Ronnie went down to the basement of the workshop, equipped as a warehouse, took some potions to restore stamina, cartridges for a pistol, scanning chips – who knows, they may come in handy at any moment - left the last tent with a protective field lying in the corner, nothing valuable with him, who knows, maybe it's a trap. Then he threw a military backpack on his back and set off light.
An hour later, Ronnie passed through the main gate of the capital. At the exit, I saw a wooden sign that says "Guild headquarters one mile to the north." He headed down the gravel road leading into the coniferous forest. There were spherical birds sitting in the trees, no head, no legs, no wings to be seen, only bright blue eyes moving in the direction of his movement. Little monsters ran along the tree trunks like rabid squirrels. Their crocodile body was covered with crystal tiles, their eyes glowed red. They rushed past as if there was no one near them, jumping from one branch to another and crackling with the sounds of a flock of cicadas.
When Ronnie came out of the forest, he saw in front of him a lot of castles and fortresses of different shapes and architecture. The first building on the way was made in the Gothic style, with spearlike spires, a huge set of buttresses connected to the main wall by arc-boutant, observation towers, balconies, and round glass in the form of a blooming flower shone on both facades of the transept. The third castle surrounded by fortress walls was the headquarters of the Top secret guild. A moat had been dug around it, and muddy brownish water was poured into it, as if they were preparing for a defensive war. A long bridge led to red brick walls and wooden gates. Guild craftsmen installed explosives on the support pillars on remote control. Instead of towers at the entrance there was a stone house with four small windows. There was no light anywhere. The territory of the headquarters seemed to Ronnie to be entirely a beautiful place, from afar, from close. The only drawback was the castles on the right and left of white and pink flowers and graffiti on the walls with half–naked anime girls.
Ronnie informed Latludious in private about his arrival. At the same moment, portcullis climbed up the metal grooves, and the gate opened after it. The territory inside was small. In the very center there was a tower similar to a lighthouse and several two-story houses. The castle was located at the very end of the territory. It's a pity there were no pointers where to go. Ronnie wanted to write again, but while he was gathering his thoughts, Latludious approached him and asked to follow him into the meeting room.
The chess player looked completely different from what Ronnie imagined him to look like. He was a little guy of twenty-seven years old in a rain coat, short-cropped hair, narrow eyes, with wrinkles on his forehead and a dissatisfied expression on his face. It seems to be nothing special, except for one thing - his stats:
Strength 1 - no modification.
Agility 1 - no modification.
Reaction 15 - third modification.
Magic 4 - no modification.
People on the forum beat their heads against the wall, just to figure out how to become a magician, but all in vain, and Latludious's stat was suitable for the first level of modification. The sly man found out how to use spells and did not tell anyone about it. Although who would have done otherwise in his shoes? Most likely no one.
They came to a small brick house, next to an empty shooting range and went inside and turned from the rich hallway to the left and went up the stairs. There Latludious went to the second door, pulled out the key and opened the lock. In the meeting room, there was food on a large table, chandeliers, sconces on the walls, handmade wool carpets on the floor, and a small chess board in the right corner. In the meeting room, there was food on a large table, candelabra, sconces on the walls, handmade wool carpets on the floor, and a small chess board in the right corner. They sat on the ottomans opposite each other, Latludious saw the confusion on the interlocutor's face and before saying anything, he stretched out his hand palm forward and nodded to Ronnie to make the first move for white. He did so and moved the pawn to D4.
"Do you wonder where I got the magic stat four from?" Bishop asked and moved the black pawn to E6.
Ronnie did not answer anything and shook his head and moved the second pawn to the square E4.
"Players can't create multiple characters in G&M, don't you think that's weird?"
"I hadn't thought of that."
The black pawn on D5.
"So if you want to learn how to use magic, you have to give up levels before you can use it, so you don't mess up your build," said Latludious, and crossed his arms over his chest.
"Let's get straight to the point. You want me to help you pass the dungeon in the Orodrim Eoul mountains, right? And in return you'll buy my rifle at the auction," he answered and moved White's knight to D2.
Latludious straightened up and stretched his neck and put his pawn on C5 and asked:
"What else did you guess?"
Ronnie was looking at the chessboard, not at the mage. He took the knight on G1 and put it on the square F3.
