"Fire in the hole!" Dan yelled, jumping aside and taking cover behind some debris.

Some of the men dropped to the ground, covering their heads and trying to flatten themselves against the floor. The fighters holding the prisoner just cringed, turning their heads away from a blow that couldn't be blocked.

A flash of lightning crackled like a powerful transformer targeting the prisoner's body. A star of five voltaic arcs connected his forehead and limbs, imprinting itself into my retina. With a bang, a granite tombstone collapsed onto the floor.

"Shit!" the General spat, unmoving.

He looked over his fighters getting back to their feet and turned to Dan. "Please. It's time to forget those real-life reaction times. I understand that this motherfucker beeped like an impact grenade, but we're immortal now, right? Anyway. Soldiers! The castle has been taken and purged, the portals are blocked. Whoever wants to squeeze us out of here has got a real job on his hands. Restore order in your units, make a list of prisoners and inventorize our takings. Preliminary debriefing at ten hundred tomorrow. Dan, get me everything I need to know about this mysterious third party."

The General was still busy barking orders but my inner greedy pig was already deaf to the world, dancing a jig with abandon. His hour of triumph was near—the sharing out of booty!

Chapter Five

 

A n excerpt from the Veterans clan treasurer's memo:

 

The final loot inventory leaves us with the following picture:

One Bastion-class castle: 3,400,000.00 gold

One Colossus-class Dome Shield artifact: 1,600,000.00 gold

Stationary mana accumulators, 41 (all empty, 24 beyond repair): 1,700,000.00 gold

The Castle treasury: empty. A hidden strongbox discovered in the Commandant's office containing 220,000 gold.

Warehouses and clan depots containing:

Miscellaneous ingredients (pertaining to alchemy, weapon making, forging, etc.): 122,311 pieces, of which Rare: 1,311, Epic: 14, totaling 423,000 gold

Workshop finished articles: 1,488, of which Rare: 36, totaling 172,000 gold.

Elixirs: 14,670, of which Rare: 212, Epic: 2, totaling 155,000 gold

Miscellaneous ordnance (arrows, crossbow bolts, throwing knives, hatchets, shurikens, etc.): 153,300 pcs totaling 19,000 gold

Miscellaneous (crafting tools and fortification equipment, etc.): 611,000 gold

The items dropped by slain enemy soldiers traditionally become property of the combatants. As such, they are not reflected in the inventory, excepting the eight items dropped by the Сamos and turned over to the security department.

Grand total of loot: 8,300,000 gold

Raid expenditures: 155,000 gold, plus:

Payment to mercenaries, 70,000

Payment to Drow, 200,000

Payment to Max, 1,240,000

 

Mr. Simonov's resolution: I deem it reasonable to undervalue the loot by fifteen percent and raise the price of the unverifiable consumables by twenty percent. That would allow us to diminish our payment to Max to the sum of 1,030,000.00.

 

Security department resolution: I'm in accordance. One million gold is well enough for a newb. Signed: Dan.

 

General Frag's resolution: I object. If it ever surfaces, we'll never clear our name. Max's contribution has virtually tripled the loot. Without his exercise in lightning assault, the best we'd have managed to get would have been the castle's bare walls. Pay him in full and consider adding a bonus.

(End of excerpt)

 

* * *

The attendance of the next morning's meeting was less than usual. We'd had too many things to do so virtually no one had gone to bed the night before. The Vets were busy improving the castle's defense potential and negotiating some of the more sensitive issues with the allies as well as making an inventory of the loot and building the castle into the clan's infrastructure.

About fifteen people had gathered in the small hall which hadn't suffered much during the storming of the castle. The officers rubbed their tired eyes and drank gallons of coffee. The iridescent tobacco smoke hung under the ceiling creating an inappropriately festive atmosphere and making Frag wince. He didn't say anything, though.

I kept nodding off, too. All through the night, the castle had been buzzing—literally, like a high-voltage transformer. The loot crew kept tapping the walls poking their noses into every corner while the others checked every nook and cranny for the last holed-up prisoners. The universal enthusiasm had got the better of me and now I was deeply missing the lost hours of sleep. Only my inner greedy pig diligently listened to every report making mental notes in my memory and marking the most relevant points in red.

An officer from the analytics group was summarizing the reports received, voicing their recommendations.

"...the castle's defense potential has been restored by twenty percent. Three mana accumulators have been fully charged and talks are under way to convince the alliance to temporarily allot us three mages as mana generators. Unfortunately, due to the excessive speed of mana siphoning," he cast me an accusing look, "over half of the unique crystals have been destroyed to a total value of two million four hundred thousand gold. I strongly recommend we find resources to order more accumulators."

Frag waved his recommendations away. "We're not millionaires. The clan's purse has its limits. There're more important expenditures to consider. Even with the remaining crystals the dome is a cut above the one we have in the East Castle. I'd love to know which of the Cats came up with the bright idea of using a shield three classes higher than the castle itself! A Colossus dome in a Bastion castle, who would have thought of that? Not in a Stronghold or even a Citadel but in a Bastion! Actually, we have to thank them for that. Both them and Max. Without him, we'd have still been bashing our heads against their shield barely affecting its regen levels and becoming the whole cluster's laughing stock, much to the Cats' delight. Dan, that's something you should have taken into account."

"My fault, Sir," Dan mumbled habitually, making a show of knitting his eyebrows as if saying, we're not mind readers to have spies everywhere at twenty-four hours' notice.

The officer waited for the General's nod and continued, "We have already started repairing all the non-regen damage to the buildings incurred during the attack. We expect it to be completed by the evening. We can't really improve the castle's defensive potential as the Cats have already maxed out everything they could: the height of the walls, the number of towers and all possible hits. Bastion is its limit. We could install minor dome shields over certain areas, I suppose. The main gates, for instance. But that would be overdoing it, I have to agree with the Cats on this one."

"The emergence of the High Spell," Frag murmured, "makes it more like a new reality. I'd like you to leak information about our supposed mole at the Cats' who had presumably helped us to get access to the Shield Artifact. That will do two things: detract attention from Max and placate our allies as the sheer possibility of penetrating a dome shield within a few minutes overturns the entire clan war strategy. We've been hearing from other clusters about such lightning attacks before, so it's very possible Max isn't the only proud owner of this uber toy. Another thing. We need to assign some people to buy up all available Reset Potions. Price is no object. This is now a seriously strategic product which will decide the outcome of many a sensitive situation."