Clan Dominance - the Sleepless Ones 2

by Dem Mikhailov

  “I’ve gathered as much already,” I hurried to stop his monologue. “But, most esteemed guard, would you kindly pass on a few words to Lord Cedry for me? I know your master is a collector of all sorts of rare items and curios from faraway lands. I happen to have something of interest with me...”

  “You can give it to me,” the guard reached a hand for me again. “I’ll give it to the steward, and he’ll pass it on to Lord Cedry. If the item is worthy, you’ll get a fair price.”

  “Damn,” I muttered angrily. “It’s a rather valuable thing, and I wouldn’t want to entrust it to any middleman. On the other hand, if I could see the lord of the manor himself...”

  “As you wish,” the guard shrugged, his face stony again. “Be on your way, good traveler.”

  “There is a mortal danger hanging over Lord Cedry’s precious life, and only I can warn him...” I tried another approach.

  “That’s why we’re here, my good traveler. We guard him from all dangers. Be on your way.”

  It was the second time the guard told me to skedaddle. The next warning would be the last, and if I didn’t move away from the gate, the guards would attack me. One blow of the horrible halberd would see me fly screaming to the nearest respawn location.

  I took a few steps back, looked at the impervious gates regretfully, and shouted angrily,

  “I’ll ask your brother to write another dozen letters to keep you entertained!”

  “Ugh!” The poor guard winced, but stayed silent.

  As for me, I sighed heavily, scratched the back of my head, spat into the roadside dust, and plodded on back. There was no choice. I’d have to complete quests given by the local peasants until I was blue in the face — or, rather, until they started treating me with proper awe.

  Damn! Why did it always have to be so complicated?

  Anyway, one should always look at the bright side of life. I’d complete a few quests, level up, save up some money, and buy some equipment. Without slowing down, I unwaveringly distributed my 15 free points. The result pleased my eye:

  Character's current level: 19.

  Character's Basic Stats:

  Strength: 16

  Intellect: 50

  Agility: 11

  Stamina: 17

  Wisdom: 17

  Points available for distribution: 0

  Ten points into Intellect, and five more into Wisdom. A small voice inside me kept insisting that Stamina was important to any character, too, but I decided to ignore it. Mana... I needed mana a lot more than I needed Stamina.

  Then I thought to myself, why don’t I take a few steps away from the road and do some hunting? What a great idea...

  * * *

  I wheezed hoarsely as I grabbed another branch that groaned under my weight, pulled myself up, and sat down upon it. Stamina was deep in the red, blinking. I hurried to hug the thin tree trunk with both my arms, clinging to it for dear life.

  Achievement unlocked!

  You have received an achievement: Tree-climber, Tier 1.

  You can see the table of achievements in your character's menu.

  Your reward: +1% to the speed of climbing trees.

  Current level of the bonus: +1%.

  The snake, looking much worse for the wear, crawled out of my sleeve, gave me an admonitory look with its beady little eyes and instantly vanished into the air. Out of mana. My HP level was also in the red, with less than a quarter left. The stats didn’t look promising. I groaned looking down at the ground, hissing,

  “May you burn in hell!”

  The three wolves sitting underneath me licked their snouts simultaneously, looking at me hungrily. The beast on the left scratched the ground with his paw, as if to tell me they had something to discuss.

  “Yeah, right! You’ll have to get me first!” I said in a gruff voice, looking around me hauntedly.

  Two of the wolves could have come from a picture in a book — thick gray fur, narrow snouts with clever eyes, and furry tails. The third looked a lot less pretty — his fur was singed in a few places, his tail looked like a burned-out match, and one of his ears was badly mauled. I’d thrown all I could at the beast — fire magic, Thorn Hedge, and a few blows with a staff. After that, the bastard’s companions had appeared from the bushes, and I’d been forced to flee.

  Most disconcertingly, wolves were resilient to certain elements. My ice needle stuck in the dense fur, doing virtually no damage, and the beasts were not afraid of the cold. Thorn Hedge would occasionally misfire, too — the animal I’d attacked dodged the thorny bushes appearing out of thin air very gracefully twice, and tore through them three more times, although it had cost him a lot of HP. However, fire magic worked against them, so that was the only thing that had allowed me to escape.

  “That was some hunt,” I grumbled, looking at the wolves sitting underneath with profound loathing. “It sure ain’t easy being a mage.”

  One of the beasts below growled in agreement and sniffed the tree bark pensively.

  I’d had a very bright idea — or so I’d thought.

  Just a short distance away from the village, I’d turned away from the road and headed into the woods, intending to hunt the local fauna. I’d thought I could harvest a few tails to complete another quest, and level up a bit, too.

  It didn’t take me long to find the wolves — in fact, they’d found me themselves. So there I was sitting on top of a thin pine swaying dangerously, with two ravenous beasts waiting for me at the bottom, one of whom bore me a serious grudge for singeing his nose with the Burning Ember.

