The Birth

by Paul Kite

  “Won't I fall off?” Verlain said with doubt in her voice and carefully examined the proposed seat.

  It looked like a saddle with a low back and without any seat belts or anything even remotely resembling them.

  “Of course not!” Selfleed said joyfully, “It's magic, power lines, and other things. Ah, don't worry too much!” The elf waved his hand emotionally, “You can hug me if you doubt it so much,” he winked, jumping onto the first saddle.

  “Do I have to pay immediately or after the fact?” ignoring his offer, Verlain climbed into her seat.

  “As you wish,” the elf gave a mental order, and the wyvern took off.

  “How long have you been doing this?”

  “Carrying people around? Almost a year…”

  And so they flew to the designated place, exchanging some words from time to time.

  The girl swayed slightly in the saddle during sharp turns- but the promised magic held her very firm. Verlain really liked the flying and she even decided that, as soon as she had free time, she would go to the pet shop and buy some kind of flying reptile, since she’d loved them since childhood.

  After being bought, it would need to be leveled to 20, in order to be able to transport the player. And when the pet reached level 40, there would be another option to choose from-a passenger or cargo. Pet development was much more difficult than that of a character. But a player could give it to the nursery, where they still had to visit their little animal once a week. Otherwise, the connection between the player and the pet would be broken, and, after some time, it would die.

  Selfeed told her everything during the flight. And he also promised to introduce the girl to a very good seller of rare and beautiful pets. However, he refused to say their name.

  “Down!” the elf exclaimed and the wyvern rushed down sharply.

  A wild forest glade was approaching so quickly that Verlaine accidentally got scared and tried to grab onto something at least. This something was the back of the elf.

  “Well, he made me hug him,” the girl whispered quietly, so he couldn’t hear her, and removed her hands from the elf's back. Meanwhile, the Wyvern very carefully and gently landed on the grass.

  Verlain jumped to the ground, the elf jumped down after her.

  “You shouldn’t have,” she commented on his action, “You'll have to wait a long time. So I'll text you when I'm free.”

  “Okay,” the elf jumped back, and the wyvern took off.

  “Hey!” the girl shouted, “I want to pay you now!”

  “Huh!” the elf circled the dryad, “Verlain, I remember who I’d heard that name from now. So, Lady Kiera, I fully trust you and hope to see you soon,” Selfleed humorously bowed in the saddle, and soon his wyvern turned into a point on the horizon, taking the player back to the city.

  “I remember…”, “Lady Kiera…” the girl mocked the elf, “I'm fed up!”

  “U-u-u-u - u-u-u-u-u!” suddenly, she heard a nearby wolf howl, and then another, and yet one more.

  “Great!” Verlain was delighted, “You're just what I need!”

  Finding the first wolf was no problem at all. She only had to walk in the direction of the howling for about 300 feet.

  Black wolf level 50

  The system gave her the information when a large wolf with bright red eyes appeared in front of the dryad and growled menacingly, as if warning her that he was going to attack.

  Handsome! the girl mentally evaluated the wolf and immediately activated the Shackles of the Wood, trying to stop the mob. She succeeded only on the second attempt. The time needed to perform the mantra was virtually instantaneous, but, it wasn’t good that it just gave her 3 seconds. Mana consumption, however, was also negligible-only 25 MP. She could cast for a long time.

  The tree whip, the very plant that clung to the dryad’s figure, extended and demolished about two hundred of the wolf’s HP. Verlain managed to hit the mob again before she had to use the Shackles. This time she was lucky, as they activated on the first try. Two more hits of the whip and the black wolf had only a third of its HP, and the girl had 425 mana points. The activated whip took 100 MP to use.

  “I think there are enough bottles,” the girl calculated, then killed the mob, managing to keep 150 units of mana.

  The bottles weren’t cheap, as they restored one hundred percent mana without any conditions.

  After drinking one bottle, Verlain didn’t rush to get the cutting knife and gut the defeated enemy. There had been three wolves, but she’d found and killed only one, or rather it found her, but that didn’t matter. So, the remaining two might be somewhere nearby, and other wolves could come, attracted by the sounds. Not all monsters had a radius of aggro, like, for example, these wolves. They were aggressive from the moment they saw a player. You could expect attacks at any time and from any direction.

  Time passed, but nothing attacked the dryad again, and she couldn’t notice anything nearby.

