A giant four-winged monster, his eye-slits glowing scarlet, pulled two sharpened blades from the lifeless body of his victim: one black with blue tinges of poison, another a flickering silver scimitar. His black spiked armor was splattered with blood, crimson fire wreathing in his fanged maw. The combat form of the Devil archetype turned to be a true spawn of the Netherworlds, its abilities a death sentence. Still, even they wouldn’t have helped if not for the limitless respawn inside the castle.
Thirteen resurrections: that’s how many Tao had needed to prove his claim to the Crown.
Diamant was dead. The weredragon who had served as the Lady’s consort turned out to be a terrifying enemy. The legendary loot and True Dragon Blood he had dropped became a worthy reward for the string of deaths.
Ahelmar fled, defeated but not broken, and Highland Moon went with him. Blood ties and thirst for revenge proved stronger than faction laws. The rest — the dragon siblings, dark healer Taeghal, and their retinue — submitted, recognizing his authority. On the one hand, Tao’s plan was fulfilled, but on the other, it had never included a schism inside the House.
He needed a powerful NPC faction able to influence the game’s event from the inside. Instead, he got a mutiny and a brewing civil war. The Lady’s children were powerful: Ardehetel ruled the faction of Ergial in the northern seas, and Ahelmar had the support of expeditionary hordes, almost half of all troops belonging to the House. In the faction control interface, the icons of their holdings, subjects, and retinues turned grey and inactive, marked as rebellious. Tao knew that two outcomes were possible. Either the rebels would be put down, or the faction would split into two parts with mutually low reputation.
He needed to deal with that, and deal with it soon — they couldn’t have gotten far. However, pressing business outside of Sphere demanded his immediate attention. Something odd was going on.
* * *
I decided to leave the loot from the Nomad “spider” — its remains, the gemstones with strange affixes, and mysterious partially identified ingredients — in the Stronghold labs to be examined. I didn’t really need them yet, as I had enough money, and the Bazaar was blocked anyway — well, for the time being. From the looks of it, the blockade was nearing its end: NAVY had simply run out of kamikaze ships capable of destroying major targets.
Therefore, Operation Black Friday was almost concluded. All it needed was a last hurrah to close the door on our week-long efforts.
In the meantime, the clan leaders craved my presence — so much that Komtur personally contacted me on Courier, which was an exceptional case.
“Are you even reading your inbox? We’re meeting in Eyre, tomorrow morning, 5 AM. Attendance mandatory!”
I saw several messages marked as important in my alliance mailbox and Courier notifications. Over the past week, I had been too busy with the Bazaar to pay attention to the constantly flashing alerts, as the messenger was actively used for assembling and coordinating raids harassing Pandorum’s rear lines. That information didn’t matter to me. I had observed before that as soon as I got distracted with interesting, even if not crucial, matters, refocusing became really hard.
After scrolling through the recommended messages, I had to think. Other than the current meetings, I saw a curious announcement saying that all players with Control Astral Ships skill should switch to another channel for more instructions. I had recently sent an entire batch of those skillbooks to Eyre, and not low-level but uncommon and rare, intended to train sailmasters, ray gunners, and elemental engine operators. The second alliance letter ordered everyone to visit the closest Mercenary Guild and hire a pawn of a suitable profession.
My conclusion was strange but simple: for some reason, the alliance urgently needed a lot of crews to man airships. However, the Northerners didn’t have an astral fleet of their own, except for several vessels they hadn’t yet lost in the countless battles. Were we preparing for a counterattack? Apparently, yes. The time seemed fitting.
The next day turned out to be stressful. NAVY were leaving, suddenly withdrawing from the Bazaar siege. Nobody could believe it was finally happening. Everyone expected a trap, just like the massacre that had followed the fake truce. Yet one after another, risk-takers among the captains managed to get into the city without being attacked, and people started pouring into the ruined streets full of debris, all of them warily staring into the sky.
It was clear. The portal circles and astral berths were no longer targeted by malevolent invisible predators. There was not a yellow-black sower of chaos in sight. The disbelievers finally accepted that NAVY were gone when they heard that their fleet had suddenly attacked the castle of Oblivion, one of the five main clans of Pandorum. At the same time, joined together into one powerful raid, our forces struck against the Pandas’ allies in our homeworld of Dorsa. By all appearances, the battle proved to be a fierce one. In the end, the Northerners managed to lock them inside Condor and drive the castle dome into siege mode. It ended the same way as always, with the arrival of Pandorum’s astral fleet that immediately forced the attackers to scatter. Fighting against their humongous cannons was useless — we had already learned that.
The ellurite market, previously considered inexhaustible, was controlled by our coalition. By our estimations, we had several weeks of complete monopoly after lifting the blockade. All of the main deposits had been demolished, almost all of the stocks of enemy and neutral traders bought out. Of course, a fresh stream of ellurite would immediately