  “So what are you waiting for?” I inquired somberly, wishing my HP and mana could regenerate just a little bit faster. “Beat it.”

  The derisive grunts let me know in no uncertain terms that the wolves had no intention of leaving.

  “You smelly shaggy carpets!” I sighed disappointedly, taking my time setting a Lesser Healing into my left palm and touching my cheek. “Don’t you have anything better to do? I’m not going anywhere, anyway!”

  Climbing down the tree was indeed the furthest from my mind. I didn’t even manage to handle a single wolf, and there were three enormous beasts facing me now and wishing to get to know me intimately. I’d wait for mana to regenerate, heal, restore some more energy, and unleash my artillery upon the wolves — a rain of fire and thorny bushes. And I’d start with the wounded wolf whose HP bar was yellow and only a quarter full.

  It was as if the wolf had heard my thoughts — it licked its nose, singed by my spell, again, then again... Then its wide tongue really went into action, licking every burnt place on its sides. The wounded wolf’s companions, sitting next to him, sniffed him, and then their pink tongues joined the action. In a moment, the wolf was already looking better. The ear was no longer lopsided, and there was new fur growing on his tail.

  “Hey!” I yelled in alarm. “That’s cheating!”

  I was only given a brief glance to make sure I was still dangling at the top of the tree, and the healing procedures continued.

  “Hey, guys, this ain’t fair,” I tried to shame the wolves as I kept healing myself as fast as I could. “Also... Three guys licking each other under the tail? That’s, like, eating ass in public! You’ll be the talk of the forest! Hey, give over already!”

  While I was giving the wolves my impassioned speech, they’d licked their friend to full health and stared at me again. I also managed to restore my health in the meantime, my HP bar at ¾. Three bites for three wolves, one each. The Weariness bar went paler and disappeared softly; my Stamina was fully restored. That wasn’t bad, either.

  Now I needed to make a quick decision. Given the lupine regenerative abilities, I’d never manage to pick them off one by one from the top of the tree. Try to run away? It would be madness — wolves ran much faster, and for much longer. At any rate, longer and faster than me. They were wolves, after all.

  Wait here forever? Not an option.

  I sighed, looked around, and winced disappointedly — I w
as sitting on top of a solitary pine with no trees nearby. Some five or seven paces behind me there was a vertical rocky slope without any signs of vegetation.

  The wall of rock reached high up; some 100 feet higher it became curved and went up for another 50 feet. I looked up, scrutinized the rock above me, and made a sour face. Too high up — I’d never make the jump, and there was nothing to hold on to. No cracks, no bushes with sturdy roots, no vines hanging down conveniently that I could use to play Tarzan. Damn!

  There was an exchange of short grunts and roars from below, and the wolves got to their feet.

  Had they gotten tired of waiting? Were they leaving?

  Before I could get my hopes too high, the wolves sniffed at the ground in a businesslike manner, roared a few more times, as though they were discussing the scope of the task before them, and then started digging the ground with their front paws — very quickly, too. I was looking in terror at the pit growing right before my eyes, with tangled roots underneath.

  They were undermining the very foundations of my hope — that is, the pine. What bastards!

  I may have been imagining things, but the pine started swaying much stronger. But why would that be mere imagination? This wasn’t real life, after all. These assholes could fell the tree by digging easily.

  “Hey! Have they upgraded your software, or what? Patched a few things? You’re not supposed to be that clever!” I yelled, panicked. “Guys! Don’t!”

  The wolves paid no attention to me screaming and carried on with their former zeal.

  “The forestry department will hear about this!” I whined, feeling doomed and turning my head this way and that. “This is a national park! Vandals!”

  I really didn’t want to die, being almost at Level 20. I’d get there very shortly, and I’d lose at least half my XP in case of my death.

  I gazed at the rock wall and kept on looking. That was my only chance. If I jumped as hard as I could, I could reach the rock with the tips of my fingers and hopefully find some purchase. A tiny chance indeed, but a chance nevertheless.

  Then it dawned on me and I slapped myself on the forehead in annoyance, nearly falling off my branch.

  I did have just the spell for this occasion — namely, Sticky Vine!

  I scrambled for my grimoire, setting Sticky Vine into my right hand and cursing myself for not having tried it out later. I glanced at the usage instructions, and it was a pretty standard affair — I just needed to wave my hand as if I’d had a long whip in my hand.

  I heard the cracking of roots being torn apart from underneath, and the pine groaned as it started to fall.

  I cursed as I turned toward the wall and waved my hand in a sweeping gesture. A thin greenish whip reached for the rock, and fell powerlessly, falling some six feet short. There was a wet cracking sound, the blood-curdling popping of the roots being torn apart; then the tree shuddered, and started falling slowly, with myself on top of it. And it wasn’t falling in the right direction, either — the opposite, more like.

