The Birth

by Paul Kite

  The man tried to reach me across the table, but I quickly jumped up, grabbing the second tray, as the first flew somewhere off to the side.

  “You’re fast,” the bandit muttered, getting up slowly from the bench.

  Two more men began to approach me on either sides. The rest of the people did not intervene, they just watched the fight and cheered my opponents on. Grandpa's gone, I just hope he doesn't get hurt after they kill me.

  “Close the door!” the bandit with the knife yelled to someone, “I don't want someone to interrupt me while I’m cutting off that useless tongue of yours.”

  So there are at least one or two more people behind me.

  “It’s better if you don't fight,” a guy advised me from somewhere to the right of me. “You'll just have longer to suffer,” he cheerfully grinned, showing his crooked and rotten teeth.

  No way I’m going down without a fight.

  I jerked to the left side and threw the tray at the face of the enemy in front of me, hoping to distract him and then sneak past him to the pot.

  Let's see how you ‘sing’ when I start throwing boiling water at you!

  But I didn't succeed in my attempt. He managed to grab my sleeve and slow me down. It was enough for the first bandit with the knife to run up to me and hit me in the side. Surprisingly, I wasn't really hurting, the adrenaline had smoothed my sensitivity which was at seventy percent.

  Physical damage taken is 15 units. Life 1530

  ‘Eh, I should have put points into force. But I'd probably just be prolonging my agony.’

  The third bandit ran up and knocked me to the floor, hitting me several times with his fist.

  Physical damage taken is 8 units. Life 730

  Hit me again and it’s goodbye, I'll be flying back to the spawn point. I hope I can find Grandpa again. He's a good old man.

  “Open up, you bastards!” a loud scream came from behind the closed door.

  It was a familiar voice, the one-eyed owner of the house had come.

  “What'll we do?” the guy who was leaning on me asked.

  “Kill him,” the bandit with the knife ordered, hatred in his voice. “Eran won't do anything, it'll be too late by then. And if he kicks us out ... well, it's not the first time.”

  I was moved to the back, being held with my arms behind me.

  “Get ready to meet your ancestors!”

  What they don’t know though… is that I am immortal. Probably because I don’t look like a typical player.

  The first bandit threw a knife to the man who was holding me down. The man caught it with one hand and raised it for the final blow.

  I'll find you and take revenge! Promise!

  Vzh-zh-zhih, a dagger zipped through the air and bit down on the hand holding the knife, and the bandit howled and rolled aside, grabbing the injured limb.

  The next moment, a tall, blurry shadow knocked down the bandit that had threatened me at the table, and sent him to a long rest. Or even an eternal one, because with a broken trachea you will not live for very long, unless magicians help you in the near future. But are there any healers around here?

  “Are you alive?” The man leaned over me. He was wearing a dark cloak with a hood on his head. I could not see his face.

  He gave me his hand and helped me stand back up.

  “Open the door!” The stranger ordered and, surprisingly, no one in the eatery dared to object.

  “What happened here?” One-eyed Eran burst into the room, distributing kicks and cuffs on the head to a pair of slow-witted guys along the way. “Where's Grandpa?”

  And what about me? Well, okay, I guess I'm not really offended.

  “Well...” It turned out that the chefs had dragged Grandpa behind the counter with the trays on it, so that he would not accidentally get into a fight, and now he was standing in front of Eran and trying to clearly explain what had happened here.

  “Got it,” the one-eyed man said, after listening to the story. “I knew it, it was a bad idea to allow you in here,” he said to me. “I forgot all about that idiot!” He pushed the cold corpse with its throat cut with the toe of his boot. “And where is the third bastard?”

  “He managed to leave,” a voice from the crowd sounded.

  “Son of a bitch!” Eran swore. “If anyone sees him, tell him that it’s better for him not to come here again. If I ever see him, I'll kill him! I will choke him with my own hands! And you,” he beckoned me with a gesture, “you can stay with Grandpa today, but tomorrow ... You better leave by tomorrow.”

  The jeweler came up to me and pulled me away from the eatery, “Let's leave. We will rest, heal you, and have a drink together. I have something to get rid of the stress,” the old man winked at me. “Let them deal with this mess themselves.”

  I wanted to thank the stranger that had saved me from these maniacs, but did not have the time. Grandpa had already pulled me out of there and into the corridor.

  “And where is Dazrael? That long-eared bastard! He’s made a bloody mess, and who will clean it up?” This was the last thing I heard before we came into the room and the jeweler locked the door.

  “Ah, how are you?" the old man lifted my clothes without permission, examining the cut. “Where is that salve?” He rummaged in one of the bags beside his bed. “Here it is! Come on, take off your shirt, I'll smear everything with this, tie it up, and you’ll feel better in the morning.”

  Then we drank some disgusting swill, but it helped. Grandpa told some stories again and I listened, struggling with drowsiness...

  "Sleep, dear, sleep," I seemed to be covered with a rug.

  For some reason, the name Dazrael flashed through my mind, and I tried to remember it...

