by Dmitry Bilik
But the most surprising thing of all was Hunter’s reaction. He seemed to have dropped my friends like a sack of rocks. Yes, you heard it right. Apparently, my mentor had just shrugged — like, shit happens, — and then he’d just ported back home. He'd come back once every day — in the evening, normally, — to ask about me, then he’d leave straight away.
So much for my dream team. Litius was the only one who’d kept vigil over my nearly dead body.
“Bummer,” I summed it up. “Out of six of us who left for Purgator, one was killed, another one betrayed us, and two more were captured. I’m not much of a raid leader, am I?”
“Oh, and by the way,” Litius offered me a handful of dust.
“What’s that?”
“That’s all that Two-Face dropped. Nothing else. Hunter said that your fire had scorched his inventory with everything that was in it. Dust was the only thing that survived the blaze.”
I collected it. It was 206 grams. Together with what I already had, it made a total of 336 grams, enough for the remaining team to get back home. Now there was only one little problem left to solve: how to free my friends. It looked like Litius and I would have to do it between the two of us. Apparently, we couldn’t pin our hopes on Hunter. Talking about whom…
“Listen, Litius. What about the 200 grams of dust I paid Arph? Did he drop it when he died?”
“He did. Hunter took all his stuff and the dust too. He was the one who’d killed him, don’t forget.”
Now I really wanted to see Hunter and give him a piece of my mind. He'd taken all the loot and the dust, told us to fend for ourselves and just fled the coop. Don’t get me wrong, I did appreciate his visiting me and asking about my health. But as for all the rest…
I clambered to my feet and groaned in agony, feeling as if I was being disemboweled with a red-hot poker. I lifted the tatters of my sweater and gingerly touched the skin beneath. Jesus. You should have seen the scar. It was enormous, looking very much like a dry lump of mashed potato stuck to a clean plate. Not good. So much for their healing magic.
I checked my health indicator with some apprehension. My HP bar was fine — but my feelings told a different story. My Vigor was only half full and didn’t show any inclination to rise any time soon. How weird.
“Where’s the sword?” I asked, just to distract myself from all the pain.
“Which sword?”
I wasn’t in a state to suffer such sheer stupidity. Had Traug said that, I could have handled it, but Litius?
“Excalibur, of course. The one King Arthur received from the Lady of the Lake. Litius, put your brain in gear, please. Where’s Gramr?”
He shrugged. “It was destroyed by your fiery tornado. At least that’s what Hunter said.”
I wouldn’t say I was a pessimist, but now my mood had plummeted below zero. Gingerly I took my first step after my resurrection, leaning against the bed’s footboard. Apart from an unpleasant straining sensation in my belly, it was tolerable.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Tartr said, reappearing in the room. “You need to stay in bed for at least another day. Here, take this.”
“What is it?” I asked, fiddling with a vial filled with a purple liquid.
“It’s exactly what you need right now. Drink it.”
Before, the old man hadn’t seemed to want to do me any harm. If you thought about it, he’d given me shelter and taken good care of me. In other words, he’d only been good to me. So I shrugged and emptied the vial in one swig. I wouldn’t say it made me feel better but my Vigor started inching up slowly. Better than nothing.
“Thanks a lot for your help, Tartr, but we need to be on our way.”
The alchemist shrugged. “As you wish. Although I recommend you stay in bed another two days.”
“Sorry, but we really should be going,” I smiled and made to leave the room but couldn’t because the short alchemist didn’t budge, blocking my way.
“Something else?” I asked, looking at him in surprise.
“Nothing, really,” he dismissed my question with the smile of an old friend. “Just a little payment for my services.”
“Your services?”
“It’s ninety grams. Thirty for the elixir and another sixty for the room. Twenty grams a day.”
What an old miser! At first, I didn’t even know what to say, but once I’d calmed down, I even admired his cheek. The man could squeeze water out of stone. $300 for some chemically colored water and a dark closet for the price of a five-star hotel? Okay. We hadn’t been born yesterday, either.
“Twenty grams a day? What, for this plank of a bed and a windowless closet?”
He gave me a frightened look. “Fifteen.”
“Ten,” I said, pinning him down with my glare. “And as for your elixir, I’m not entirely sure it helped me. I have a funny feeling it’s a fake.”
“Excuse me!” Tartr exploded in such sincere indignation that for a moment, I feared he might have a heart attack. “I’m one of the best alchemists in-”
“In the whole of Purgator?”
He paused, hesitant. “No. In Virhort.”
“All I want to say is that your elixir isn’t worth thirty grams,” I said conciliatorily. “Twenty sounds more like it.”
“Very well. Fifty grams in total.”
Your Bargaining skill has increased to level 3.
