Balian whistled.
“A goddess’ blood? Do you mean the Demigod archetype?”
“Exactly. This is the only thing that could justify those astronomical investments.”
“How about a lecture for those not in the loop?” Damian asked. “What Demigod archetype?”
“Okay. A digression,” Olaf started walking, his hands behind his back. “Divine blood grants a player a chance to obtain the legendary Demigod archetype. This is the highest reward a celestial can give to a mortal. By bestowing their blood, a deity becomes weaker, losing a divine rank — so as you can imagine, they don’t squander such things lightly.”
“In the history of Sphere, only three such cases have been recorded. Sou Ming, a Korean player, was the first to complete a quest chain of supreme rank.”
“The Firefox!”
“Yes, that’s her. The Firefox was a pyromancer, a high-level fire mage. After obtaining divine power, she became simply unstoppable.”
“The burning of Rinport...” Komtur gave a knowing nod.
“That’s right. The Firefox had always been...umm, unstable, but that made her lose her marbles. She and her pack raised such mayhem that hundreds of players petitioned the GMs. In the end, she was banned — notably, not for using the Demigod abilities, but for basic account sharing and violating User Agreement.”
“Ah, I remember that. A huge scandal,” Abel chimed in. “The Chinese rebelled.”
“Yes, banning Sou Ming caused a mass cancellation of subscriptions by Chinese and Korean players. But back then, Sphere was on the rise, and that controversy attracted lots of new people.”
“I know the second one, too. Trogg?” Komtur asked.
“Yes. One of the top players of the Russian clan Hird. He got the blood from a dwarven deity — he played as a dwarf, too — and manifested as a Demigod during the war with the Cursed, not that long ago. There’s even a video... An entire clan couldn’t kill him — Trogg got a superpowered protection, kinda like invulnerability. Unfortunately, he’s grown tired of Sphere and currently isn’t playing.”
“The third one is questionable. There are lots of rumors that Corvin, a leader of one of the American clans, is also a Demigod. His abilities or the god who bestowed his blood to him are unknown. Everything’s top secret, and he only revealed himself once, during the key battle of NAVY versus Pandorum. They lost that fight anyway, but both sides keep mum about the details. Kill rating can’t be fooled, however: the stats it showed were absolutely bonkers, suggesting that Corvin does have that archetype.”
“So Tao wants to become the fourth,” Balian the Raccoon said thoughtfully. “We could barely defeat him already. If Ananizarte buffs him with her blood, he’ll crush us into smithereens.”
“I see.” Komtur was humorless. “We cannot give him Eyre. Any ideas?”
“I’ll think about it. For now, we could taunt them using Cat. Have our cake and eat it. Pandas are all over me, demanding the souls we promised!”
“It’s a risky business,” Komtur grunted. “Farming souls destroyed Taerland, as you know.”
“Yes. But the scale was different back then. Entire factions got cut down. We’ll simply bite off a tiny piece: a hundred souls, maybe two hundred.”
Olaf smiled, quiet but vicious.
“Where’s Cat, by the way? It’s been a while since I saw him. The Pandas are getting restless.”
“He’s stuck in real life for the holidays. Says he has some problems. He’ll be back soon.”
* * *
My wife’s family — her parents and a seventeen-year-old slacker of a brother — lived in the suburbs, in a green, private area. Alena was an army brat, and her parents had retired right after the end of the conflict in the Transbaikal region. As far as I remembered, it had happened fifteen years ago, when the army’s size was sharply cut down, as there was nobody left to fight. The generous retirement package allowed Alena’s parents to buy an American-style, two-story house with a garage and a garden, while a pension let them lead a comfortable life.
We didn’t get on very well, and I preferred to keep our communication to the minimum. Alena’s parents had wanted her to find a different husband; I definitely didn’t meet their expectations, and even if they seemed to come to terms with their daughter’s choice over the last two years, sometimes, they still let something slip. In short, I had never become a part of the family — and it’s not like I tried.
They greeted us, as customary, with a table full of food and immediately started feeding us traditional dishes accompanied by alcohol. That was par for the course.
Like a proverbial grandmother, they nipped all my attempts to protest in the bud, even calling me thin despite having gained fifteen pounds over the last three months playing Sphere. I had also abandoned the gym that I used to visit with Alena in the morning, as the nightly battles forced me to sleep until noon.
“Waste of good food,” grumbled Victor, Alena’s father and a former military officer, a stern old war dog. Men such as him weren’t the sharpest knife in the drawer and usually retired at Major. They might be salt of the earth and a cornerstone of our armed forces, but for a civilian, talking with them was a monumental effort. After getting to know him, I realized why Alena fled her family to marry me without pausing to think. I would have done the same if I were her. They say that women often pick men similar to their fathers; in my case, it wasn’t true at all. I was Victor’s polar opposite. And for us, it was dislike at first sight.
* * *
“So how’s it going, do
