Three rare pieces of gear dropped from the bosses—a shield, boots and a ring—and got divided between Patrick and Irita. Once again, I felt the joy I’d first experienced in the sandbox when an item dropped that boosted my character, but now the joy was for my friends. The achievements for the First Kills were disappointing, but considering how easy they were to get, nobody complained. You can never have too many bonuses in Dis.
We returned from Holdest to the clan fort. I left my friends to sort through the spoils, then flew to northwest Kharinza, where the Reaper Chilis were in the beta version. I hoped I could repeat the Hellish Sea Soup With Bunting Reaper Chili, which gave useful buffs. Unfortunately, the perfectly round glade I’d found in the beta version didn’t exist in the real Dis.
From there, I went to the reptiloid island where I’d found an instance while I was stuck in the Nether. The route was stored in vague memories of a distant dream, but Scyth-2 has gone there so many times that I managed to get my bearings. First I found the bay with the Rock Grabbers. They were no higher than level sixty here.
Taking off again, I quickly reached a small spit of land near Kharinza, and from there I saw the island I needed.
Attention! Achievement upgraded to Fearless Explorer!
Discover 10 zones whei’e no other player has ever been.
Reward: Strong Back (+50% carrying capacity).
Scyth, you have the right to name this new zone!
You can keep the old name (Mengoza) or come up with your own.
Hesitating a moment—I wanted to rename it to Reptiloid Island—I left the previous name, and, as it turned out, this showed respect to the Departed again; I got a hundred and fifty reputation points with the mysterious faction.
Mengoza showed the differences between today’s Dis and the world that the Nether had turned into after ten thousand years; I found no sentient reptiloids, just komodo dragons and geckos at level three hundred. Where in the Nether I had found the lizardfolk settlement, here I saw only Ruins of the Departed. It might be worth our archeologist digging around here. There were no traces of the instance with the phase spiders that I’d planned to take vengeance against. The only useful thing I saw was signs of ore deposits. Deciding to return with Manny and Infect in a calmer time, I jumped to Kharinza.
We grouped up again and headed for Klondike, to the mine where there was once a portal to the lair of the Nucleus. Now, according to Behemoth, it was an instance with a Plague Vector, from which the disease came, spreading until the liches of the Destroying Plague broke through here from Holdest.
I entered first to check it out. The dungeon was home to mobs at level two hundred, very similar to those that made up Shazz’s army. I doubted we’d have trouble clearing them until I realized that they were all friendly to me. Undead couldn’t kill undead—the rule of the Destroying Plague was in effect here too. I ran through the dungeon from start to finish, saw all the bosses. They protected each stage of the instance, which consisted of five caves connected by narrow winding tunnels. They were advanced versions of queases and rotters, a skeletal wyvern and a huge undead butterfly with a humanoid body. At the very end, in a large cave, I found a miniature version of the plague reservoir in the Nucleus’s lair: the Plague Vector. The lich Uros stood watch there, the final boss.
“Life is death, Legate!” he greeted me.
“But there is no death in service to the Destroying Plague. What are you doing?”
“I am obeying the order of Supreme Legate Shazz: protecting the vector,” Uros reported. “But I no longer feel the presence of the Nucleus. The energy stream has stopped. I cannot continue my work. The vector is drying out. In order to reduce the plague energy needed, I was forced to disincarnate some of my minions.”
“Condolences, lich. I can’t share mine. But wait here.”
Nodding to the lich, I quickly left his dim cave and headed for the exit.
“Do you have new orders for me, Legate?” I heard from behind.
* * *
After finishing a couple of instances and getting two First Kills right away, we saddled up our mounts to move out on a new hunt. Then we found out that Rita had no mount, and she didn’t meet the level requirements for one yet.
I jumped off my mechostrich, feeling my face redden—not here, but in real life. I’d completely forgotten that since Rita had left for big Dis today, that meant it was her birthday! I’d forgotten Eve’s birthday the year before, and now I’d made the same mistake! Angry at myself for not remembering right away and congratulating her as soon as I saw her, I decided to fix it.
“Happy birthday, Rita Wood!” I said, giving her a gift from the whole clan. “A Ghost Wolf Summoning Scrolll You remember Crusher the wolf in Gloomwood? This dropped from him. To be honest, I completely forgot about it, so I’ve never used it myself… By the way, don’t worry about the level forty requirement, I’m sure you’ll reach that today.”
The boys exchanged glances, climbed off their clanking mechostriches and surrounded us.
“Ha-a-appy bi-i-irrthday to yo-o-ou! Ha-a-appy bi-i-irrthday to yo-o-ou!” Infect sang, playing the guitar. We all got involved.
The girl stood with her eyes wide, smiling and unsure where to put her hands. Once we were done singing our congratulations, she hugged each of us, including Patrick while he struck a proud pose, and smiling Gyula. I got a slightly more passionate embrace and a kiss on the cheek.
“Sorry’, girl, well have to celebrate properly later,” I said, pointing at an imaginary watch on my wrist. “Now it’s time to
