During the meal, the weight of all twenty Bargolas increased significantly. The smallest of them were just a bit thinner than Willow, and their largest member overshadowed Ivan not only in height but also in mass. Either their body wasn’t designed for such rapid growth, or they planned to take the remaining meat to the rest of their tribe.
Once they were done, they stood up and began to cut up the rest of the hog. The Boar was divided into sixty to a hundred portions of twenty pounds. The weaker members were given lighter chunks to carry, while the stronger got the bigger ones. The carriers, accompanied by a couple of guards, ran into the forest to carry their prey home.
The leader raised his spear, his obsidian skin glittering in the sun, and spoke:
“Follow var-waco-uv, ravok-lyk. Okraw-krok village!”
The rest of my squad stared at me in confusion. I shrugged.
“He says to follow them.”
The Bargolas were wary of us. Probably all of them except the leader. I don’t know what prevented them from attacking us; they had the advantage in numbers. Perhaps the sight of us killing the Boar evoked respect in them, making them approach us with peaceful rather than hostile intentions?
The reason why we didn’t attack them was basic human decency — they were friendly toward us... and they knew their way around the forest so we could use them as guides.
“All right, fine, it’s because we need help...”
Moreover, we trusted Valkyrie and her sixth sense. It had saved us from danger more than once. The fact that it wasn’t blaring right now meant that the Bargolas really didn’t wish us any harm.
I nodded and followed the towering leader, motioning to the rest of the group to follow.
Still... Why did he want to take us to his village? Us, a bunch of strangers?
***
The journey took probably an hour and a half. The Bargola leader kept trying to talk to us but the language barrier was just too high. I was interested in learning more about this place and them but Linguistics was slow to level. Unfortunately, the Bargola leader didn’t possess one himself.
We didn’t find out much: the Bargolas lived in a village hidden between thick oaks, right next to river Aal — or something similar, I couldn’t quite understand — that flowed through the location. The tribe had three enemies: first were the Boars; the name of the other two, unfortunately, couldn’t be properly translated. And no matter how hard Lorkal — the leader — tried to mime to us what the other two were, he couldn’t.
After a while, we entered a small village with futuristic-looking houses, resembling teepees or pointed yurts. They were built right next to each other and apparently had allies between them.
The village was located on a small field cleared of vegetation, surrounded by a line of houses that combined both wood and cloth and varied in size from actual houses to tents. It was surrounded on three sides by Aal’s curving riverbed, and on the fourth by the forest. The dense circle of houses was broken only in two places: east and west, for access to the forest and water respectively.
Many of the buildings seemed abandoned but there were quite a few people huddled around the campfires. Everyone, from children that, oddly enough, were bigger than some adults, to elders, greeted the hunters who brought food to the village with joyous shouts. For some reason, they hadn’t begun their meal although everything seemed prepared for it.
As we followed our guides past the campfires, a murmur passed through the crowd. Some pointed at us with a finger of one of their many hands, some timidly hid behind the backs of their more daring comrades, and some just watched. The Bargolas seemed unaccustomed to visitors and were afraid of strangers. However, only a few faces expressed hostility: Lorkal, standing next to us, assured his brothers and sisters that we weren’t here to kill them... though one could argue against that having in mind that we were all armed to the teeth.
***
A lame old man came out of the crowd. He was leaning on a stick, but he still looked quite strong and cheerful.
“Thunder?! Your grum rol! Ugh-kr evil?” he asked Lorkal sternly, nodding in our direction.
The chief hunter was three or four times the size of the old man and obviously respected in the village, but he still bowed respectfully to his elder and politely replied.
“Vyrkl-zokr... Elders of stavk.”
Another old man came out of the building, which was slightly outside the general line of yurts and differed from the other houses in size and material. Unlike the rest, this one was made of stone.
I was mistaken when I called the lame Bargola an old man; the guy who came to greet us was old enough to be the great-grandfather of even the oldest of them. He was hunched over from old age that had made his tail fall off long ago. Wrinkles covered his ashen body and framed his sunken eyes, one of which, it seemed, was affected by some disease that made it shrink to the size of a raisin. He, like the rest of the Bargolas, was barefoot, dressed only in a loincloth adorned with colorful feathers. On his head, he wore a strange metal band.
“Probably a sign of authority,” Amoeba whispered in my ear.
The Bargolas bowed to the elder. They had been waiting for him; no one dared to eat without his permission, even though I could practically hear their stomachs rumbling. The first piece of food always belonged to the chief of the tribe. But Lorkal had said something about there being multiple elders.
So where are they?
The elder flinched at the sight of us but showed no other emotion. He gave Lorkal a slap on the head, then suddenly turned to us and shouted with a heavy accent:
“Follow me!”
Amoeba’s jaw almost hit the floor. He turned to me, and I could tell by his bulging eyes that he understood what the elder had said. The rest of the squad shared his surprise, except for the Goblins and Rat who was too preoccupied with drooling over the meat.
“So... Are we going?” Fang whispered, eyeing the crowd. “He looks like he’ll fall apart if you so much as breathe in his direction.”