"The fact that none of your snipers have weapons of a caliber higher than 7.62. You can't damage a boss with that kind of ammo. Weapons with 9.3x64 mm or higher rounds are not in the Vanguard arsenal, and most gunsmiths can only make an exact copy of an existing rifle, machine gun or whatever, but nothing new. So you have decided that this is your chance to get me, for no ordinary player can restore it. Which means I have to agree. Give and take."
Latludious nodded approvingly and without delay ate a white pawn on D4.
"Only there are several issues when passing the dungeon," Ronnie continued, "the first is that you’ll have at least five earplugs in each ear, after a shot from the Barrett, you would all go deaf, including me. Enclosed spaces are not designed to be shot at with rifles. The second thing that comes to mind is ricochets. The third is the walls of the dungeon, which can collapse from the slightest rustle, not to mention a shot. Fourth, the most obvious, the sniper works at long distances. With large concentrations of monsters, I'm unlikely to be useful. Therefore, the benefit from me as a participant of the campaign does not correspond to the invested costs."
Ronnie ate a pawn on D4 with a knight.
"You've never been to a dungeon, have you?"
"I've been there and not once, but not in those that are deep under the mountains."
"For example?"
"Che'el - an underground city, Angol - a floating fortress in the hills of Raicemyar, the illusory voids of Lumbaoloth and the city of the dead Tharn, in the east, next to Lake Ta'ecelle."
"Did you pass them all alone?" Latludious continued to ask, more interested in talking than playing chess.
"The game allows. There are more than enough places in these dungeons. If desired, in each of them you can place an Otron, entirely and completely. Raids and groups of players focus on strong bosses and large clusters of monsters. It's enough for me that I find the height, spend two magazines of 10 rounds each and come out with a 50% increased experience bar."
"Have you killed the bosses?"
"Sometimes."
Latludious leaned his head on the chessboard, holding his chin, and accompanied every fifth word of the interlocutor with a phrase of tacit agreement, sounding like "m", and Ronnie noticed how his right eyelid was twitching. Both were quiet for a while. The magician rubbed his nose with his index finger and put the black horse on D4 and said:
"What if you solve your first problem with a silencer?"
"How do you imagine a silencer for a large-caliber rifle?"
"Me?" laughed Bishop, "No way. You're a gun expert."
"Even if I could make a silencer, one Barrett won't be enough to kill a boss monster, and I won't make another one. You'll have to work hard to convince me otherwise, and don't forget to mention what your guild is up to, because I'll never in my life believe you'll give that much for a rifle for me," Ronnie said, slightly changing his voice to a rougher and huskier one, and taking Black's pawn on D5. "Something very serious is at stake."
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Latludious clapped his hands and ate the white pawn on D5 with the black queen and stretched out and bent slightly toward Ronnie and wrinkled his forehead and said:
"The Alliance wants to go in with an army of three thousand men. Such an armada is impossible to control. They will die at the first mass attack by the enemy. Vvy, our guild leader has secured permission to send an exploring party to see what awaits us there."
Ronnie hesitated and moved his knight to square B5 and said:
"No one's ever gone in there before? I bet there were more than a few volunteers."
"Yeah, you're right about that. Only the players were dying before they could figure out what had happened. Six of us will go. You are the sniper, I am the magician, Vvy is the tank and there’ll also be one alchemist-flamethrower and two machine gunners."
"So you in truth want to take all the experience for yourself, right? In addition, to enter a new location before the others, which will give you an advantage in everything you can think of, and you will get so many points for "Dominance" that no one will ever displace you from the first place. How many points does the system offer?"
Next to Latludious, the sconce blinked and buzzed, he did not pay any attention to it, did not even twitch, glanced at the chessboard, grinned and moved the knight to the A6 field.
"A little over a million."
"Not bad. Considering that the usual task gives fifty. I wonder if no one has ever dared to go around the mountains across the ocean or just climb over in pursuit of the discovery of a new location?" Ronnie asked and bent over the chessboard and propped his chin on his palm, sniffed a little and fidgeted.
Latludious did not hesitate and continued:
"Creatures in the water are bigger than our capital, you've probably heard about them yourself. Aggressive monsters fly in the mountains, which simply throw players off the slope, besides, neither the first nor the second are the places where you can conduct full-fledged combat operations."
