Remembering my school years and mom-packed lunches that I used to feed to our local feral dogs, I pulled a dozen sandwiches out of my bag: I had plenty left after leveling my culinary skill. I walked over and crouched next to the immediately tense animals. I removed the cover and took a bite, demonstrating their edibility. Thank God, they started eating, casting grateful glances my way. I patted a puppy behind the ear and returned to my position by the altar.

It was probably a good idea to invest into a couple of Sparks of Dark Flame. Useful ingredient, you should never be without them. Wonder how much I could retail them for? There was a chance that the auction crowd had no idea how to get them and was therefore prepared to pay a King's ransom for them. In that case, they could be a veritable cash cow. I clicked an auction window and basked in anticipation as I typed in the key word. Then I froze. It wasn't that the Sparks weren't available—on the contrary, a good couple dozen had been languishing at the auctions for several months. Even though raid bosses dropped enough of them, no one had yet thought of a way to use them. And as for NPC priests, they weren't interested in goods-for-money exchanges. Still, it was a freebie even though of a different kind. The offers were for fifty gold, you couldn't complain about that. I activated the auto buy with a mental raspberry to all the priests (whom I admittedly hadn't appointed yet). Those would quickly catch up on the item's true value but by then I'd cream off all I could.

Only then I noticed the Inbox flashing. Oops. Two PMs, one from Zena, the other from Dan. In different wording, both said the same thing:

Is this your work? We need to talk.

Zena I could understand. But how could our cloak-and-dagger have figured it out? I understood, of course, that they were obliged to keep tabs on me as an important figure, a patent holder and a universal lockpicker. In other words, the clan's mysterious friend that they were obliged to keep an eye on so that he didn't stray to the wrong side of the barricades.

I paused to think, then typed off a quick note explaining I was awfully busy but ready to speak once I had a free moment. Told them there'd been some interesting developments—asking them not to make their speculations public just yet.

A portal popped open, bringing me back to reality. The Fallen One hummed something, looking pleased with himself. Catching my quizzical glance, he gave me a wink. "You'll be paying the Dragon five percent of mana flow for next year. I'll add the rest. We need to resuscitate that bag of bones double quick. Shame to waste mana, of course, I could use it myself. I need to grow too, and in my case simply killing monsters won't cut it, I'm afraid. That's it, gotta dash. I have some plans for tonight."

He gave me a meaningful smile, then glanced over the nervous hounds and gave me a thumbs-up. Apparently, he was already in the know. Had he kept an eye on the Temple all the while?

"Ahem, Sir... O Fallen One, I wonder if I could have these stupid marks removed? I'm all covered in medals like a champagne label."

The god tapped his forehead, remembering, then snapped his fingers, materializing a bottle of champagne. "Why? Do they itch or something?" he guffawed, turning to me. "That bag of demented bones must have forgotten that a mark works both ways. The astral link that connects you is his own doing. You have a long life in front of you; you might still cross paths with the Titans and talk them into granting you a couple of skills—Rider, or even Tamer. Then the boot might be on the other foot: the dragon will be yours to ride and travel on! Okay then, got no time to chat, sorry. I've got business to attend to," he lovingly stroked the bottle as I came up with some last-minute advice,

"Don't forget some flowers for the lady, you Romeo. And a box of chocolates."

The god nodded, preoccupied, before disappearing down the portal.

"Wild nights, wild nights! Were I with thee, wild nights should be our luxury," I commented into thin air.

Chapter Thirteen

Well now! I'd done everything I could to make everybody happy. The only thing left for me to do was to prioritize the order of the Temple's regeneration. Then I could finally set off on a marathon along the castle walls in search for the dragon's eggs. Last time I checked, the three defense walls counted at least a couple dozen northbound towers. I knew I didn't have to have contact with the altar in order to control the mana flow but I couldn't very easily send mana to someone I didn't know: it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. I needed to know enough of the item's or character's stats to prevent any mixups—as my own crude way of placemarking its astral position. Even that wasn't so important as long as I could give instructions to the altar to redirect the mana flow.

I touched the stone's glossy black surface, receiving a status message of the five percent available. It looked as if the Fallen One had already redirected the mana flow overrunning my earlier obligations. I opened the utility menus. I had no idea how long it would take me to restore the entire castle and how much time I'd have to spend afterwards adding the finishing touches by hand but at the moment, the control hall regeneration was my top priority. I had to have total control over the entire castle, otherwise the Temple would become a defenseless standalone building, however pretty. Personally, I was looking forward to meeting the hordes of Light armed and prepared once my fortifications became something more serious than piles of debris.

Jesus. What a mess of options, menus, submenus and dropout lists. Had the developers outsourced the creation of this interface to some Indian sweat shop? My unfocused stare fell on a section entitled Summoning the Temple Guards. This might be interesting. I decided to check it out.

Apparently, I had 30,000 level units available, calculated as the temple's rank times ten thousand. You could cash them in, summoning the widest range of creatures, both sentient and mobs. This exchange rate wasn't linear, either: the ratio remained at 1:1 until level 100, then began rapidly growing. In the most irrational scenario you could waste your whole 30,000 on one level-900 uncategorized entity. To give you some idea, I could summon a giant Cerberus the size of a five-story house and properties to match. Wonder if the Hell Hounds would rejoice at seeing their big brother and appoint it their high canine deity? In any case, I wasn't going to hire any guards at the moment. They demanded payment on a daily basis: one gold per point spent. By doing some simple math, you could see that full-scale hiring would cost me three grand a day. In case of a guard's death the spent points returned into a common pool and became available for repurchase after twenty-four hours.

After some hesitation, I decided to hire a few status guards for the Guard of Honor who would also prevent the mobs' access to the donjon. After five minutes of fiddling with the settings, a dozen orcs in heavy armor took their posts by the Temple's doors and gates, led by a Lieutenant in a suit of armor embellished with silver. The pleasure of having them cost me fifteen hundred gold. Actually, was I supposed to keep the Temple army all on my own? Again I buried myself in the menu, finally discovering the finance section which said that the First priest had access to 1% of all donations to the Fallen One. At the moment, the sum was negligible as the sheer motivation to earn Faith points hadn't even existed until less than an hour ago: hardly enough time for anyone to have found a Dark priest and dedicated themselves to the only available deity, i.e. Macaria. I was worried, though, that the digitized community had already sussed out all the advantages involved and was now at boiling point and threatening to explode. They didn't need consecration rituals to appreciate the entire range of services offered, so quite a few people had to be ecstatically looking for a suitable priest or altar.