Avatar of Light

by Dmitry Bilik

  Finally, we reached the first house and turned off into a side lane. When I finally stopped, I very nearly collapsed onto the cobblestones. My knees shook; my head was going round with the stress. Adrenaline coursed my blood by the bucket.

  We looked at each other, and then we just put our arms around each other and stood in a group hug for a few seconds. When we eased away in embarrassment, I felt the immeasurable pressure gradually subside.

  “Litius, I’m very sorry,” I said, avoiding looking him in the eye. “Please forgive me. That was very stupid of me. I didn’t mean to let you down.”

  “N-n-no, S-s-sergei, no. It’s me who sh-sh-should be s-s-sorry for d-d-doubting you. I th-th-thought I’d never s-s-see you ag-g-gain.”

  “How could I?”

  A couple of city guards returning from duty appeared in the street. We fell silent. On seeing us, they stopped talking and visibly tensed up as they walked past us, pinning us with their glares. Once they turned the corner, we heard their boot heels clatter on the cobblestones as the two went running to the mansion to find out what was going on.

  “Let’s go to the tavern,” I offered. “It’s busy enough. Just give me a second.”

  I opened the interface and activated the Election branch.

  +200 karma points. Current level: +1920. You gravitate to the Light Side.

  “That’s it, I’m done. Let’s go now!”

  The tavern was packed and noisy. When we entered, the clamor of voices died momentarily as we took our places under the local crowd’s watchful stares. I ordered a meal and some beer from the tavern keeper who looked rather lost. Service here was non-existent. They’d brought us a jug of beer straight away, but neither the food nor even the mugs were prompt in coming.

  Arts didn’t seem very happy about that. She grabbed the heavy jug with both hands and took a few big swigs.

  “My mouth is dry after their gag,” she explained. “Now tell us how you managed to pull it all off?”

  So I began telling them my story of ‘Sergei Demidov vs. the world’. By the time I finished, they’d already been long tucking into their meals; Litius had almost polished off his dinner. I stared at my own plateful of fragrant hot sausages and sauerkraut but just couldn’t stop talking. I owed it to my friends.

  “So that’s basically it,” I said, then gulped down a mugful of beer.

  A few Purgs barged into the tavern, shouted something in their own language and ran back out, followed by the larger part of the patrons.

  “They’re g-g-going to loot the governor’s mansion,” Litius explained. “Oh by the w-w-way, why didn’t you p-p-pick up the loot?”

  He handed me the sheathed sword and poured some dust on the table. 134 grams.

  “When did you do that?” I asked.

  “When you were too busy staring each other down,” Litius smiled, looking utterly pleased with himself. I almost expected him to start purring. “It only took a few seconds. I couldn’t take his clothes, though.”

  I didn’t hear him because I’d already drawn the sheathed sword and frozen speechless. I even double-checked its stats, just in case.

  Slayer

  Material: Moon steel

  Charmed to deal damage to creatures of flesh and blood

  Restriction: Players only

  “Holy Jesus,” Arts said. “It’s just like yours, isn’t it?”

  “Judging by its stats, they’re identical.”

  “This d-d-doesn’t happen very often but it doesn’t mean that it c-c-can’t happen at all,” Litius said, visibly anxious. “B-b-bladesmiths are known for making p-p-paired swords.”

  “But why?”

  “Was it the Chorul who gave you the other one?” Arts asked.

  “Yes. No, no, sorry. Not to me: he gave it to Hunter. Who then gave it to me, yes.”

  “We can only guess how this one ended up in Pull’s possession,” Arts brushed her bangs away from her face. “If we presume that the Chorul knew it too…”

  “Then the Chorul must have known that I’d meet Pull.”

  “And that you’d kill him.”

  We fell silent, trying to take in this latest development. Still, the longer we sat there, the clearer it became that we weren’t going to come up with anything useful.

  “Okay, let’s forget this wretched sword for a while,” I said. “We need to be thinking how to rescue Traug. Or rather, where we can find some Devil’s Sulfur.”

  “Th-th-that’s the easy p-p-part.”

  “Yeah right. All I need to do is go to Firoll and loot a Kabirid graveyard. The problem is, I gravitate to Light now, don’t I? So I have no access to that particular world.”

  Litius smiled. “You don’t need to. What you do need is go back to C-c-cesspit.”

  Chapter 6

  IT’S NOT A SECRET that throughout our history, Russians didn’t particularly appreciate intellectual prowess. The very word “intelligentsia” was normally used with a degree of snide sarcasm, especially as it was often a generous advance in regards to someone with basic college education. The mere phrase “You think you’re the smart one here, eh?” was usually followed by a liberal amount of butt kicking.

  The irony of it was, this was exactly what I wanted to do to Litius right now. I wanted to punch his hello-Kitty face in right now, simply to get some answers out of him. Just look at that mysterious sonovabitch, too busy to look up from his computer screen!