Ronnie nodded and put his hands on the table like an obedient student and with a slight movement of his hand led the knight back to C3, the attempt to make a fork failed. He cleared his throat and said:
"I hope you play chess better than convincing people to help you."
Latludious leaned back and sighed and said:
"It's mutual help, Ronnie. Your Barrett and my magic are enough to defeat any boss."
"Let's assume it is. Although I still don't believe it much. AI assigns the S+ rank to dungeons for a reason. But let's leave this point out for now. I understand your benefit from this campaign, what are you ready to offer me besides a rifle?"
Latludious took the queen to its original position - field D8.
"In addition to the ransom of Barrett, we'll give money for its restoration and for the creation of a silencer. Plus experience from the dungeon."
"All of it?"
"The part that you earn."
"I want your word that we'll kill all the monsters that we’ll meet on the way and will not run past in a hurry."
Latludious was silent for a moment, fidgeted, and his eyes looked somewhere to the side, then he rubbed his nose, crossed his legs and answered:
"Fine."
"Do the machine gunners of your squad already have silencers for their weapons?"
The magician nodded. Ronnie put his palms together, squeezed his fingers until they were white, and thinking about his next move, asked in a low voice:
"What about the other three points?"
"Do you like everything to be clear, huh?"
"Yes."
"Ricochets and collapse of walls are solved as simply as possible. Tell me, do you know why trees in the forest can't be cut down?"
Ronnie's eyes darted. The sconce stopped blinking and went out, plunging the magician's side into semi-darkness. A light draft ran into the room through the slightly open window, disturbing the curtains, and swept through both interlocutors. The skin on the sniper's hands was covered with goosebumps, a chill ran down his back. He moved the pawn from A2 to A3, said:
"Are you playing mentor and student? If you start from afar every time, we'll sit here until the game turns us off."
Latludious's dimple twitched at his mouth, he was quiet for a couple of seconds, grabbed the bishop and transferred it from the field F8 to E7 and continued, raising his voice:
"Then I'll be brief. A magical shell thicker than the trees in Elgoreombdon protects the walls of the cave. As soon as the bullet comes into contact with the magic coating, the magic will immediately destroy it. The same principle will protect us from collapse. And I'll answer your last question right away. For small monsters, we have two excellent machine gunners and a flamethrower. We'll only need you during the boss fight. Vvy will distract his attention to himself, I'll protect the machine gunners and the tank from long-range attacks, and you'll aim at the enemy's weak points. When the monster boss is exhausted, his defense will weaken, and I'll put all my magic into one blow and finish it off."
"And you can't cast spells right and left, because the mana you use reduces the amount of your experience?" Ronnie asked and moved his queen to F3.
Latludious calmed down and glanced at the board, grimaced and said:
"Good question. This is the first thing I thought about when I realized how to level up magic. In fact, mana is divided into two types: clean and dirty, in simple terms. The first one merges with our character's body and improves his abilities, such as strength, agility, reaction and magic. We get it for killing players or monsters. It is also an experience. Dirty mana, the one that is part of everything on this planet, is subject only to wizards. They know how to extract it and transform it into spells."
"According to this logic, there are no equal magicians in the dungeons. After all, mana is in everything, right? And there is more of it there than on the surface. I would even say it's so fucking many under the ground that the experience itself increases every minute."
"Paradoxically, but you are only partially right. We, without realizing it, constantly absorb dirty mana, it's just that players without the "magic" stat can't feel it. And as a consequence, the higher the basic stat of wizards, the more "dirty mana" they are able to control. In the dungeon, the reserves do not increase, but the recovery is four times faster…"
"So we smoothly move on to your weaknesses and the real reason why your guild needs a sniper with a powerful rifle."
Latludious laughed and said:
"Yeah. Well... one... let's say a very strong spell reduces my mana reserve by fifty percent, or even more. Will it be lethal? I doubt it very much. Let me remind you that the dungeon rank is S+. Maybe a wizard with a magic parameter of 30 or 40 will be able to protect allies with one hand and destroy boss monsters with the other, but I'm still very far away from that. Just like anyone else."
Latludious drummed his fingers on the chessboard and reached for his knight on A6, but changed his mind at the last moment and castled. Ronnie crossed his arms over his chest and asked:
"If I agree now, what are our next steps?"