  “Oh, I don’t want to use it now, of course, but I think it’ll be necessary,” the girl whispered. She went to the nearest tree and used ‘Unity’, a skill that was given only to dryads and druids automatically when receiving any magic class.

  The dryad instantly dissolved into the tall, huge oak tree and became a completely different creature for half an hour.

  She felt wind, gently swaying leaves on the branches; moisture, sucked from the soil by the long roots, stretching out in all directions; empowering sun rays; a fox’s hole two hundred meters to the south; a crow's nest in the middle of the crown; a woodpecker’s hollow; a black wolf a half a mile to the west ...

  These were new and interesting feelings. It was like she was herself and something else at the same time. She could think like a human but feel like a living tree. She wanted to forget everything and stay here forever, to stand still for centuries or even millennia...

  “Black wolf... Black wolf…” The familiar name popped up in my memory, but began to be gradually squeezed out, as an extra and not worthy of even a drop of attention from an almost immortal being.

  ‘Unity’ is a difficult and emotional skill, very taxing on the psyche. The game system warns you about it immediately, when a player chooses a race. And still, there are people who choose a dryad or a druid.

  And there are even reptiloids, ogres and many other races, with their strange and sometimes completely unnatural skills and abilities, directly and indirectly dependent on their choice of class.

  If Verlain had chosen an archer or a melee damage dealer class (swords, daggers, which is certainly nonsense for a dryad to do, but it is still quite possible), she could’ve been a source of poison, which would’ve appeared on any part of her body at will, and which could’ve been used to poison her weapons.

  “Black wolf…” The girl caught this thought and was able to concentrate on it.

  One was half a mile to the west. Three more were very close, two hundred yards to the east, and were approaching the tree slowly. There were also small groups of wolves at a distance of half a mile to a mile and a half to the north and northwest. And many, many points at a distance of more than two miles in all directions. The oak felt it with the help of neighboring trees, as their roots interlaced, forming a huge, invisible network throughout the forest, like a kind of mycelium, but not a single creature, instead, they were hundreds and thousands of different ones.

  The time of ‘Unity’ was over, and the girl marked the mental map with all the black wolves she had seen.

  The dryad emerged from the tree and crouched directly on the ground, leaning on the wide, massive trunk with her back to it.

  “Ugh,” the girl sighed wearily, taking out a bottle of mana–this time, the activated ‘Unity’ had drained the bar almost to zero. “Please, don’t be in a hurry,” she remembered the trio of mobs, coming to her, “give me a few minutes to recover.”

  ‘Unity’ is an unstable skill–the consumption of mana depends on the object it is aimed at; the recharge time is also not precis
e, from a day to a week. Now she had no time to look at it and check. With the increase of the skill level, the time it’s active and the recovery time increase, and the quantity of possibilities becomes much greater.

  By the time the three black wolves appeared, the girl was ready–she was focused and attentive. Throwing ‘Charm’ on the very first one (the duration is depending on the victim’s level; at the second, third and further activations on the same victim, it increases), she then used the ‘Shackles’ on the other two. And while the charmed mob was dealing with one of his fellows, the dryad was killing the second one. It’s a pity that this skill consumes 200 mana, however, it recharges for 10 seconds and can only be used on three mobs at a time. If you want to charm another one, get rid of one of the previous victims. And you can’t use it on everyone, there are a lot of nuances to it.

  “What a good boy!” having refreshed ‘Charm’, Verlain patted the black wolf who was staring droopy-eyed at his mistress. “Guard me!” she ordered the mob. “I'll get some hearts, and we'll go look for your friends. I need twenty-one carcasses.”

  An hour later, three charmed wolves happily circled around the dryad, and ten of the twenty-four hearts were in her inventory.

  Ring-ring! The system signaled an incoming message. The girl was replenishing her mana bar at that moment.

  “Oh, really?” she was delighted, “I hope it's an answer to one of my letters.”

  And she was right. Anax, one of those thirteen play killers, had answered her. Moreover, she knew him in real life. She had had to ask for his help in some not quite legal cases. These things happened.

  Noria

  The Dark Forest

  Dear Verlain,

  I'm glad you're back in the game. I won't beat around the bush for long.

  The amount that you offer is quite lovely and alluring, and it is, in general, strange. You're not the kind of person to put that sum of money into finding a player. However, I want to warn you that I won't be doing this task alone. I have an old friend who is ready to help, though in this case, the payment is doubled. A third of the total amount is a prepayment. And, of course, we won't let you down. You know me, and I, alas, know you and your family all too well.