  The Internet café next to our local Community back in Cesspit was rather empty. Two teenagers in the far corner kept giggling and blushing over their computer. Next to them sat a timid old lady who looked up from her keyboard and asked for advice every time she touched the pad. Opposite us was a slightly overweight young woman about my age in a business suit. Plus the three of us.

  The worst thing was, I was the one with absolutely nothing to do. Even Arts, once she’d realized that we were there for the duration, pulled out her sketchbook and began scribbling in it with abandon. But how about me? I could, I suppose, try and systemize all that had happened within the last twenty-four hours.

  First thing first: our financial situation. Killing Pull had made me 124 grams dust richer. Of which I’d already paid 96 grams for a teleport back. Which meant I still had 839 grams in the kitty. A week ago, it would have been a veritable king’s ransom for the old me. Now, however, I realized that these were peanuts for someone who wanted to travel between worlds.

  My Katzbalger was also in the bag. I’d collected it from the blacksmith who’d done an excellent job. The sword appeared perfectly new as if it had just been forged.

  Black Imperial Katzbalger

  Origin: Roin Province

  Material: Roin steel

  Charmed to exponentially increase the damage dealt to positive-karma Players depending on their level of Light karma.

  An improvement slot is available. Improvement of the sword can be performed by a Master Blacksmith.

  Jesus. I’d only wanted to have it fixed, and now I had all this hassle to deal with? I’d love to level the sword up, of course, but where was I supposed to find a Master Blacksmith? The Purg blacksmith hadn’t even offered to improve it. Wonder if I could find one here in Cesspit?

  Still, the loot I’d got off the governor was the best. Predictably, he hadn’t had a Divine Avatar on him: he certainly hadn’t been as affluent as myself. But he’d still bequeathed me a skill and a spell. Shame we’d lost such a generous individual.

  Charisma (Rhetoric) — the ability to endear oneself to both Players and Commoners except in cases when your reputation clashes with that of other Seekers.

  Your current level of Rhetoric allows you to choose a race especially susceptible to your Charisma.

  The races you’ve already come across:

  Humanoid

  Semi-humanoid

  Beastmen

  Semi-dead

  I didn’t know what to think. Humanoid I could understand. Ditto for beastmen. But what did they mean by semi-humanoid and se
mi-dead?

  I decided not to overthink it and tapped Humanoid.

  Your Charisma has a positive effect on humans, Korls, Zvergs and Purgs, except in cases when your reputation clashes with that of other Seekers or in the presence of other provocative factors.

  Now, the spell.

  Talking With Lower Animals (Sorcery). Allows you to understand or control some insentient beings.

  Use: on self. Cost: 50 mana points. Duration: 30 seconds.

  No idea how I could apply this, but it certainly looked like an interesting spell. I might have to find some guinea pigs to try it on. Literally.

  “Litius, how much longer are we supposed to wait? I was told that Traug would be sent down the mines as soon as the commandant and his goons arrived.”

  “The Archali won’t send the garrison to the city during an unstable period like this. They won’t be moving the troops until the end of the first cycle of the Blue Moon. Which is still two days from now.”

  He spoke confidently and quickly without any of his habitual stuttering, all the while clicking the mouse and scrolling the pages flashing across his computer screen.

  “Their moons and their wretched cycles!” I grumbled. “Red, blue, whatever next?”

  “They also have a Yellow Moon — or Neutral, as they call it,” Litius switched his attention from the screen, looked at me and heaved a sigh. “Here, look, all three of them,” he said, opening Paint.

  He drew a flattened black sphere surrounded by three circles: red, blue and yellow.

  “The black one is Purgator, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “No. The black one is Purgator’s main satellite. It absorbs all the light of its sun without reflecting it. That’s why you can’t see it. The three moons orbit it while it in turn orbits Purgator. So as you can well imagine, there’re two moons constantly visible in the sky, one of which is in a superposition to the other. Currently, it’s the Blue one.”

  “Did you just say that in Russian?” I asked. “I didn’t understand a word.”

  “What’s there to understand,” Arts butted in without taking her eyes off her sketchbook. “At the moment, the Blue Moon is waxing and the Red one is waning. Once it completely disappears, the Yellow one will rise. It’s neutral in that it doesn’t affect either mobs or Players.”

  “The problem is, all this astronomy for dummies isn’t going to help us rescue Traug,” I said. “In another day or two they’re gonna send him down the mines.”

  “I think by then we’ll have had your Korl free. Sergei, would you terribly mind not distracting me? I have too much data to process.”

  “How much time do you need?”

  “A couple of hours. Maybe a little bit more.”

  “Aha. Listen guys, do you mind if I rush off home? I need a wash and all that.”

  Arts looked up from her sketchbook, gave me a long look and nodded. “Yeah, you surely could use one.”

