Clan Dominance - the Sleepless Ones 2

by Dem Mikhailov

  I spent a total of thirty gold pieces at the Elemental Department, which made my purse a whole lot lighter.

  Once I was out and breathing fresh air again, I smiled happily. It was nice to feel rich, and it was nice to know I could barge into any shop and buy virtually any equipment I’d need — for my puny level, obviously.

  As I was walking toward Algora’s central square, I distributed my free stat points, or, rather, dumped all of them into Intellect.

  Character's current level: 23.

  Character's Basic Stats:

  Strength: 16

  Intellect: 60

  Agility: 11

  Stamina: 17

  Wisdom: 17

  Points available for distribution: 0

  As soon as my Intellect reached sixty points, I got the long-coveted achievement:

  Achievement unlocked!

  You have received an achievement: Wisdom, Tier 2.

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

  Your reward:

  +1.5% to the chance of identifying an object.

  +75 MP

  Current chance of successful identification: 6.2%.

  Current mana bonus level: +125

  That meant true commitment. I would no longer invest any stat points into Stamina to be on the safe side. It was doubtlessly one of the key elements of a character’s ability to survive, but I would be using equipment to boost it henceforth — otherwise I could forget about becoming a Navigator anytime soon. All I needed to train were Intellect and Wisdom — as hard as I could, especially since a rather brief system message had notified me that Wisdom, Tier 3, required 100 “native” Intellect points, and it would be an even harder uphill struggle after that.

  There was nothing else for me to do at the Mages’ guild. The mage that had given me the quest involving Grym the werewolf wasn’t present, so, having spent a few minutes in the enormous front hall, I headed straight for the market square.

  It was high time to get properly equipped for the battles to come. This time I’d buy my stuff off player craftsfolk and not the locals. I’d have to pay more, but I’d get better quality, and the items would have more stats bonuses.

  * * *

  The marketplace greeted me with its usual and ceaseless din. I would normally try to keep an ear open in case I might glean some information that would be of use to me later, but at that moment I simply froze in place and bulged my eyes at the amazing sight. I shook my head and rubbed my eyes, but the outlandish and majestic sight did not transform into anything else.

  The enormous fountain standing right in the middle of the square didn’t squirt clear water lazily in its normal fashion. Instead, it disgorged effervescing pillars of water — at least twenty of them, all roaring, as thick as a human body, directed upward and breaking into myriads of sparkling droplets over the bottom of a gigantic ship, swaying in the air lazily, supported by the jets of water, its rigging creaking softly.

  “Well, I’ll be...” I exhaled, peering up, completely riveted.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” A dwarf player passing by nodded understandingly. “It’s the third time I see it, and it still blows my mind.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. The dwarf went on his way, apparently unimpressed by my monosyllabic reply.

  As for me, I continued studying the outlandish thing.

  The ship was nothing short of gigantic. A sharp bowsprit loomed over one end of the square, while the ship’s tall stern nearly touched the walls of the building across. I had no idea how the jets of water could possibly hold such an enormous vessel up in the air, but I was certain magic had been involved. An elephant of a ship. A wooly mammoth. A monster. A dinosaur...

  That was it! A dinosaur! However, it wasn’t the toothy and menacing kind — more of its theme park cousin. The rigging was decorated with thousands of motley streamers flapping in the wind, as well as garish and repetitive ads:

  “Hurry to Zar’Graad!”

  “Land ahoy!”

  “Huge discounts!”

  “Festival lottery! Tickets to Zar’Graad as the main prize!”

  There were firecrackers popping, and the odd occasional Roman candle would flare up every here and there. The ship’s only mast was mind-bogglingly tall and stood in the middle of the deck, also covered in streamers, with an enormous crimson banner on top depicting an eye open wide and watching the world vigilantly through its narrow serpentine pupil.

  My eyes travelled lower to see the deck covered with people milling around the festive tents. The legend Merry Men could be seen on the boards, set in a meandering multicolored font. A wide and sturdy-looking gangway led up to the ship right from the paved square, its railings covered in garlands and bunting.

  I barely managed to tear my eyes away from the ship, stopped a Level 12 elf who’d been hurrying somewhere, pointed at the ship, and asked,

  “What are those tents up there?”

  “Why, they’re shops, of course!” Pointyears replied in astonishment. “Almost all the traders have moved there. Trade and entertainment, all in one place.”

  “I see,” I nodded. “Thanks.”

  “How about my coin?”

  “What coin?”

  “A silver!” the cheeky elf said. “Didn’t I help you? Might as well show some gratitude.”

  “I can see that a common ‘thank you’ is no longer a valid currency in these parts,” I sighed, but I did give him the coin grudgingly.

  “Thanks! Just what I needed to afford some potions!” the elf exclaimed, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

  I chortled approvingly and made for the ship, squeezing through a crowd of players, all talking non-stop. It took some effort, and it must have taken a miracle for me not to have gotten robbed. As soon as I reached the gangway, I joined the ranks of players eager to visit the magnificent ship.

  It looked pretty, for sure, but my considerations were of a more material nature — namely, jackets, trousers, shoes, and other items so necessary for a player’s comfort.

  “That would be my first destination,” I thought to myself, eyeing a bright green tent with some equipment on display greedily. I got off the gangway, stepped onto the deck, took a few more steps... Then, suddenly, the ship gave a heavy groan, the hull gave a labored creek, and the leviathan lurched toward the port, as though preparing for a battle maneuver. Players started to shout in terror, the crowd moving chaotically. Some didn’t manage to stay on deck and went overboard, screaming. There was a loud fanfare and tattoo, and then a rumbling commanding voice said,

  Ahoy! Set sail!

  The Navigator’s aboard!

  Merry Man is now the flagship!

  Flagship Merry Man receives...

  The voice cut itself short for a reason perfectly clear to me — I had no longer been on deck, but rather plummeted down, making somersaults in the air, toward the square’s paving. I hadn’t even managed to think of my reaction before my body moved reflectively. I took a few awkward steps, waved my arms as soon as the ship lurched again, and fell overboard, together with about a dozen other players, remembering to curse and make my eyes bulge as I did so.

  The fall didn’t last more than a second, and it was followed by a hard landing that took some 5% HP off me, the only reason being that I’d deliberately decided against righting myself and let my side get to know the paving intimately. It wasn’t that much of a height — in Waldyra’s terms it was next to nothing. Pretty much everybody here was at least half-superhero, and the folks from comic books had nothing on them.

  I grunted as I rose to my feet, looking at the ship I’d just abandoned with an authentic grimace of bewilderment, scratching the back of my head and hoping sincerely I wasn’t overdoing it with the display of emotion. I looked around me, noting the expressions on the faces of the people around, and hastened to add a mixture of disbelief and admiration to mine. I stood like that for a while, looking around me, and then slowly edged toward the first row of the captivated audience
gathered around the Merry Man, stopped next to a group of four players, and asked enthusiastically,

  “Hey, guys, what was it? There was a roar, and some ringing, and a voice...”

  “It was a system announcement,” one of the players, a dark-haired human, said, his eyes still fixed on the enormous ship that had just stopped lurching.

  The girl in a tight leather tunic standing next to him displayed more emotion.

  “If I understood correctly, the Navigator had just boarded the ship. You know, the player who’d studied a unique spell and could lead the ships to the lost continent. But who could it be?”

  “The Navigator!” I exclaimed, realizing in the nick of time that it would be most unadvisable to pretend to be a hick who’d never heard of the latest sensation. “The very one! Wow!”

  “I should go easy on the ham part,” I thought to myself.

  Or was I just being paranoid? It was rather hard to assess the convincingness of one’s performance when you’d just gotten out of what could have been a really tight spot.

  The players I’d been chatting with moved away, and I gave a sigh of relief, relaxing... then instantly tensing again as a very purposeful-looking player passed within a pace of me, the hem of his cloak touching me briefly. I observed him for a while, managing to notice how he’d raised his head for a moment, exchanged glances briefly with the player standing on Merry Man’s deck, shook his head, and disappeared into the crowd again.

  What the...

  One didn’t have to be a genius to realize the player had been looking for someone, and that the someone in question was none other but yours truly.

  It was time to make tracks. I’d wait just a little longer, stroll around the square, gape at the ship, and then disappear without attracting attention. I’ve gotten really lucky with getting aboard as part of a large group of players. Had I been on my own...

  “Gangway! Hey, guys, step just a few paces away. We need to place a beacon here.”

  The very same fair-haired player stopped a few paces away from me and carefully placed a small object on the ground. There was a small iridescent flash that started growing instantly. When the light dispersed, there were three more players on the square.

  One was a gigantic half-orc warrior in a full suit of red steel armor, an almond shield in his left hand, and a scimitar behind his back. The player’s level was 247.

  Another was a short and burly dwarf with a short straw-colored beard and bright blue eyes. He might have seemed a pygmy next to the half-orc, yet his level was even higher — 259, no less. And the dwarf was wearing even more armor than the half-orc.

  The third was a slender human figure in a tight suit of black leather. The girl had a huge mass of raven-black hair, with hazel eyes glowing bright on a delicate pale face. She had no visible weapons. I tried to find out her level, and nearly choked — the nickname was Baroness, but instead of numbers there was nothing but a series of question marks floating next to it.

  Baroness... The nickname seemed familiar.

  “Baroness!” an astonished voice said from the crowd. “It’s the Black Baroness, clan leader of the Sleepless Ones!”

  “It really is her.”

  “Let me through!”

  I instinctively pressed my back into the crowd, allowing it to move past me and get between me and the new arrivals.

  Damn... What was happening? Were they after me?

  Baroness gave everyone a dazzling smile and set toward the ship in a light gait, making a come-here gesture to the fair-haired player, whose disposition was anything but happy.

  I leaned forward, almost touching somebody’s back, and, standing on tiptoe, managed to get a few snippets of other people’s voices through the din.

  “Baroness! I dream of being in your clan! I’m a tank!”

  “And the Crimson Lynx! He must have won at least a hundred tournaments...”

  “Couldn’t identify him... The place was packed... And the ship gave a lurch, people went overboard by the dozen...”

  “Missed him? How could you?”

  “Hey, Baroness, what’s your level?!”

  “Who are these Sleepless Ones, anyway?”

  “Have you been living under a rock or something? They’re Waldyra’s top clan!”

  “I told you the gangway should be narrow! One at a time, two tops! This is a freaking highway!”

  “That’s how we did it... The crowd was going wild with so many of them packed in so tight a space... So the Immos turned up, waved a hand, and the gangway became five times wider... No stampedes allowed. They had the audacity to smile as they left, too, in a don’t-thank-us sort of way. There’s no arguing with that lot...”

  I decided that I’d learned enough, so I took a step back and allowed the more curious players to push past me. After about a minute I was already at the back of the crowd, and then left unhurriedly, heading for a nearby shop — an extension of a residential building facing the street.

  The agitation was over, and the square was filled with laughter and friendly banter — people were discussing the recent antics of the enormous ship, expressing their envy for the lucky ones who’d managed to get on the brand new Merry Man amusement ride. Free entertainment was good enough already, not to mention the recent live appearance of top players. But the magic word Navigator could be heard the most often, as well as the word “who.” It seems that everybody suddenly had nothing else on their mind than the mysterious player’s identity.

  I kept walking in the direction I’d chosen unhurriedly, looking perfectly calm, trying to solve the conundrum of whether or not it had been a coincidence.

  It just sounded too far-fetched that they’d bring an enormous ship to the very center of the market square and suspend it above a fountain, having spent a great deal of time and resources to make it happen. They definitely needed to arrange things with the Immortals, too — not even a mouse could scuttle across a peaceful location without them knowing. But the instant arrival of the Baroness and the bits of conversation I’d managed to overhear suggested it might have been just the case.

  Having passed yet another group of players laughing as they discussed “Merry Man’s antics” and everybody tumbling overboard, I chuckled involuntarily. Sure, good, harmless fun. Had this happened in an amusement park IRL, no one would have been laughing now — more like swearing profusely. Not to mention injuries.

  Having reached the place I needed, I entered the shop and nodded politely to the shopkeeper, a local. The choice wasn’t anything to write home about — the best wares were now sold on Merry Man’s deck, a place inaccessible to me. That’s where the game’s elite craftsmen sold their stuff. They didn’t man the counters themselves, obviously — hired help took care of that. The best items could usually be found at such outlets. And all of this was on sale, according to the ads on the ship. More’s the pity.

  There were a few ultra-elitist shops selling weapons and equipment in the city, but their prices were beyond ridiculous — they were utterly and completely incomprehensible. A simple pair of pants could cost you a few hundred golden pieces.

  “Come right in, kind sir!” The shopkeeper smiled welcomingly as he greeted me. “Won’t you take a look at these leather boots? They’re nothing short of a work of art!”

  “Shopkeepers notice everything,” I thought somberly as I wiggled my toes with a melancholy feeling.

  However, the boots were indeed excellent — knee-high, made of brown leather that even looked soft, thick soles, and sophisticated embroidery in red. And they were perfect for a Level 20 player.

  I inquired in a bored and untroubled voice of a man who has nowhere to hurry,

  “May I take a look?”

  “Of course! Just feel the leather! As fine as it goes, but it’s also incredibly strong! And just right for you! A perfect match!”

  Such phrases as “just right,” “a little on the small side,” “a tad oversized,” and their variations were used by local vendors for referring to a
player’s level. “A perfect match” meant that the boots were made just for my level range. I only had to take them in my hands and examine them closely to realize that it was indeed the case.

  Dark Swamp Boots

  Type: equipment

  Minimum level required: 20.

  Description: Sturdy and well-made high boots with elegant red embroidery. Ideal for the seasoned traveler and suitable for any terrain. These luxurious boots are made from the hide of the Murky Drock, a creature that only lives in the foul waters of the Ravendark Swamp.