Relatively little loot dropped from the players. Shazz left nothing at all behind when he died. The preventers protected their equipment, but their bags were packed full of expensive reagents, ingredients and all kinds of battle elixirs and potions. I couldn’t carry it all off myself.
The abundance of loot reminded me of the Serendipity I was collecting for Fortune. Ugh. Shame the spheres only dropped wdien I was the cause of death. After that slaughter, the goddess’s quest would have been complete and I’d have one less thing to worry about.
It was the same with Reaper’s Scythes. I tried not to think of how much they would have leveled up if they’d absorbed the unspent lives of the dead. It was upsetting. But only a little—on the whole, the situation had turned out far better for me than I expected. I’d gotten out of the Nether, saved the temple and both armies—the preventers and the undead—were defeated. And then there were the mountains of loot that my friends indiscriminately collected.
I looked at them and suddenly thought of Crag—did he survive the battle? He was already undead, and Plague Dust should have no effect on him. Maybe Tobias was killed before Shazz died. Or maybe the lich killed him first, knowing the warrior’s abilities.
One of the stream of notifications I got told me that Plague Boost kicked in after the lich died, but I hadn’t gained any levels. In any case, I decided to go through the system messages later, in calmer circumstances.
Leaving my friends to their looting, I took command of my dead troops and sent the remains of Shazz’s army, now mine, to Tiamat’s temple. A few queases and rotters, a sole surviving Banshee Lieutenant, ten Bone Hounds and around seventy more units, a motley mass of beasts at level six hundred. Plague Reanimation allowed me to keep only a hundred servants at a time. The rest, it seemed, had simply collapsed into dust.
I had to set up a solid defense for Tiamat’s temple within a day. Tomorrow, an auction would begin in Kinema with a single item for sale—the Portal Key to Holdest.
My mechostrich span its springy steel legs, somehow managing not to get stuck in the sand. I held on tight and went through long lines of logs while my guardian friends excitedly discussed the battle.
“You turned up just in time, boss!” Nega shouted, running along beside me. “If it weren’t for you, our much-tortured bones would be gleaming in the sand right now…”
A little to the right of her, throwing up sand, Sharkon careered along on his heavy legs. Flaygray, Anf and Ripta sat upon it, but the succubus’s ass was too dear to her; she was a fan of tenderized meat, she said, but not if it was her own sensitive backside. The subject livened the guards up and they started making jokes, ever more obscene. The prospect that soon they might no longer be undead clearly excited them.
The first notification I read stupefied me. I don’t know how Plague Boost worked with minions, but in my case a reaction was needed.
Attention! Shazz9 Supreme Legate of the Destroying Plague, level 591 Zicft, has died.
Plague Boost activated! As legate of the Destroying Plague, you caji claim 40% ofShazz’s total experience: 24.18 trillion points.
Accept?
Understandable; in the heat of battle, the levelup effects could be a distraction, so the game mechanics allowed you to choose a more suitable time for it. Thoughts overwhelmed me. How would things work out with the players wiio were turned undead and my position as legate? Would Tiamat’s temple survive now that Shazz was no longer blocking the path to it? What would happen if we lost the temple? So much to think about, and the guardians kept trying to pull me into their frivolous chatter… All of this together, plus many more questions and doubts related to my parents, Tissa and Karina, the clan and the preventers, the noncitizens, the Nucleus and the Sleepers… With all of it together, I didn’t realize right away that the numbers measured in the trillions—millions of millions of experience points!
Once I realized that, I accepted Shazz’s final gift without hesitation.
You leveled up…!
You leveled up…!
You leveled up…!
You leveled up…! Current level: 564.
1275 free attribute points available!
Level 400 reached!
Rank four is now available to your skills, abilities and crafts!
Level 500 reached!
Rank five is now available to your skills, abilities and crafts!
Attention! Achievement upgraded to What A Great Day To Die!
You have leveled up to 375 without dying once, and your name will once again go down in the history ofDisgardium!
Reward: chance of Second Life passive skill activating increased to 75%.
Attention! Achievement upgraded to Just A Perfect Day To Die!
You have leveled up to 500 without dying once, and your name will go down in the history ofDisgardium!
Reward: chance of Second Life passive skill activating increased to 100%. Choice of where to revive after death (place of death or linked respawn point).
Unlocked achievement First Ever: Just A Perfect Day To
Die!
Achievement Just A Perfect Day To Die! earned for the first time in all the history ofDisgardium!
Reward: active skill Spirit Shackles.
Spirit Shackles
Creates a 30-yard zone in which the souls of defeated playei’s are pulled in and held for an hour. The owner of Spirit Shackles can choose whether the owner should revive in place; go to their respawn point or wait for the timer to run out.
Attention! This skill does not revive deceased players if their game timer to revival has rwt elapsed (10 seconds; 1 hour and 12 hours for the first; second and third deaths per day respectively).
Unlocked achievement First Ever: Level 400!
You are the first in Disgardium to reach level 400! Your name shall forever be recorded in history; people like you expand the limits of what is possible for all sentients, and give others an example of what can be achieved!
Reward: Grain of Transformation artifact.
Grain of Transformation
Divine artifact.
It’s OK to change your mind!
Onetime use: resets all main stat points and allows you
