The Way of the Clan 8

by Dem Mikhaylov

  Stars are in the day sky!

  A star flew over Algora again! Gloomy and terrible, formidable, capable of incinerating a small army with a single magic blow ... this time, fortunately, no one was hurt. The ancient creation was last seen somewhere over the lively Plosefont. Everyone was scared. Eyewitnesses say that they say angels in the sky — the Immortals, who always stand guard, in order to protect the peace.

  Free pirate in service of a clan!

  Information was received from reliable sources that the pirate admiral Doug Doubloon, widely known in the maritime community, was hired by the Storm Warning clan! Omitting the details of the terrible past of the pirate admiral, we cannot but admit that he is the most skilled marine specialist who can manage a whole host of ships at any time of the day and in any weather. There are persistent rumors that Doug Doubloon has a set of special skills that allow him to see threats in advance - be it reef, storm or even whirlpool. It is rumored that the ships under his command will have a great advantage!

  From the top of the mountain - into the sea!

  This may be hard to believe, but it is a fact - many witnesses swear to themselves that they saw dozens of large warships descend one by one over the ice slope of a tall mountain! They descended from the mountain like an avalanche and safely reached the ice-covered coast, after which they opened fire from all of their magical guns, literally blowing up the ice plateau, cutting out a passage for themselves in the ice, a passage filled with black water. Soon the warships disappeared behind the horizon, leaving dozens of dumbfounded onlookers on the beach...

  Infection in the Dark Edge!

  Attention to all adventurers! Something is going on in the ancient forest of Dark Edge! The swampy forest was once considered a ruinous place, but now everything has deteriorated epically! There is an epidemic! A terrible epidemic of unknown diseases has swept over the Dark Edge! The terrible diseases spare no one! The healers fight the infestation coming from the forest, but they are defeated! Already two cities are affected by the epidemic and closed off in quarantine! The observers hovering in the air pass on the details of those terrible nightmares, which are happening on the tightly closed streets of quarantined cities! Why such a breakthrough in disease? Why are they so serious that it is almost impossible to cope with them? What is this punishment of heaven for the Dark Edge? Who will save the unfortunate patients from imminent death? The light gods, surely! Time to pray!

  Putting aside the issue of the Bulletin of Valdira, I looked up and immediately winced - a hot dry wind struck my face, instantly filling my mouth with sand.

  “It is dry at Dry Wind city,” Malice laughed, covering the lower part of his face with a wide white bandage – “Here, such winds are not uncommon. Let’s keep going…”

  "I see," I said, looking forward.

  Malice and I sat side by side in a flimsy two-seater wagon harnessed by two running camels. The heat around us was terrible. But we had not even reached the desert — only its vestibule. Five or so kilometers to the town of Dry Wind, located on a salted, lifeless plain south of the vast desert. The city itself was covered with a magical canopy that prevented teleportation. A security measure to protect against volatile magical units inhabiting the desert and performing military raids. Therefore, you could get to the city on foot, on horseback, on wings, or on wheels. We chose the latter option. Not the fastest and not the most expensive. Not that we needed to save money — on the contrary, I would have been glad to spend more to save time. In this case, it was not required - the place we needed was half a kilometer from the border of Dry Wind, near the camp of the local guards.

  As explained by malice, there was a crooked little house there, built from all sorts of miscellanea - chipped stumps of wood, skin, broken bricks, ordinary stones, and even the sand itself - it was filled in the slot floor and the walls, in order to keep out poisonous snakes and scorpions, which were everywhere.

  The country was a very dry one. And not a single well was nearby. Water was delivered to the house by a local water carrier, which was an old trolley laden with a large barrel, dragged by a donkey with a bald spot. Nearby strode a stooped old man who looked like a roast turkey in the oven, his skin almost black, his few teeth the same color, and snow-white hair reaching down to his narrow, bony shoulders. The water in the barrel was muddy, already orange from the large admixture of clay, and warm. It is a pity to water plants with it, much less to drink...