  Cheeky cow! The funny thing was, I was the stinky one although she’d been the one who’d been locked up. Could Pull have kept her in a room with a hot tub? In which case, I shouldn’t have killed him.

  I called a cab and went outside, scrolling through the incoming text messages on my phone. They covered the entire range of human emotions from anger to accusations, even blacklisting me for a good 12 hours, then back to anger. It had been very stupid of me to have hoped that Julia might have somehow overlooked my three-day absence.

  Should I give her a call? No way. All hell might break loose. Much better to send her a carrier pigeon as a dove of peace. Due to the lack of an actual bird, I used Messenger:

  Sorry, I was away on business and left my cell at home.

  Good job my Mom hadn’t called. In which case I would have already been reported missing to the fire brigade, the police and every morgue in town. In future, I shouldn’t just disappear. I might need to train my dear house goblin as a personal assistant. What else was I supposed to do? Desperate times require desperate measures.

  Curiously, the moment I’d thought about Mom, her picture appeared on the phone screen, followed by the ring tone.

  “Yes?” I said timidly, amazed at my parent’s extrasensory skill.

  “Hi, Sergei. Everything okay?”

  “I’m fine, thank you. I’m getting four meals a day, exercising regularly and working a lot,” I reported. “I’ve even quit smoking.”

  “Good boy! Way to go! Now if only you could find yourself a good woman.”

  “That can wait.”

  I wasn’t in a hurry to tell her about Julia. I had no intention of introducing her as my bride-to-be. That would only lead to more remarks like “When are you going to get married? When are we gonna get some grandchildren? I was nineteen when I had you,” etc., etc.

  Both my sisters had turned out to be much more ambitious than humble me. They wanted to have a career first: the one who’d already flown the nest as well as the one that was still there. So all my Mom’s hopes of future procreation now rested on my shoulders. Not that I had anything against the actual dirty deed, I just wasn’t in a hurry to have kids. All the more now that I’d become a Seeker.

  “We’re all grieving,” Mom said. “Granny Sveta’s just died.”

  I scratched the back of my head, desperately trying to remember who the hell Granny Sveta was. We had literally shedloads of family members, half of whom we only met at either weddings or funerals.

  As if turned out, the reason for my not remembering her was pretty obvious: she was my father’s second cousin twice removed and I’d been nine years old when I’d seen her last.

  “Don’t you remember she gave you that toy car?”

  Yeah right. One of my life’s most memorable events indeed. “Sorry, Mom, but what’s it got to do with me?”

  “What do you mean? You’re a Demidov, aren’t you?”

  Not those stories of family history again! The funny thing was, Mom seemed to be the one hell-bent on preserving them. Sometimes she gave you the impression she’d gotten married for the sake of the name alone. She definitely was more Demidov than me or my siblings.

  “It’s already bad that Lily can’t make it because she has an important business trip on,” she said. “But you’re obliged to.”

  Oh great. Good on you, Lily, clever girl. Thanks a lot.

  I opened my mouth to say that I had too much work but shut it straight away. Sadly I watched the cab pull up at the curb as I listened to Mom’s indignant monologue. I nodded to the driver, climbed into the back seat, and he pulled away.

  “Okay, okay, what do I need to do?”

  “All you need to do is be there at the wake. I’ll ask Darya to text you the time and address.”

  My Mom was a bit wary of smartphones. She could read an incoming message but she hated writing them.

  “But do you think you might make it to the funeral?”

  “Mooom!” I protested, as if this was about to break our fragile truce.

  ‘Okay, okay. See you later.”

  I hung up and heaved a sigh. As a Player, you could be as tough as nails, killing ancient gods for breakfast, but parents would always be parents. Even at an advanced age, you still risked their wrath. They just didn’t care for any of your hard-earned merits.

  The migrant driver gave me a hostile look in the rear-view mirror. What was wrong with him? I’d turned Charisma on, hadn’t I? Naturally, I had no intention of seducing him but the least I could have hoped for was his goodwill. He’d have been better off keeping the inside of his car clean. It was stinking.

  I took a deep breath through my nose and blushed. I was the one who was stinking. Several days without a shower nor deodorant had taken their toll. No amount of Charisma could help something that only some soap and water could right.

  I opened the window on the sly. The driver didn’t’ say a word, even though it was quite cold outside. How I understood him!

  We drove on in dead silence. I gave him a five-hundred note instead of three-fifty. For his inconveni
ence.

  Still, somebody above must have decided that today wasn’t to be my day. A noisy group of four youngsters just above the legal age limit blocked the way to the front door.

  But that was only half of the problem. They mobbed the Professor, making fun of him.

  Even the old me wouldn’t have walked impassively past. Still, in the old days I might have simply got my ass kicked for the trouble and left with my tail between my legs. But now…