I nodded my good-bye to Bretta, then handed the money over to Tartr who very nearly danced for joy (were things really so bad here trade-wise?). Supported by Litius, I stumbled toward the exit with all the speed of a tortoise fresh out of the surgery room.
Litius opened the front door and helped me through it. I took in a lungful of fresh air and looked up at the patch of the clear sky high above, just visible through the hole in the mountain’s sawn-off summit.
“W-w-what do we d-d-do now? W-w-where do you wanna g-g-go?”
“We’re gonna rescue the others now. Where do I want to go? Well, for starters, it might not be a bad idea to pay the local governor a social visit.”
Chapter 2
RUSSIANS LIKE TO JOKE that if you wake up and nothing’s hurting, it means you’re dead. So even if I had any reservations about the legitimacy of my post-resurrection existence, now they were completely dispelled. I was well and truly alive. Because a body just can’t hurt so much in the afterlife.
All my limbs were aching like I’d just recovered from a long bout of fever. A nagging pain filled my freshly-decorated belly. My head was the only piece of good news. It was perfectly light and clear. I can’t overestimate the benefits of dying for the purpose of clearing your mind and reloading your life. Highly recommended. Provided you’re in possession of Savior’s Avatar, of course. Otherwise, the consequences might not be quite so rosy.
And still, despite all my aches and pains, I somehow managed to hobble along. All on my own, without Litius’ help. My body must have gradually realized that shirking wasn’t an option and started to turn on.
For instance, all of a sudden I felt terribly hungry. As if to please, a wonderful smell of roasting wafted over the Community: some pork or bacon and potatoes. It took all of my willpower to walk past the tavern without choking on my own saliva. First, we had to find out what was really going on with both Arts and Traug.
The local governor lived in by far the biggest and weirdest house in the entire Community which really stood apart from all the other buildings. Not a house even, but rather a small palace or a really big mansion. Also, it seemed to be completely cut into a cliff which made it a natural continuation of the mountain. The wooden window frames couldn’t open, apparently made to last forever, glazed not with glass but with murky sheets of mica. I’d bet they let very little light inside. They must have hired a mason to decorate the stonework but he hadn’t done a very good job of it, I’m afraid: all the “fancy” carvings could have been better done by a preschooler.
“This is limestone,” Litius offered, thinking that I was trying to guess
the type of stone. “Very similar to what you’ve got in Cesspit. Purgator is actually very similar to your world.”
“With the exception of giant praying mantises and tiger goats.”
The beastman shrugged. I took another look at the two-story building fashioned out of the mountain. The upstairs lights were on meaning that the owner was at home. No guards were posted outside.
I walked over and knocked hard and loud on the wooden door distressed by the weathering of time.
I had to wait for quite a while. Still, I showed no impatience: I could hear some activity within. Eventually, the door was answered. By whom? — by my old “friend” Rock. No, not the actor neither the wrestler: it was one of the local Players who’d been chasing after Arts and myself the last time we’d been in Virhort. One of the governor’s goons. Luckily, he didn’t recognize me.
He looked me over. “What d’you want?” he asked gruffly.
“I need to see the governor.”
“He’s not seeing anyone. Come back tomorrow. Or the day after.”
“I can’t. It’s urgent, I’m afraid. I’ve come to claim my reward for some rachnaids I killed.”
“Ah, that,” he drawled with obvious disappointment. “Wait here.”
He disappeared inside and reappeared after a few minutes. This time he swung the door wide open and nodded, motioning me inside. He cast an unwelcoming glance at Litius but didn’t say anything.
The governor’s house was really something else. His idea of interior design was as kitsch as they come, if you know what I mean. Greasy fake baroque armchairs edged with fringes and frilly fabrics; filthy curtains that must have been silk once; hardwood floors worn out in the areas of frequent passage; flaking gilded chandeliers and fancy candlesticks.
Just as I’d thought, the place was almost dark because of the lack of natural light. Despite the owner’s attempts to pull the wool over his visitors’ eyes, the result was completely the opposite: the place looked shabby and could only raise a feeling of pity and revulsion.
Judging by the noise, the life and soul of the house was to be found in the far room. That’s where Rock took us.
The sight which met me was anything but what you’d expect from an audience hall. If you disregarded the gaudy setting, it looked more like a cheap bar, judging by the state of the crowd.
Four men who’d have been better suited playing gangsters in a cheap TV series were sitting at a long table drinking, eating (or rather, stuffing their faces with their hands) and shouting. The house owner himself was sprawled across a high wooden armchair at the head of the table with his feet up.
???
Swashbuckler
???
???
You could compare the effect of our arrival with that of two clueless European tourists in Harlem. All conversation ceased; every jaw in the room stopped munching. Curiously, Litius got the lion’s share of the attention, if you’ll excuse the pun.
To my relief, the governor was the first to break the awkward silence. “I’ve been told you’ve sorted out the rachnaids. We’d have done it ourselves but we’ve got too much on our plate running this place.”
I bit my tongue not to say anything I might later regret. Apparently, his idea of running the local Community was by arranging extended drinking sessions. On the other hand, there was an element of wisdom to it. If it ain’t bust, don’t fix it, ‘cause you might only end up making it worse.
Actually, the governor gave me quite a good first impression. He was strong and amicable with smart, attentive eyes. Had it not been for his pushiness, I might have even liked him. “Might” being the operative word. I just couldn’t forgive him for taking Arts prisoner.
“How many of you were there?” he asked.
“Counting me, six, Sachem.”
Something in my answer seemed to have provoked great amusement among them. The whole room guffawed.
The governor smiled, too. “There are no such things as sachems in Purgator. Although what few communities we have here till preserve some kind of contact between each other, here it’s every man for himself. Call me Pull. Enough shooting the breeze. I‘ve still got a lot of things to do. Where’s your piece of paper? The one with the mission?”
“I… I lost it.”
“Or most likely you never even had it. You’ve just wasted my time. Gaius, would you see the Player out? He got the wrong door.”
Rock started toward me and Litius. I had to speak quickly.
“In that case, the whole Community will know that Pull isn’t to be trusted. I know it’s not much but still it might have an effect on your reputation.”
“I’ve never had an agreement with you.”
“But others don’t know that. All they know is that you issued a mission. I completed it. If you need proof, I can always provide it.”
“Are you threatening me? I could swat you like a fly right here and now.”
“Try it,” I said, whipping out the knife and the Katzbalger. “One thing I can promise is that one of your men — or maybe even you — won’t leave this room alive. I already killed the rachnaid Queen, so a couple of you won’t be any problem.”
Realizing that things were about to kick off, Litius arched his feline back, preparing to leap. The governor’s goons jumped to their feet too, ready for a scrap. The sight of their swords, a long magic staff and a crossbow made me momentarily doubt my decision. Especially when the governor said in a quiet voice,
“Take him.”
It didn’t look like they were going to kill us. Not straight away, anyway, because a crossbow bolt hit me not in the head but in the leg, going right through it and shattering the bone.
Almost blinded by the excruciating pain, I still managed to do what was most important.
[ ∞ ]
The bolt clattered to the floor because I’d managed to dodge it just in time. Then I sensed a rather unpleasant burning sensation in my feet that kept growing until it felt as if I were standing on red-hot coals. Instinctively I jumped in the air — which turned out to be a very good idea because one of the goons had just decided to perform field brain surgery on me with his sword.
I was even considering counterattacking him when another goon hit me with the hilt of his sabre. What the hell was going on?
[ ∞ ]
I must have resembled a circus acrobat, constantly recoiling and leaping. I thrust my hand forward and cast Freeze, slowing down the goon whose fist was the closest to my face.
Your Modification skill has increased to level 1.
Admittedly, it wasn’t exactly slo-mo, but it was sufficient for me to move out of their way and even whip behind the first guy’s back: the one who’d wanted to amputate my legs. I grabbed his neck with my left hand; a professional might have done better but it was the best I could do.
I drew him toward me and brought my sword up to his Adam’s apple. “Pull, you’d better call your men off before this place is a blood bath.”
No idea where I’d got this reckless bravado from — but it’s true that now I felt I was capable of anything. The death of the Darkest One had changed something within me, even though I was yet to fully realize it. The Time Master who was now standing before the Community’s governor was a totally different person than Sergei the warehouse loader of a week ago.
Your Persuasion skill has increased to level 5.
You’ve reached level 7.
“Enough,” the governor raised his hand. “Let Rouf go.”
“First I want you to swear by the Game that you won’t hurt either me or my friend.”
Pull chuckled at his own thoughts. “I swear to you, the cheeky stranger who killed the rachnaid Queen, that I won’t hurt either you or your filthy feline friend unless you attack first. This time.”
I was about to correct him saying that Litius was anything but filthy, even though the beastman wasn’t on his best behavior now. He was sitting on top of one of the bodyguards, pinning him down, baring his teeth in close pr
oximity to the guy’s neck. But before I could say anything, the governor was enveloped in a golden glow meaning that his oath had been accepted.
I shoved Rouf aside and took a couple of steps toward the exit, trying to get closer to Litius and prepared to retreat if absolutely necessary.
“I could pay you two hundred grams, I suppose, you cheeky bastard,” the governor said, “and then you’d leave this place for good and never as much as mention my name to anyone again. And if you did, my men would find and kill you anywhere. If one day you ever decided to return to Virhort, you’d be killed too. And if…”