  The whole procession moved slowly towards the little house with stops every minute- the donkey began to argue, the bony grandfather danced alongside and, in a frenzy, whipped the stubborn cattle with a scrap of rope. At one point, when the water truck reached almost to the goal, an old woman wrapped in white clothes jumped out of the house and started to commemorate the old man himself, so that his devil would quickly take him to his place, because for a year already he cannot deliver water on time! There was nothing to pour on her favorite flower and nothing to drink for her beloved old chicken. Granny was obviously preparing insulting speeches in advance, spitting out curses like watermelon seeds. The donkey, taking advantage of the situation, closed his eyes and plunged into slumber. This presentation lasted no less than three and not more than five minutes.

  Exactly enough time to get into the house through the back window, which was covered with a scrap of skin.

  The hen! That was the purpose of the operation!

  A shabby and almost naked quivering chicken, old and almost blind, sitting on the bed with importance. The chicken head was shaking badly, and the wings bare, causing such a sense of pity that even the most fanatical animal lover wanted to take a sharp hatchet and put the animal out of its misery.

  I was warned by Malice - I could not touch the bird at all! In no case! For it was not a chicken — but something like a demon that took the shape of a bird. No one knew for sure. Someone had once been unable to restrain themselves and decided to touch it. The bird sent the thief out of the house — first, with claws and a beak, tearing off the leather clothes and metal plaques of armor, until he was in his diaper and in this form drove him out into the yard, where he finished him off. And then, with dreary, clucking lamentations, the chicken returned to the house.

  While I was trying to imagine it, Malice gave me the following instructions: I need to get into the house, and sneak to the bed, after which I would lay down one gold coin before the dormant. That is all. For this feat, I would be rewarded in kind — plus three percent of mana for a period of one month. But it was dangerous! If the old woman came back to the house and found me with her beloved hen - damn! Her curse would deprive me five percent of mana - again for a month. So that this did not happen, Malice assured me that he would put, before the entrance to the house, a stone magical wall. Still, he said, do not screw it up — because three percent of mana is three percent of mana.

  Right…

  Oh Valdira, how multifaceted you are!

  “And how did the players recognize this secret?” I asked.

  “Fuck knows,” Malice spread his hands. “But the secret is only shared with a select few.”

  Makes sense. Three percent of mana is not superfluous – not even to warriors, who often use magical healing and auras. And that's why the secret with the chicken was to be kept a secret. Otherwise, everyone would be running up here with a gold coin in their sweaty fist.

  The carriage stopped about two hundred meters from the right house. Yup. A classic house of a desert witch from oriental tales. In this house, you would not find a kind old woman. But the here grandmother was not really that angry — or else she would not have been allowed to live even on the outskirts of the city. She was still not far from the city of Dry Wind, and if you looked around, there were many military camps filled with soldiers nearby. The army of Algora was stationed here — afraid of the threat from desert clans.

  Sliding from the cart to the ground, I threw up the cold coin in the air and caught it, and tossed it up again, glancing at the slowly approaching house.


  "It is time," said Malice, "Go get them, champion!”

  "Phew," I breathed, trying not to laugh. What is the Great Navigator doing? An important matter! Piling golden coins under the chicken!

  As soon as the front door creaked, I changed my pace to a light jog, running to the window curtained with a jackal hide. The air from the heat swayed in the desert air so much that sometimes the house seemed only a mirage woven by my dehydrated imagination...

  I came back four minutes later. Covered with dust, spider webs and white dense stuff the origin of which I preferred not to even think about. The battlemage glanced at me and winced.

  "I see by your joyful face that everything has worked.”

  "It has," I admitted.

  “And you got the bonus?”

  “Got it.”

  “Nice. Let us move on. To the city of Dry Wind. I'm riding on the wagon, and you're running behind it.”

  “Why, may I ask?”