Indeed, the elder could hardly stand on his feet. I figured that he didn’t use a cane because he didn’t want his people to see him as anything but a strong leader. Or perhaps I was wrong.
“He must have a skill similar to Loki’s Linguistics...” the usually silent Tail said. “Which is why we can understand him. But I think Loki still understands him better than we do.”
Amoeba looked over at him, surprised to hear him speak this much.
“Same, Amoeba, same!” Fang laughed. “That’s just how Tail is. He doesn’t speak, and when he does, he spits facts.”
“Honorable guests,” the elder spoke once again. “I hope I haven’t lost my touch... You understand me, yes?”
“Yes, erm... Sorry, I... We don’t know how to address you... You took us by surprise,” Valkyrie replied, raising her voice.
“I understand you perfectly well, there’s no need to shout. Go to the Meeting House. I need to begin the feast, my people are waiting. I hope you understand.” The elder chuckled and slowly walked to one of the fires where the hunters were grilling a piece of meat for him.
“To the left,” Spider said and led the way to the rather large Meeting House.
Following us were perhaps a dozen warriors armed with glowing spears. I was asked to leave Rat outside. The rodent expressed his displeasure with a loud snort but complied, lying down at the entrance so that he could instantly run in to help us in case of danger.
***
The dimly lit room was littered with hides, and its wooden walls were adorned with masks. There was only one light source — a glowing piece of metal located on a stone table in the very center of the Meeting House.
More importantly, this was where the Compass was pointing! The fragment was in front of our noses!
“Here’s what I think,” Amoeba mused, looking around at the silent warriors who remained at the entrance. “I don’t think this place is really called the Meeting House. I doubt that anyone but the elder m
akes decisions here, so there’s no reason for the tribe to meet and discuss political or other matters. Most likely, the System chose that name because this place looks like a meeting hall...”
“You are correct,” a hoarse voice said from the gloom.
The guards immediately threw themselves on the floor, bowing to the voice. The biologist paused, looking with interest at the shadows. Narrowing my eyes, I did the same and just barely managed to discern a silhouette in the corner of the room. The ancient elder, old and immobile, lay on the floor, wrapped in numerous hides.
Roval
Stone Faction
Despite his impressive age and withered body — only one of his many arms was still mobile — Roval looked like someone who didn’t intend to die any time soon. Having given Willow a sly wink, he continued:
“Welcome to our hospital wing... The humble circle of elders includes me, Krul-Son who you’ve already met and who is currently feasting on the hog you’ve killed, Nai-Grom, and Woof. Nai-Grom may want to speak to you, but Woof, alas, hasn’t spoken to anyone for over forty years. Worry not, he’s still alive and well. More alive than any of us!” he said cheerfully and lowered his voice. “Just don’t let Aal hear that; otherwise, she’ll get offended and won’t speak with us for days... Hehe... Isn’t that right, Nai?” he asked.
There was a rustle on the opposite side of the room. Turning to the sound, we saw two more bodies buried under the hides. They looked even worse than Roval: thin and dry, almost completely mummified. One of them raised their hand and waved at us.
Nai-Grom
Stone Faction
The guards kneeled and bowed their heads.
It all looked so strange. A few barely alive elders, whose nicknames, unlike those of the rest of the Bargolas and even Krul-Son, were displayed normally, save for the fact that their faction wasn’t named after a color but material for some reason. Roval, who somehow managed to find out what happened not only outside the Meeting House, but several miles away on a hunting trip, although none of the villagers would’ve had the time to come and tell him all this. Not to mention that they were speaking fluent Russian!
A bolt of lightning flashed to our right. A second later, Nai-Grom’s body rose into the air, surrounded by a semi-transparent haze.
Nai-Grom, whose shriveled-up body was covered with green fungi, made a graceful step toward us and sat on a stump, which had been rolled to him by two guards.
“Oho, he’s alive! Ah, you old bastard...” Roval chuckled from his corner, greeting his friend with his one hand.
“Of course I am,” Nai-Grom whispered faintly. “The last time strangers came to our village was while my grandfather was still alive... Today should go down in Bargola history!”
“Don’t rush things, my dear Nai,” Roval said and turned to Amoeba. “His grandfather! Ha! You can imagine how long ago that was...”
A moment later, Krul-Son walked into the Meeting Hall and handed Nai-Grom and Roval several pieces of roasted meat, then sat down on another stump and stared at us with interest.
“I believe some introduction and explanations are in order, yes?” Roval said, chewing.
And so the elders began their strange and at the same time frightening story.
***
These were the last members of the Stone Faction who still had their skills and who hadn’t fallen under the System’s malign influence. The oldest of them, Woof, had been slowly fading away for the past forty years. He probably wouldn’t make it to see half of the faction gain the ability to use their skills, or witness the village and its inhabitants grow and develop.
Next in age was Roval, followed by Nai-Grom. They, too, could boast of their longevity (even though they had long stopped counting the years) and numerous skills. The youngest, Krul-Son, had but a handful of skills. He was the last elder. There were no more of them in the village nor will there ever be more.
