The Gene of the Ancients (Rogue Merchant Book #2): LitRPG Series by Roman Prokofiev (top books to read TXT) 📕

to persuade Komtur to remove them from the KOS list and stop hunting them on alliance territory.

But as soon as I mentioned them, the clan leader interrupted me.

“Ah, so you don’t know anything yet? Everything’s been decided already. The issue’s closed, Cat.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s go down into the clan hall,” Komtur offered. “You’ll see for yourself.”

Confused, I followed him, and we entered the Condor clan hall. Holy mother of God! It was chock full of people, as if a raid was being assembled. Players, mounts, and birdies were swarming around us. On top of Watchers, I noticed lots of players tagged as members of some clan called Unity. Most of them had red and yellow karma. Blue faction cloaks, generic armor — I recognized their gear as belonging to the sets I had purchased for the Watchers at the Bazaar. I opened the profile of the new clan and saw that it had been created only a day ago and had around a hundred members. The clan list contained familiar nicknames: Captain Panther, Svenn, Helga, Diareus, Black Don, Thirteenth...

“I decided that losing a hundred veteran fighters would be stupid,” Komtur continued. “Especially since some of them are really nice guys. But you must understand that they can’t join the Watchers. My clan’s all about order and discipline, and they value freedom too much. That’s why we offered to let them band together into one clan and join the alliance as the sixth PvP clan. The other clan leaders don’t mind. A hundred swords could never hurt.”

“You’ll even give them lands?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“We will,” Komtur said, serious as ever. “They’ll have to fight for them, though, but those guys love PvP, right?”

We walked up. Black Don — dashing, rugged, reminding me of a romantic outlaw — saluted us, and the ranks of Unity froze.

“Maybe it will work out,” Komtur grumbled. “Have you seen their kill rating yet? Take a look. They’ve already risen to the occasion this morning.”

Upon seeing me, my friends from the former Randoms and Little Green Men surrounded us, breaking formation.

“Honestly, I can’t believe it,” I told Don. “How will you do without banditry?”

“Well, we misbehaved because we had no lands of our own,” Blackie said, winking at me. “And now, we’re no gang. We’re an army!”

The players around him gave their leader a cheer of approval.

“They’ve given us a province,” Diareus said. “Around the Black River!”

“Maybe we’ll build our own castle!” Svenn said dreamily.

The Black River... I opened the map. It was a small conglomerate of border and wild regions situated between the trackless forest of Im Enoi and the Northern Belt, behind which lay the Nation of Eyre. Caught between two kingdoms, it was a zone of constant PvP activity. It was there where the faction troops of the House of Darkness launched their offensive. Some of the provinces were already taken, and some were marked as disputed. That territory belonged to the Northern Alliance in name only. In truth, nobody lived there.

Komtur, crafty as he was, killed three birds with one stone. He solved the PK issue, reinforced his alliance with a hundred warriors, and gave them land to settle right on the edge of the invading armies. Unity had no choice but to join the faction war and square off against PROJECT. I’d be damned if Komtur hadn’t just gained a pocket clan to battle Tao in spite of the peace agreement.

That was smart — and benefitted everyone. I gave the Watcher leader a silent cheer. Fine, let them fight. I had a plan to follow through on.

* * *

 

“To tell the truth, HotCat, I don’t know what to do with you. Forward me your profile once again.”

Abbot, the PvE chief of the Watchers and the perennial leader of the “carebear” raid wasn’t exactly friendly.

“The Council commanded me to include you in the next Helt Akor raid. I see you’re settling in fast. Pushed the right buttons, have you?”

“Yeah, bought a train ticket,” I joked, nodding. “Hey Ebb, please stop with the reprimands. I don’t need the loot, the influence points, or glory. All I need is to get to the Seventh Layer of the Endless Paths, that’s it.”

“You don’t get it. Point is, you’ll take the place of a more useful player, see? We have only a few Estel sets. All right, come here.”

He stopped at one of the clan warehouses, opened several chests, and rummaged inside them.

“What’s that you’re wearing? Leather armor? Do you have at least 500 SP in Light Armor skill?”

Abbot placed three leather pieces in front of me: a battered black breastplate with metallic inserts, yellow-brown bracers decorated with etchings of dragons, and knee-high boots reinforced with greaves. All items belonged to different sets and had only one thing in common: a translucent oval-shaped stone glimmering with blue light was masterfully embedded into each of them.

“The affixes aren’t impressive,” I blurted out. “My current stuff has better stats.”

“Do you have free sockets? Then get your gear here, we’ll insert the Estel gems there,” Abbot chuckled.

Alas, I had none. Socketed items were highly valued, but often had weaker stats, as gems could give their wielders a significant boost.

“What’s the level of Dread in Helt Akor, generally?” I asked.

“Three points on top levels. The deeper you go, the worse it is. Last time, we bumped into a creature with an aura of ten. It dropped the entire raid in five minutes, ripping the main tank to shreds. For your information, I set the minimum Estel score for raid gear at +7. MT and OT have +10 sets. You’ll only have +4, not enough OM for more. Do you see now that you’re dead weight? Sorry for being rude, but that’s the truth.”

Estel, the property of magic gems inlaid into the gear that