  "You stink... demonic sweat."

  “Let me smear it on you! And we will run after the empty cart together!” I promised, sitting down in my previous place. “Where to, now?”

  "We continue north. In Dry Wind, we will join any of the military supply carts bound for fortified guard posts in the desert. As soon as we get out from under the magic canopy forbidding teleportation - we will jump to one of the posts, where a small detachment of our fighters is waiting. And together we will move to the ruins of Mirny town.”

  I was glad of the conversation – the trek to the city took about twenty minutes, the road passing through the desert flatlands. I was of the opinion that a good conversation cuts every road in half — unless it is a flight to Mars.

  "This is true," Malice, grinned gleefully. "The desert people are rather formidable. If you learn to repel attacks of living sand and lightning — then, believe me – many other battles will seem to you like nonsense. Those of us who are recruited as full-fledged warriors immediately go here to train - in order to fully enjoy the pain of defeat and humiliation. But after that, they become like flint. Those who excel in the desert are sent to the island. For further improvement.”

  "What island?"

  “Hmm ... Well, a lot of our different islands,” waved Evil, and I realized that he had blurted something without thinking. We were talking casually, after all.

  There is a special island belonged to Sleepless, as it were. The battle mage may not have lied — there are many islands in the belongings of the Sleepless clan. But I did not inquire. Strange secrets are not my business. Although there was my interest, I did not press.

  The conversation evolved in a different direction - we discussed the outbreak of diseases in Dark Edge. A mysterious epidemic mowing down all life on its way. As Malice told me, most of the best healers of Sleepless were already there. They struggle was with infection. And collecting samples... This was because they were biological weapons of a mass destruction. For the first time, we encountered this near the ruins called the Hand of the Giant. There was a small fortress occupied by the clan of the Golden Knights Templar, who immediately showed aggression and tried to kill us all. But we still did not know all the details. I knew that we had escaped from there by a miracle, and then found ourselves near Dark Edge, at its southern outskirts, thoroughly sick.

  Malice was very worried about this issue. For a simple reason - we could become known as the cause of the epidemic. When we were near the forest lake, we managed to pretty much bathe there. We were almost cured now - this morning, I drank the penultimate set of magical potions. But before the infection was blocked, we could spread it ... That's what I knew from Malice. And, to my joyful relief, he immediately waved his hands in denial, and then firmly stated:

  “It was not you in Dark Edge!”

  “I mean the lake…”

  "Not exactly. You were lying in the south-western part. And the first outbreaks of the disease appeared somewhere in the very middle of Dark Edge. Everything seems to have started with the fact that a creature appeared in a small elvish settlement, resembling a tall muscular gorilla, covered with green hair, his eyes burning like two red-hot coals. The gorilla has done damage to the village - many dead. They could barely cope with it. But they killed it. And then, one by one, the locals began to collapse from disease ... The first outbreak of the Plural Plague.”

  “What did you call it?”

  “Plural Plague. So it was called. There is a whole bunch of diseases, more than you can count. And the diseases intensify terribly, spread with a wild speed. The plague is the plague. In a word, we are not to blame. But the Golden Fools can easily be blamed. It all leads back to them. Maybe we will find out where the infection came from in Dark Edge. And maybe we will not. Oh, look! Gardeners plowing the virgin soil ... look how they turn the desert into a garden city!”

  For the next ten minutes, we rode on in a bewildered daze, watching agronomical miracles happen on the left side of the road. As informed by a huge information panel nailed to a deeply implanted pillar, a farm clan-community called the Green Sprouts worked in the desert. And more precisely:

  Turn the desert into a blooming garden!

  Farmer clan-community the Green Sprouts is working to turn a barren section of the desert into a fertile land yielding crops!

  If you like to work with the earth, if the chopper and shovel are your favorite tools, if you gasp with joy when you see the first green sprout coming from the earth - you are the one we need!