“Could the elders be considered players?” I wondered. I doubted it. Rather, they were the closest descendants of players, separated from them by several generations. Could they be NPCs then? It was hard to say. But there was certainly more NPC blood — or code — in them.
The Bargolas were an ancient group of people. So much so that none of the elders knew even the approximate number of generations that separated them from the players even though Rovan was at least five hundred years old. And the further back the story went, the more cloudy the chronology became. As the cult of elders existed in the Bargola society — which explained why the younger ones respected their elders — Roval was able to name several of their relatives before finally moving on to the story of their people.
“When did the first Bargola show up...? Ah... Probably when the world was created.”
He said it so casually, as if it were a given fact. And I believed him. Amoeba chuckled, saying that without proper evidence or some written proof, the story was nothing but a legend. Still, he understood that there was no point in arguing with the elder so he didn’t try to convince Roval otherwise.
“Since the creation of the world...”
If what he said was true, then the faction was made up exclusively out of the First Ones (as Roval called them), but there were also the Second Ones — Bargolas themselves — NPCs like our Goblins, made to help their creators.
When asked how exactly the First Ones appeared in the Game, Nai-Grom told us a strange legend that resembled a plot from Norse mythology: two gods created them from trees. Judging by how the Bargolas looked, the story made a lot of sense: their numerous arms were like branches, and their long fingers only added to the similarity.
“Our ancestors didn’t live here, in these woods... They inhabited the other side of the Crossing. But then... Then disaster struck,” Roval continued.
One of the Gods, whose name the elders refused to say because of superstitious fear, hated the First Ones so they killed most of them.
The second God managed to save the remaining people by showing them the way to the Portal. The First Ones fled in terror from the mad God who chased them, passing through new Portals until they no longer heard the God’s roaring. Having escaped their pursuer, they found themselves in a strange forest, where the System’s mechanic had undergone some significant changes.
The Portal through which they had escaped was immediately blocked by a pile of white stones that could now be found in a nearby clearing. Over time, these stones became something sacred and thus the faction got its name — the Stone Faction. The Portal itself gradually acquired the status of a gateway to hell, where the mad God waited for their return. Oddly enough, the Bargolas had no issues with other Portals, although they never used them.
“And here we can see the emergence of paganism. A cursed portal, evil gods, sacred stones...” Amoeba’s voice came over the comm channel. Interesting as his observations were, it was good that he didn’t share them with the locals.
“Their new home turned out to be a hell of its own,” Roval continued. “The flora here is very different from the one on the other side of the Crossing.”
The forest was surrounded by an impenetrable mountain range, through which even the Bargolas couldn’t pass. However, after some time, one of Woof’s great-great-grandfathers found a path tucked behind some high rocks. But Roval promised to tell us about that later.
So, the Bargolas and the First Ones were trapped. They had lost too much too quickly: their home, most of their kin, their habitat... But life went on. They built a new settlement, hunted, and protected each other from the local monsters: giant hogs, snakes, and the Leshyes — the only species that could increase their mass almost without restrictions.
Time passed. The First Ones grew old. Some of them died from fangs and claws, while others died of old age. As their race neared extinction, they formed a faction with the Bargolas to continue the lineage and allow their offspring to use skills that were otherwise unavailable to NPCs.
***
Roval spoke of the First Ones as if they wer
e some sort of legendary beings: with exaggerated respect and self-deprecation. I wondered who these players were that merged with NPCs and passed on their skills to protect them.
How long did it take for the players to make a base and gain access to the Lab? How many times did they try making a new species and failed? I couldn’t imagine how much tinkering it took. But still, no matter how hard they tried, the man-made species couldn’t help the players continue their lineage: the Game didn’t perceive them as a part of itself, and thus didn’t allow them to create new life. The only way was to merge with the Bargolas.
But this revelation didn’t put a stop to what was in motion. There was less and less player blood in each new generation of the Bargolas. If this generation, the seventh one according to Roval’s estimates, only had half of what their ancestors had had... It was a matter of time before Bargolas returned to being just NPCs.
“Nature began to penetrate into the very essence of our people... We realized that we were acquiring the characteristics of the local inhabitants... The hogs... The snakes... The Leshyes...”
The first incident occurred when Roval was still a child. A new member of the faction had been born and they soon discovered that the baby’s appetite was far too big for someone so small. By the age of ten, the child was bigger than most of the warriors. However, with the growing mass, the child’s intellectual abilities decreased. He wasn’t even fifteen when he, by his own stupidity, died, eaten by a Leshy that had made its way into the village.
The ability to gain weight through eating increased with each subsequent generation. In order to preserve their intelligence, they had to restrict the amount of food consumed. Sometimes by using force. This was why the old man who came to greet us was so strict with Lorkal. He had brought too much food; too much temptation.
But they could no longer alter the gene pool. From an advanced civilization that had kept all of the local inhabitants in check, armed with firearms (or something similar that used plasma instead of gunpowder), the Bargolas slowly turned into a primitive tribe that still retained the achievements of their civilized ancestors, but wasn’t able to replicate them or make new ones — this included spears with glowing tips.
Reborn: Evolution: A LitRPG Series (Warlock Chronicles Book 3) Page 17