  “Shit!” I yelled, pushing against the trunk as I straightened my legs and leapt into the air. “One! Two! Three!” I waved my hand and the thin green vine reached for the approaching rock again. I kept focusing my sight on a small dark spot against the grey background — that protruding rock would be the target for my vine, if its nine-foot length sufficed...

  The rest of it happened virtually simultaneously. First I heard a loud slap, and Sticky Vine showed that it lived up to its name, having stuck to the rock. The inertia of the jump had only taken me so far, so I gave a loud yell as I swung through the air in a graceful curve and crashed into the rock, managing to let my half-bent legs bear the brunt of the impact. A split second later the pine gave its final creak and crashed to the ground. The wolves roared disappointedly. So I did manage, after all.

  “Cool. Tarzan has nothing on me,” I muttered, impressed by my brief flight bravely. “Come to think of it, neither does Spiderman.”

  Having made sure I’d stuck to the rock and wasn’t about to fall, I checked out the character stats first. My HP scale was almost full and regenerating slowly but steadily. The mana bar was doing the opposite, occasionally going up by a fraction, and then dwindling again. My mana regeneration speed was much higher now, but still insufficient for using such spells on a constant basis.

  I took a short look underneath me to see the wolves running back and forth chaotically, and gave an evil chuckle. They wouldn’t be able to either mount the vertical wall or undermine the rock that had towered above the woodlands. They could, however, wait for my energy to run out and for me to fall into their maws like a delicious ripe apple.

  I examined the rock and found a small ledge above me, wide enough to stand on, grabbed onto the vine and started to pull myself up using only my hands. I sure was lucky to be in a game. A similar situation in real world would find me incapable of such exercise, given my physical condition, that had deteriorated enormously.

  I gingerly tried the ledge with one of my feet, and, having made sure it could hold my weight, rested my body on it, instantly deactivating my mana hog of a spell.

  I no longer paid any attention to the beasts raging underneath, concentrating on the vertical rock surface instead. Five minutes later I found a more or less comfortable way upstairs with wide cracks in the rock, small ledges, some holes, and even a long rock shelter. And I also had the vine to rely on. All of the above gave me about an 80% chance of reaching the top.

  The mana got restored a little, and I got straight to business without losing any time. A brief wave of the hand, and the rustling vine reached up to get stuck to another piece of rock. A few quick motions of my hands, and there I was on another ledge, pulling myself ever higher, holding on to every crack.

  Achievement unlocked!

  You have received an achievement: Rock-climber, Tier 1.

  You can see the table of achievements in your character's menu.

  Your reward:

  Your reward: +1% to motion over vertical rock surfaces.

  +1% to navigating vertical rock surfaces.

  Current level of the bonus: +1%.

  A rock-climber... Now, that was a first...

  So far, so good. I’d have to repeat the same operation around thirty more times, and I’d be at the top of the hill, behind which lay the bight of the river and Selene.

  * * *

  I’d never been interested in rock-climbing, but, oddly enough, it didn’t take me that long to get used to it. Even more surprisingly, the monotonous movement forward was beginning to become enjoyable. Soon enough there was but a single fragment of my way left, and the vine had already stuck — all I’d needed to do was to climb up, yet I kept procrastinating. As I was swinging above the abyss, watching the faraway treetops and enormous rocks scattered here and there on the ground, I couldn’t help but start thinking.

  How much was I losing really?

  I could have been climbing an actual mountaintop now instead of spending days inside the game, and the wind blowing in my face could have been real, not virtual.

  And my body was lying in a plastic sarcophagus with a silly pot on its head. Only my mind was enjoying itself. A fake pleasure — a counterfeit, a simulacrum... But I was getting too far away there. Was I tired? The last few days were anything by easy. Or was there a glitch in my carefully-maintained state of suspended animation?

  I chortled, dangled my feet in the air in a silly manner, and swiftly climbed the vine, looking ever upward. I could climb a virtual peak, at least. That would be an achievement in itself. I grabbed a craggy rock and gave a shudder when someone’s hand grabbed me by the wrist, and something pulled me up and over the edge of the rock as if I was a feather.

  I looked up to see a widely grinning fanged face of a half-orc player.

  “Thanks, Gyrfalcon...” I returned the smile, pulling up my feet.

  “You’re welcome,” the half-orc shrugged and swung his hand, pulling me closer at the same time.

&
nbsp; I only managed to see the blade of a sword flashing through the air, and there was a crimson flash before my eyes. And then another, when the half-orc struck again, burying his blade in my open throat.

  A crit!

  Poisoned!

  You have a mild poisoning and instantly need to take an antidote or to cast a purification spell!

  Cause: poisoned blade.

  There were constant crimson flashes before my eyes, a long system message popped up informing me of my critical condition, and I could see the half-orc’s smirking mug in the background.