"Before signing an electronic contract through AI, which is actually why I called you to talk in person, you'll write out your requirements, we'll write ours. Then we'll tick the boxes that everyone agrees to. As soon as this happens, I'll send a message to the treasurer of Top Secret, he'll buy your rifle at our expense and give it back to you. Then you'll write to him how much money you'll need for the restoration, and he'll send you a form for subsidies, in which you assume to spend this money only on Barrett and... get down to business. You'll need to complete this work in ten days, then we'll all gather together at the airport, get on a plane and fly to the fortress at the foot of Orodrim Eoul. Our people are just completing the airport there, so we'll fly quickly and without adventures. At night we'll regroup and, in the morning, we'll go to the dungeon."
Ronnie sighed and looked up at this burgundy ceiling, licked and cleaned. The glare from the bright light penetrating inside through the small windows appeared in his eyes, his breathing remained even and calm.
"Kill Nika when she brings the weapon."
"She won't bring it. Have you never used auctions?"
"I made purchases only on in-game."
"Do you buy everything from the developers? Their prices are cosmic."
"They have items that the players don't have."
"Em... well...I won't argue. In short, at a human auction, people bring weapons or something else to a special bank, then the object become publicly available, you buy it and it is delivered to you by couriers."
Ronnie rolled his eyes and threw his head back, exhaled, vibrating his lips and cursed. Latludious paused and continued:
"I didn't know you were the kind of person who takes defeats so much to heart."
"No. I am one of those who always wins, but like anyone else, my victories do not pass without mistakes and failures."
"Well said."
"Ok. Tell me your plan for completing the dungeon. Is there a map? What enemies can we expect, what’s our route?
"Damn it, Ronnie, you got carried away talking. Don't forget about chess."
He looked at the board, took the bishop on F1 and ate the knight on A6. Latludious winced and sniffed and said:
"I don't know what kind of monsters we'll meet on the way. To find out, you need to kill at least one and scan his body. The first researchers did nothing. They just died like flies. The maximum where the players could go before us – five hundred yards. To the question: "what happened to them?" and "who killed them?" they just shrugged their shoulders."
"Is that all?"
"That's all."
"It's absolutely fucking nothing. The chances are the same as if we walked along the edge of a cliff with our eyes closed."
"No. You're wrong."
"How can you be sure we won't die like them?"
Latludious stuck his lower row of teeth into his upper lip and looked once more at the chessboard and rubbed his right eye and blinked his eyes and shouted: "Fuck, I missed." Ronnie did not say anything. The magician got up from the ottoman and said that with the advent of magic, everything would change.
"It's time to make sure, Ronnie. Let's go to the shooting range."
They came out on a spacious plain with green weeds overgrown to the shin, on which mannequins were located at a distance of 100, 200 and 300 yards. Latludious stretched out his index finger in front of him and drew a circle, Ronnie felt the ground vibrate under his feet. The magician bent his knee and touched the grass with his palm. In the next instant, the wheatgrass was stunned, rose into the air and showered three targets with machine-gun fire. Once soft blades of grass turned into real steel needles that pierced through the metal armor of the mannequins.
"Fuck me!" Ronnie shouted and took a couple of steps away from the magician. "Did you use a strong spell or a weak one?"
Latludious let out a small laugh, did not answer. He took a lighter out of his pocket with his left hand, released the fire and touched the flame with his right palm and clenched it into a fist. Ronnie saw the magician's eyes light up. He unclenched his fingers and a fiery ray flew out of his hand, as strong as an RPG shot. Latludious did not stop there, he erected a purple protective field around Ronnie - causing him a strong deja vu - and then raised his right hand to the sky and out of nowhere a ball lightning struck Ronnie. There was an explosion, bright sparks showered the plain and went out. A barely noticeable rainbow appeared in the sky. Latludious laughed when he saw the "great gunsmith of the server" fall with the face of a frightened child.
"Fucking hell!" Ronnie shouted, with heavy and rapid breaths and exhalations. "What the fuck is with the balance in this game?"
"Yeah," Latludious replied, grinning and holding out his hand. "So what do you think now? I was able to convince you that your Barrett and my magic are enough, huh? One dungeon and go wherever you want."
Ronnie grabbed his palm with a clap, jerked to his feet, dusted himself off and looked at him from under his brows and said:
"Convinced."
"One moment, Ronnie, if you die before we get to the dungeon, you'll return all the money we spent on you."
"Deal."