  My partner and I will be waiting for you tomorrow, at twelve, at the restaurant ‘Klaytay’ in the capital of the Dark Forest. We will need as much information as possible about the subject.

  If you agree, answer this message as quickly as possible.

  Best wishes,

  Anax

  If only I had a choice. No one but you has replied, and I doubt they’ll ever answer, Verlain thought, as she swiftly replied to Anax and went on a search for more black wolves.

  It took her two hours. During this time, the girl cut out the right amount of hearts and, opening the map, wondered whether she should call Selfleed or go on foot.

  Three charmed wolves were circling at a distance of 150 feet from the dryad to guard her. With the recent applications, the duration of the skill had increased to some forty-odd minutes, so Verlain wasn’t worried that they would suddenly throw off her control and attack her.

  Having decided, the girl wrote to the fair-haired elf and reminded him about the seller of pets as well. She decided to go to him first, and then complete the task.

  He'll regret it if he calls me lady again! she mentally threatened Selfleed.

  * * *

  “Come out one by one!” Arkendrid told us. He was a dark elf, the captain of the ship.

  I heard his name and, of course, remembered it, since I’d heard it from one of the guards who were on duty, watching our cell.

  Arkendrid was standing at the open door and staring at us. Six well-armed men (or representatives of other races) and two magicians were standing nearby. One of the magicians was holding strange, dimly glowing hoops, the second had a staff charged with magic spells. This was a very expensive and rare artifact.

  It was clear that none of us were going to rebel and do something surprising. They could immobilize us instantly. They wanted us alive, right? We were the goods, after all.

  The first of the prisoners came out with his head lowered. The magician put the hoop around his neck and whispered some kind of spell, then the hoop shrunk to fit snugly. He was followed by a second man, who was also wearing a spell hoop.

  Alas, for all of the long voyage on the ship, we hadn’t had a single opportunity to escape. The guards had been watching us. Especially when they brought food. We had been very well fed; three times a day we got quite decent food. But my neighbors looked at me strangely from time to time, because I'd never gone to the toilet in a special tub attached to the bars. But I was able to come up with a story, claiming my body had been slightly corrected by certain mutations. I was an aristocrat, after all, so I was allowed to be weird.

  The druid got his hoop, then the reptiloid, both dwarves and then me. The light elf was the last, he began to resist and was pulled out of the cage by force.

  Attention!

  You are wearing a slave collar and Ansr-run!

  Access to your characteristics, skills, and specialties is denied!

  Without the order or permission from the owner of the key to your Ansr-run you can’t: attack and defend, cannot die (at a critically low amount of life you will be transferred from any place, wherever you are, to the point marked by the owner of the collar, or to him personally in a completely immobilized state), can’t kill yourself (the collar blocks any attempts at this. It is able to recognize the possibility of suicide, immobilize you and transfer information about your attempt to the key)!

  Ansr-run has the ability to affect the pain sensitivity of the game character without causing harm to their health, so if you are made to feel pain, we advise that you leave the game and reduce its indicators to zero!

  If this isn’t part of a quest, then you can quit the game and then contact the administration for help. Or you can do it right now–the function is available in the ‘Help’ tab of the game interface.

  “Damn…” I swore heartily.

  “Yeap,” the dwarf Drust said quietly. “I haven’t really understood your words, but I agree with you.”

  “Such collars are produced and used in only one place,” Skenriv added, as usual, “in Alatkhdor.”

  I knew very well what Alatkhdor was –the second largest city in the Free Lands; the city where you could buy anything you like if it existed in the world of Noria. It could be legal and illegal, dark and light, ordinary and extraordinary, forbidden and available to everyone. Any artifacts, weapons, books, potions, knowledge, information, maps, ingredients, mobs (if they could be caught alive), pets and ... of course, NPCs-slaves.

  And we were slaves. And soon I’ll know how much I cost on the local market. And my future owner will be glad to know that they’ve bought an immortal.

  We were taken to the market in a completely closed wagon, so sightseeing was postponed for a while.

  The wagon stopped and we were led into a huge, tall building, in which, as I understood it, losers, such as I, were kept before sailing.

  “Take the goods out in an hour,” said a huge, tattooed orc, approaching Arkenrid. “You’ve arrived just in time.”

  “Who’s the manager today?” The drow asked, nodding to the orc.

  “Sayron.”

  “He’s alright,” the elf waved his hand.

  “Aha,” the orc laughed merrily. “He is an aynu, but he knows how to attract customers. