heroin and was now celebrating his good fortune. In any case, the Sparks created new opportunities: a new tool for my workshop that I was sure I could use to solve a multitude of problems. I did get his message about the auto buy. It was time to ignore my inner greedy pig and hire a new one-time vendor for every risky transaction.
This was something I should have remembered a long time ago. There's no such thing as anonymity any more. Neither online nor in real life. It's only the question of how much the interested party is prepared to pay for the information. While you're small fry, you've nothing to worry about: you'll remain anonymous simply because you're not worth the trouble. Just remember that when the time comes, all your cyber trail will come to the surface. All your phone records, your entire web surfing history, all your bank card transactions, all the CCTV footage with your face on it and lots of other things.
Under Dan's greedy stare I placed two of the vials—those I'd filled myself—into my pocket. He then cast a meaningful glance at the remaining pots and gestured over his head imitating a whirlwind. "Think we'd better discuss it."
"Not now," I cut him short. "I'm desperate for some sleep. I still need to have a briefing of my own."
The General turned to me. "Do you think you could ordain me personally?"
I nodded. That wasn't a problem.
Ding! A flash of green light colored our faces an alien tinge.
"Heh, I've already done half a Faith level," the General didn't really sound surprised. "It looks like the starting point depends on the ordainer's rank. There was something I heard about a year and a half ago, if my absolute memory is anything to go by. I met some dude who'd done this quest that entitled him to be ordained by the First Priest. A Light NPC, naturally, but it's of no consequence. So when I met him he was in the process of celebrating all the gold and time that he'd saved."
Dan didn't say anything, his glare indignant. He wasn't a cheapskate and still the fifty dollars that he'd just wasted on the experiment he could have spent on a bunch of flowers for his wife and an armful of chocolate for his rugrats.
The General gave me a pleading look. "You think you could dedicate my men, as well? It's still a lot of money, you know, we could save almost forty grand."
Exasperated, I was about to protest. What kind of attitude was that? He wanted all the gain without any of the pain. I didn't have time, that was exactly why I'd given them a priest of their own. The Temple had to grow! Actually, that was reason enough. Eric could do with a rank boost, too.
I shook my head and pointed at a hesitant Eric. "Even not mentioning a whole host of other problems, it's in your clan's interests to level your own priest. If you think about it, Eric will only get a percentage of Faith points from those he dedicated personally, while he's desperate for some growth simply to be able to tackle the clan's problems. Which means that on top of his personal skills like Voluntary Death, he'll also need to invest into everything the clan might need, like raid buffs and all sorts of curses and anathema spells. So my advice to you would be not to skimp on his services."
Catching Eric's grateful glance, I gave him an inconspicuous wink. He must have already looked through his skill list and—knowing his appetites—must have already chosen a dozen abilities he could use had he not been nearly stripped of referral XP from a good seven hundred of already-dedicated players. Thank God I didn't depend on these parameters, otherwise I'd have been running around like a headless chicken doing other people's jobs instead of my own farming bit.
The thoughtful General nodded. "Very well, Max. Now go and get yourself some rest. You look like a vampire with those bloodshot eyes."
I exchanged handshakes, waved my goodbyes and left the room, heading for my apartment.