As she touched it with a gloved hand, the lines of the star flashed blue, and one of the walls slid up with a soft booming sound, revealing a larger room.
Only one object was inside: a rectangular stone sarcophagus with an open lid and a human body lying inside. The woman quietly approached it and removed the silver mask concealing her face. For a while, she watched the man in the sarcophagi, peering into his golden hair, hawk-like features, and strong, thin fingers lying frozen in the stone armrests.
“So that’s what you look like, Cey-Rus Amparion, the prince of the Third House of Im Enoi...” she whispered, lost in thought. “A curious choice.”
Yelena Romanova, known in the Sphere of Worlds as the First Maiden, bent down and did the same thing the player called HotCat had once done to her — kissed the sleeping man on his unmoving lips. A few seconds later, as he slowly opened his eyes and tried to sit up, holding onto the edges of the stone bed, she smiled and said, “Hello, Maxim.”
Chapter 8
AFTER THE FALL of Enemy’s citadel, our defeat was inevitable. Juggernauts bombarded the castle until it turned into a pile of charred debris, and their fallen brethren regrouped and returned to cut down the surviving defenders. We got extremely lucky that Crow, who commanded the alliance’s flying forces, managed to save the majority of our airships.
We were distraught but not broken. Our enemies paid a dear price for this victory: Pandorum lost forty vessels, including four galleons. We would have even won by kill numbers and efficiency if not for the fall of the castle keep, which outweighed our efforts. After a four-hour-long siege, we realized one thing: we could have made it. We could fight Pandas, and we could kill Pandas. The only things that allowed them to win were their numbers and the goddamn juggernauts, the steamrolling astral fleet that could take down everything in its path.
Our leaders were still quite determined. I appreciated the level of our organization and discipline: there was barely any chaos and confusion, the PVP clans of the Northerners working like a well-oiled machine. Some of the players went to sleep for two or three hours, often not even logging out and zoning out inside their capsules. They were replaced by others, who immediately entered the battle for outposts or joined one of the guerilla groups. The action didn’t stop even for a minute, and the entire southwest of Dorsa burned.
Yet we were losing. The castle of Heroes, a fortified stronghold built on an island where two rivers met, the guardian of the alliance’s southern holdings, was the next to fall. The siege lasted less than ninety minutes — thanks to a betrayal, as my friends told me later. One of the clan members destroyed a critical component of the defense system that protected the keep from being invaded from the Shadow Plane, and a team of Pandorum shadow users managed to break in. They logged out in the holiest of holies, the clan hall, right next to the resp point, and during the battle, attacked the defenders from the back. Either by using artifacts or ultimate spells, the Pandas blocked the resp point at the crucial moment. Enemies burst inside, the witnesses describing the battle on the walls and in the inner sanctum as pure insanity. Realizing that they couldn’t hold the keep, Madman made the decision to detonate it. I In the enemy’s hands, the castle would have made an amazing base. The fortress blew up sky-high, sending thousands of defenders and attackers into the air, as the clan storage was stocked up on Bells.
At the same time, Evil Mook led a devastating raid through the enemy’s rear bases, taking down all outposts newly founded by Pandorum’s vassals, not allowing them to cement their power in Dorsa or create supply lines. Still, it was mostly an act of desperation — everyone knew that our opponents would do that sooner or later anyway.
However, I didn’t take part in those battles. I had to use the opportunity and closeness to the Order to visit the Magister. Considering Svechkin’s story, I had no real desire to see him, but he was itching for a talk. Subconsciously, I had been putting off that conversation as a hard, maybe even life-changing, moment. I was playing with fire, and I knew that well.
Well, then. My father used to say: if you’re good at lying, you’ll be good at anything. I had always taken pride in my composure and unflappability. It was time to check how true that was.
The red citadel belonging to the Order of the Lily on the Sword wasn’t far from the theater of operations. However, both Pandorum’s fleet and our strike teams made a point of keeping away from the small patch of land owned by the brethren. By all appearances, the paladins hated jokes and had made it clear: I noticed the burned wreckage of an airship near the foothills and several fresh scorch marks on the wall ramparts. Had someone been testing them? The area around the fortress was patrolled by groups of powerful knights, and there was a commotion inside as well, thanks to many armed NPCs and neutral players. Once calm and deserted, the citadel had turned into a buzzing anthill.
The Magister received me immediately.
“Get to the point!” he commanded after I told him about my battle with Svechkin