  Generous payment is guaranteed!

  Professional experience and free training with the acquisition of specialized farming skills is guaranteed!

  Full supply of tools is guaranteed!

  Protection is guaranteed!

  The clan community of Green Sprouts sets ambitious goals!

  We grow plants everywhere!

  A little lower was nailed a smaller tablet, the text on it is much less joyful, but equally promising:

  Attention!

  This site is under the protection of the fighting clan "Heavenly Crimson"!

  Any aggr will be destroyed! Any thief will be punished!

  If you want to stay and help, stay!

  No? Then just keep it pushing!

  You have been warned!

  The peaceful work continued behind the pillar. I was able to observe everything in detail.

  The sand was plowed mercilessly by golems, and the heaps of the dead earth reached a height of one meter or more. Behind the golems there were ten mages lined up in a line, arms spread out and bringing a sparkling green magic light to the barren land. Behind the mages, a giant biped golem walked heavily, pulling brown lumps out of huge bags and scattering them around. Then came the artificial stone clouds, and a solid shower wall fell upon the earth, the foaming water drenching the darkened sand abundantly. And at the end of the procession, the usual workers came, carrying seedlings, shovels, choppers, and other gardening things. They dug deep pits manually and then carefully lowered in the seedlings. They covered them with soil and fertilizer, and then moved on. Oh ... but I was mistaken. Then it rained again, only much weaker than the previous rainfall - a real soft rain gently washing the trembling leaves of the young seedlings.

  "So that is how it is," grumbled the Sleepless battle wizard, looking at the miracles that were happening with a certain type of anguish. "We siege, fiercely assault. We rush madly to the Lost Mainland, trying to drown the enemy. And these guys plant themselves apples, cherries, apricots. They harvest them, sell them, buy new seeds and plant them again. And in the evenings, they sit under the shade of trees that have grown and drink fragrant tea, enjoying the singing of nightingales.”

  "Would you like that?" I asked thoughtfully. “To plant and collect fruit, to drink tea with nightingales?”

  “I? No! Fuck that. But sometimes ... I think, why not...”

  "We will finish the Great March, and I will go to rest," I sighed. "I will settle down somewhere in the outskirts and start growing virtual tomatoes."

/>   "Dream on. I thought so too. But you end one trip, take a sip of wine, and then someone finds a new dungeon where no one has ever been, or someone is again attacked by orcs ... and you again remove the battle mage wand from the wall. And again you set off. And the planted tomatoes wither and dry up- there is nobody to water them.”

  “Yep,” I shook my head. “You sure are inspiring. We have arrived.”

  "I can see for myself," grumbled Malice. "The city of Dry Wind.”

  The city of Dry Wind was a cluster of adobe single-story houses scattered randomly. Above them rose the walls of the fortress, from whose towers the guards were watching vigilantly. The desert was around the settlement. There were many enemies nearby. Every now and then, small attacks occur - at least once a day. There were the usual skirmishes. And there are also full-scale military operations. And in such cases, the peaceful population took refuge in the nearby fortresses. And the loss of their homes were not really a pity – there was plenty of clay around. It was always possible to rebuild anew.

  The fortress looked majestic against the adobe houses… The Fortress of Weeping Souls.

  The fortress could not resist the last particularly large attack. The fortress turned into a sooty memorial rising high above the city. On the main and highest tower, which was blackened from the soot, there was a bell ringing once a day. Also, a roughly cut sandstone slab with the words: "We will not forget – we will take revenge."

  In general, Dry Wind was in a state of permanent war. But at the same time, life was bustling, trade was flowering, animated round-the-clock. For players over the one hundred and fiftieth level - there were enough monsters. And many assignments to complete. And younger players could do well here, too — there were several areas as safe for players as the streets of Algora. But here and there the streets plunged into chaos. There could be no stragglers at all — alone, you would be killed in a moment. Dry Wind was beloved by aggressors. Here they were at home.