by Dmitry Bilik
“That’s because she gave them plenty of food every year.”
“Yes, and protected them from the frost.”
I lent half an ear to all this claptrap — with my Mom a rather eager contributor — while casting occasional glances at the old Player. He’d shown no surprise or embarrassment at seeing me. He actually pretended that nothing had happened at all, and continued talking to an old boy next to him. What on earth could they be discussing? Was it strawberries, or raspberry bushes — or even interworld travel?
Having taken stock of the situation, I finally chose the right moment and left the table. Most of the guests were already finishing their meals; my father who’d been sitting next to Mom had already left on some business. Some of the men started beelining for the exit to get their dose of nicotine.
“I’m going out for a smoke,” I told Mom.
“What did I tell you?” Darya said without looking up from her phone. “I said he wouldn’t last a month. So you owe me five hundred rubles, Mom.”
Mom blushed. “Darya!”
“Here,” I pulled out a five-hundred note from my wallet. An argument was the last thing I needed now.
Darya shamelessly took the money and turned her attention back to her phone. I got up from the table with unexpected ease and headed for the door, casting several glances at the old Player in the process.
Bingo. Our eyes met. I might have stared him out, had I not reached the exit already. I slipped through the door wondering how I was going to kill time. But Lady Luck hadn’t smiled on me this time, because the guys outside were indeed all smoking. And one of them even noticed me.
“Sergei! Come over here!”
By a sheer miracle, I somehow recognized the mustachioed half-Korl as my Uncle Misha, Dad’s second cousin — or was it third cousin? It didn’t matter. The problem was, he’d already noticed me so I couldn’t very easily ignore him.
“Have you come for a smoke?” he asked, shaking my hand. All the others flashed good-natured smiles at me as they said hello.
“No, just for a breath of fresh air,” I said as I shook hands, trying to determine the depth of our family relationship with them — not from memory, mind you, but just by the way they looked.
“You’ve changed. You look sort of stronger. Are you still working at the same place?”
For the following five minutes, I was dangerously close to blowing my cover. Firstly, because until now, I still haven’t invented a convincing profession for myself. I had to ad lib, promoting myself to a regional fiber optics shipping agent (which was the first thing that had come to my head). I very nearly told them I was married, but then I realized that if ever it came back to my mother, she would kill me, so I immediately split up with my imaginary fiancée. I then carefully diverted the subject from myself to the state of the Russian highways, and then on to the upcoming elections — a subject which really struck a chord with all the men who got quite hot under the collar discussing the subject of apparent interest to everyone. During their preoccupation, I took the chance to make myself scarce, noticing that the object of my interest had also left the café.
He beckoned me with his finger and went round a corner of the building which faced a busy street teeming with commoners. For that reason, I didn’t have to be afraid of him dishing out any physical damage to me. Especially because my overdeveloped Intuition was screaming at me that the man in front of me was my direct relative.
‘Well, Sergei, let’s get acquainted,” he proffered his hand. “My parents used to call me Vladamere, even though the name has perished over the centuries.
I shook his hand while taking the opportunity to activate Insight.
Vladamere
Herbalist
???
???
???
“Why not?” I said. “I can see that you know my name already. I only know that you’re a herbalist and my great-great-grandfather.”
“Oh,” the old man was visibly surprised, “that’s already a lot. How did you know?”
“My Insight allows me to see your development branch. Or is it a characteristic? It’s neither here nor there.”
The old man suppressed a smile.
“The degree of our relationship is even easier,” I went on. “I have a 1/16 part of Korl blood in me. And you, judging by your appearance, are a 100% Korl. Therefore…”
He nodded. “You’re right. In that case, let me tell you a little bit about myself. I was born in Noggle in the province of Cohr, living a life of a regular peasant’s son in that dark and perennially cold country. Until one day I became a Player. I was on my way to fetch some firewood when suddenly everything changed. At first, I couldn’t understand it. I just couldn’t figure it out. I thought I was going crazy. My parents were of the same opinion, by the way. That lasted until another Player chanced upon our village. He told me everything. But hearing something from a stranger is one thing, and having the possibility to see a new world with you’re your own eyes is quite another.”
The old boy fell silent, thinking about what he’d just said, looking not at me but at some imaginary point in the distance, as if remembering some painful moments in his own past.
“I spent several years traveling throughout Noggle. I saw lots of things: injustice, betrayal, cold-blooded murders for ten measly grams of dust… The fact that I’m still alive is only due to large doses of luck and my natural cautiousness. And once I came back to my village…”
His eyes welled with tears. He cleared his throat a few times, rubbed his forehead and smiled the sad smile of a martyr. “When I came back, I realized there was nothing keeping me in my home world anymore. During my travels, I’d heard a lot about Cesspit where Players had laws and where they had Guards to keep the peace. Without further ado, that’s where I headed. I changed my name to Vladimir, met a nice girl and had children with her. When my time to leave them had come, I obeyed the law and disappeared. But I always kept an eye on my own family, each time in a new guise.”
“How do you do it?” I asked. I must have become a cold-hearted cynic because his last words aroused the most curiosity in me.
“I have this skill…. Wait, I’m gonna show you.”
He pulled a handful of dust out of thin air which immediately began to solidify in the palm of his hand. After only a few seconds, I was looking at a large purple crystal. Vladamere a. k. a. Vladimir turned his hand around. The item dropped to the tarmac and smashed to bits.
I don’t think so!
[ ∞ ]
“…wait, I’m gonna show you.”
I didn’t let my ancestor drop the crystal. I quickly held my hand out, catching it, then watched it disintegrate in my hands.
Camouflage (Rhetoric). Allows the Player to change their appearance in Commoners’ eyes, as well the style, color and size of their clothing.
Now this opened up some truly boundless opportunities to me. All kinds of bad thoughts about bank robbing and the like flooded into my head, but I dismissed them. This wasn’t our style. Especially because a Player could always find a way to earn a living.
“How interesting,” the old man said. “What’s this, some kind of bonus to reaction times? Or a heightened intuition, allowing you to foresee your opponent’s actions?”
“Players don’t talk about their specialties,” I repeated the phrase I already knew by heart.
Vladimir smiled. “You’re a quick learner. Which is a good thing. Even I, after all these years spent in Cesspit, don’t have any friends here. Only business partners. I can see you can stand up for yourself, which is a good thing. But I’m gonna give you something else now.”
He produced a bunch of spiky grass tied with a string and a shriveled brown root.
“This is nepenthe,” he said, giving me the grass. “It’s very rare in this part of the world, but I managed to grow some at my place. I brought it here to sell but kept a bunch for myself. It makes good Oblivion potion, just make sure you don’t make it too strong. And thi
s is a mandrake root. You use it raw: just cut off a tiny bit and smear the juice on the wound. It’ll heal everything, even the wounds dealt by moon steel and aurichalcum.”
“Thank you,” I said, putting the gifts away. To be honest, I didn’t yet know what possible use they might be to me — but as they say, you don’t take a gift horse to the dentist.
“Just please don’t tell anyone about me. Nor that I gave you these things for free. You see, the Seekers have this idea that nothing should be gained without an effort. You see, everything in the Game is based on the principle of ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’. This is something you’d better get used to.”
Yeah right. I already had — when Arts had charged me an extra 5% without as much as batting an eyelid. And even when I’d saved her life later on, she hadn’t even thought of offering it back. Like, you can have your thank-you and I’ll keep my money.
“I come to town now and again even though I live out in the sticks. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to contact me. Here,” he offered me a business card. “The phone is quite often out of range so you’d better email me. I check my emails regularly.”
I took the card. Vladimir Golunov, Farmer. A cell number and an email address. I could just imagine what kind of crops this particular farmer — or should I say Herbalist? — grew on his land. God forbid that the drug squad chanced upon his harvest! Those guys might have a stroke: mandrake roots, patches of nepenthe and all sorts of funny things.
“And remember. You have the blood of a great people coursing your veins. Even if it is only a few drops.”
He shook my hand and unhurriedly headed for the parking lot. There, he let out a shrill whistle.
I very nearly screamed as the outlines of a large animal materialized out of thin air. It looked a lot like a horse with an incredibly powerful back and neck. Its legs, however, were distinctly feline — not the dainty legs of a cheetah but massive and muscle-bound, like the rest of its body.
The creature turned its flattened muzzle to Vladimir and licked his neck. The fact that the distance between the two was at least three feet was of no consequence to anybody but me.
Snapdrake
Invisibility
???
Aha, so that’s what you look like, my friend.
My ancestor climbed the beast’s back, waved his goodbye to me and took off, joining the traffic on the street. I whipped out the True Mirror to check out his vehicle. Hah! In commoners’ eyes, this was a brand-new Volkswagen coupe driven by a youthfully groomed old man. Once again I thought that the world would never be the same to me.
I returned to the café. The guests were already leaving one by one, complimenting Mom on her great organization. I wasn’t at all surprised. She always wanted to surpass herself. I awaited my turn, listened to her brief lecture on the dangers of smoking and bade my goodbyes to the rest of the family. Darya managed to tear herself away from her cell screen and made a face at me (like, “you’re the lucky one and I’m still stuck here forever”), then went straight back to her social media. And me, I escaped outside.
I breathed free and easy in the wintry air. Finally, the season was upon us. You could still make out the withered flowers in the city’s flowerbeds dusted with the little snow that had fallen, but the frost was just starting to bite. I wasn’t cold, of course; I didn’t even wear my gloves, just raised the collar of my trench coat. Still, I had a funny feeling we were going to regret our skating date. It hadn’t been my idea, anyway.
I arrived a good quarter of an hour before our appointment. The skating rink was almost empty: a few schoolkids, a couple of aspiring speed skaters, and a father and son with hockey sticks unenthusiastically throwing a puck to each other.
I rented a pair of skates and put them on just to get the chance to stand up on them. The last time I’d skated was at least four or five years ago, or maybe even more.
I laced them up tightly, got to my feet, took a few tentative wobbly steps and took off. Not took off, really: I skated slowly with my legs wide apart. Either the ice was uneven or the skates had been poorly sharpened — or maybe the skater just wasn’t good enough — but I had to really struggle just to keep my balance. I circled slowly and even accelerated a couple of times, gradually gaining confidence. Compared to the schoolkids, my skill level was minus zero. It was already good that I hadn’t yet fallen.
After a couple more circles, I had one desire left: just to sit down somewhere and kick off the wretched skates. My ankles ached with every movement; the backs of my thighs were throbbing as if I’d been doing situps with a barbell. Th only thing that still kept me on my feet was a new system message:
Your Athletics skill has increased to level 7.
“Hi,” I heard behind my back.
My heart skipped a beat as I turned to see Julia skating toward me. My date looked like a million dollars. Her cheeks were pink with the frost; her eyes seemed large as if widened in surprise; the expression on her face kind of mischievous. I felt a bit lost. All the lies I’d prepared felt so naïve that I blushed. All I could manage was a pathetic “Hi.”
“So what have you been up to?”
“Just taking care of some business,” I said, unwilling to raise the subject of ‘fiber optics salesmanship’. “I could only just catch a signal where I was.”
“Your job seems kind of strange.”
“You could say that. But it’s a case of just growing into it. And it’s not really a job even but rather a vocation.”
“Wow,” she smiled. She took me by the hand and we slowly did another lap.
Gradually, our conversation stopped being quite so jerky and smoothed out. Unhurriedly we continued to lap the place, talking about all sorts, like the latest bestselling sci fi novels and the failed attempts to bring them to the silver screen; a popular new phone app, and the best river beaches in our city. I noticed once again that being next to her made me feel completely at ease. I seemed to be forgetting all the anxieties, the scheming and intrigues as if I were a regular human being again and not a Korl Player.
Talking about which: it had taken me a while to have noticed my date turn into an Ice Queen. Her face had turned white; her teeth had begun to chatter. I hurried to take urgent first-aid measures directed at bringing her back to a normal human condition. We skated back to the rental office where I bought her some hot tea and started rubbing her hands. The tips of my own ears as well as my cheeks were tingling which meant it must have been quite frosty outside.
I returned the skates and went back to her. “How about going over to my place?
My words sounded unexpected even coming from me. I’d blurted them out without even considering their potential suggestiveness.
“No, no, no, I didn’t mean that,” I hurried to add. “We could have a cup of tea with raspberry jam[4]. God forbid that you should catch a cold.”
Actually, I did have a pot of raspberry jam sitting in my fridge. My Mom had made it and given it to me and I hadn’t touched it yet. Still, her answer came as a complete surprise.
“Tea with jam sounds good. Especially raspberry.”
The ordering of a cab followed by a brief trip in its warmth seemed to have lasted but a brief moment. Thanks to the weather, there was nobody sitting on the benches by the front door. My hands shaking, I unlocked the shabby front door and let Julia in, blushing for the miserable state of its exterior. Luckily, she hadn’t even had the chance to notice it. I dropped the key twice in trying to open my apartment door.
The goblin’s shadow flashed across the hallway. Julia let out a soft shriek. “Have you got a cat?”
“Sure. But you won’t see much of him, I’m afraid. He’s very timid.”
I helped her remove her winter coat, took her to the lounge and hurried to the kitchen to put the kettle on. I found the jam, dug up the pretty crystal bowl from my late Granny’s arsenal, then discovered some cookies which Bumpkin had very conveniently baked. He was nowhere to be seen. He must have
holed up in some corner, poor bastard.
Ten minutes later, I returned to the lounge carrying a small tray. My freshly-brewed tea was not a patch on Bumpkin’s divine drink. Talking about whom…
My dear goblin had no intention of hiding. He lay belly up on the couch while Julia scratched him behind the ears. Judging by the happy expression on his face, he clearly enjoyed it. On seeing me, he jumped up and shot back into the kitchen with the speed of a small rocket.
“What a nice fluffy cat! Have you had him long?”
“No, only a few weeks. I took him in from the street. Let’s go drink some tea and dunk some cookies!”
Julia took a sip and set her mug aside. “How about we watch a movie?”