  “It's a cruel game, son, even if you're immortal,” someone whispered softly, maybe Grandpa.

  Or it seemed to me like it was him? And then I was fast asleep...

  Chapter 3

  “C an’t we track where he is now in the game, and at least help him out somehow?” James Grey asked worriedly, looking at the huge, chaotic construction uniting the virtcapsule and the regeneration chamber.

  “It seems we can’t,” Alexander Grant said thoughtfully and shrugged.

  The neurosurgeon was sitting at his desk and carefully scanning the medical data which was coming directly from the control system to be displayed on his computer monitor.

  “But this is definitely your area of expertise and certainly not mine,” Alex added a little later.

  James shook his head, “My department only creates and develops the technology. Completely different people deal with the software. I think I can get the capsule’s signal decoder. Worst comes to worst, I will design it again myself, but it will take me a lot of time to decrypt the code…” The man sighed sorrowfully. “Only the head of the programming department knows the source code! That is if nothing has changed since the days when I was an ordinary engineer-developer. They could’ve given total control to the AIs. And in that case, the decoder won’t be any help!”

  “James, are you asking me for an answer?”

  “Sorry, I'm just worrying.”

  “Yeah, and not only that: we can’t even learn his name and chosen race,” Alex said regretfully, nervously tapping his fingers on the table top. “Curse this full privacy for the players! Hm, finding your son in the game will be simply impossible.”

  “But we can still try,” James whispered desperately. “Let's hire people who are crazy about ‘Noria’. Ask them to find him. Maybe even a whole clan! I'll give them money!”

  "And then one of them will blab to others about you. You know that just one, a single letter,” he emphasized, “to the board of directors, is enough for us all to be indicted!” The neurosurgeon took a bottle of cognac and a wide glass from a drawer in the table and poured himself a little, just three sips’ worth. “Want a little?”

  “No! I’d rather have a cigarette.”

  “You can buy them yourself, can’t you?” Alex smiled through hi
s mask of sadness. “You aren’t a poor person.”

  “Yours are better,” James responded and then approached the table, took a cigarette from the outstretched pack, and lit it.

  “By the way, I was wondering.” Alex suddenly asked after he had lit a cigarette and exhaled the smoke out of his nostrils, “Do you have a database of activity logs? Stuff like when players created their characters and when they first accessed the pods? That sort of thing?”

  “Yeah, sure,” James nodded with a frown, still not understanding what his old friend was thinking of doing.

  “Do you have access to it?”

  “Of course! Our Department is connected to the testers.”

  “Try to find this out through the database then. Look at the time of creation. Do you remember when we hooked your son up to the game?”

  “Approximately.”

  James picked up a pen from the table and asked Alex to clarify. Having written down the hour and day, he quickly extinguished his cigarette in the ashtray and left the lab, which was located in the basement of a building on the edge of the town.

  * * *

  “Mr. Gray!” the secretary's voice sounded unnaturally stern (But why? the man didn’t understand) when James answered a call in his office at Life Corporation the day after talking to Alexander. “Some woman, named Kiera Cartman, wants to see you, but she hasn't made an appointment,” Vela highlighted the word “some” with a clear note of contempt in her tone.

  That's the reason, Kiera is my son's girlfriend. he smiled mentally, Vela can't stand her, being an upstart and a snob.

  At the same time, he could guess the reason for Kiera's sudden visit. Of course, she hadn’t been able to get in touch with his son, He wasn’t only in a coma, but also in the game. As James knew, they had recently quarreled, so the girl had decided to reach out to her boyfriend through the only possible person-his father.

  “Let her come in,” James answered.

  “But…” Vela tried to argue with her boss.

  “Let her enter!” the man repeated exactingly and, without waiting for an answer, dropped the call.

  The door opened and a slender, medium height young girl with long brown hair and brown eyes walked into the office.

  “Where is he hidden? Why can't I find him anywhere? Is he OK?” Kiera said from the doorway and, having approached the table, she leaned on it and slightly squinted, then looked James right in the eye, piercingly.

  The man leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hands wearily. He perfectly understood that despite his desire to hide all of what had happened to his son during the race, and he had managed to hide the information, as the girl had found out nothing; it was necessary to tell the truth sooner or later. Kiera is able to figure out something if it interests her. He could not hide the truth from her. James would have to tell her everything sooner or later. Because she was not the kind of woman that might be ignored so clearly and easily. She was smart, brave, proud and loyal!

  However, Kiera was very similar to her mother-the Duchess of Scanura. She came from an ancient aristocratic family that had survived many eras and rulers, and the unification of all races and peoples at the beginning of this century had had little impact on their power and well-being.

  What did she see in my son? he looked away. Oh, love sure works wonders. It's only strange that Kiera hasn’t asked for help from her mother. It would be easy with her connections and opportunities. But apparently, the girl is persistent and tries to do everything herself.

  “Kiera, I think we should talk somewhere else,” he waved his arm at the office.

  “Okay,” the girl agreed surprisingly quickly, “Where and when?”

  “Tonight, at seven, at my…” the man emphasized the word, “house.”

  The beautiful girl nodded and left the room without another word.

  James wondered about the upcoming conversation. He wasn’t going to hide what had happened to his son after the accident and was sure he’d end up talking about the game. Still, the question of his search in the world of Noria might’ve been solved. James could trust Kiera as much as himself. At the same time, it was too early to show her his poor son. The body had not yet started to recover-at the moment, the bone frame was being created and the regeneration process itself was very long and outwardly unpleasant.

  * * *

  Account verification-Successful

  User authentication-Successful

  Medical data verification-Successful

  The World of Noria welcomes you-immortal!

  “Am I really immortal?” the girl said ironically and with a chuckle, appearing in her private room in the capital of the Light Forest.

  The conversation with the father of her beloved had been long and unpleasant. But most importantly, she had hope that someday his body would recover and he would come out of the coma. The game could give him at least some illusion of life in the meantime. It was only impossible to track his movements. After all, they had managed to find out his name and race so far, and nothing more. And she thought that James was lucky that the guy had chosen such an original name-Kraven. It was a nickname given to him in his early childhood for the reckless temper and obstinacy with which he had gone through life, just like the villain himself-the hunter from the movie about Spider-man.

  James hadn’t said a word, but it was clear that she, Kiera, was the only hope for finding his son. Therefore, after two long years of absence from the game, the girl made the decision to reconnect the dusty capsule to the network and activate her old account.

  “Hello, Verlain,” admiring herself, she waved to the reflection in the huge, full-length mirror.

  She was a tall dryad, with a greenish tinge to her skin. She had a bright green, bizarre haircut, showing off the long ears. The chest and hips were covered with a long, flowering plant that played the role of clothes. It was also alive, changing and adjusting to the thoughts and wishes of its mistress. The basis of her appearance was the actual appearance of the girl, just adjusted for this race.

  Kiera, although at the moment she was Verlain, closed her eyes and called up the characteristics window - to remind herself of the skills and abilities of the character.

  Name: Verlain

  Level: 56

  Race: Dryad

  Class: Enchantress

  Clan: none

  Guild: none

  Character Characteristics:

  Basic:

  Strength–23

  Agility–30

  Intelligence–90

  Secondary:

  Life–230

  Endurance–300

  Mana–900

  Free points for distribution: 0

  Skills: Alertness–43, Disguise–52, Dagger–11, Bow–26, Trade–49, Quietness–39, Healing–51, Meditation–28

  Class skills: Charm–78, Wooden lash–73, Shackles of wood–71, Transformation into fog–38, Unity–12

  Specialties: Alchemist–64, Herbalist–75, Chef–37, Artist–59, Sculptor–48, Jeweler–18

  Achievements: Beauty knows no pain–3 ranks, Forest child–5 ranks, Suicide–1 rank

  Sensitivity: 15%

  If some of the skills were unfamiliar to the player or had been forgotten, then it was necessary to look for the descriptions of those that could not be recalled in the ‘Help’ tab.

  After learning about her characteristics, the girl sat down on the bed and thought.

  His name and race were the only two characteristics she knew about her beloved. The rest, alas, no! Although... It was clear, of course, that based on the choice of race, he had appeared in one of the human kingdoms and this narrowed the area she should search.

  Should I jump to and explore every city? It's impossible and pointless–it would take too much time! Verlaine wondered. Maybe it will be easier to offer money for any information about a man named Kraven? A new thought appeared in the girl's head.

  Make an announcement and, through one of the specialized guilds, send it to all the citie
s and settlements. Unfortunately, I have only a little personal money here, but we can also transfer some from reality. But everyone will demand payment first, and only then tell me what they know. That’s why it probably won’t work! Too many opportunities for being deceived. But we will set it aside as an emergency option.

  “Stop!” Verlain ordered herself. An interesting idea flashed across the edge of her consciousness, why not try it?

  Where is my list of contacts? She made a mental request to the system and a table appeared before her eyes. On it were names and some data she knew about them next to that.

  Did several individuals, specializing in the search for and murder of disliked players, delete me after all this time? Simply put, professional player killers. They are trustworthy people, who value their reputation and know me and what family I’m from. Verlain read slowly and carefully, leafing through the not exactly short list.

  Yes! Thirteen people remain. Three have deleted me from their friends list, so fuck them!

  Verlain wrote the text carefully and read through it several times. Having made sure that she had given the essential information correctly, she didn’t add anything superfluous and set the right price. The girl then sent the letter to all of the selected addresses.

  Now she had to wait for an answer. After all, she had promised to explain everything in detail, in person, to those who were interested in her proposal.

  Now, probably, it’s worth walking around the city to look for mobs. Descriptions are well and good, but the skills should be seen live.

  * * *

  “Kraven!” the loud voice of Grandpa sounded through my dream. “Kraven!” He shook me by the shoulder.

  Moving the heavy, as if leaden, eyelids with difficulty, I opened my eyes and tried to get out of bed. I could do it only after two failed attempts.

  “Yes, yes, please, stop shouting,” my head was aching and spinning, I felt sick and was insanely thirsty.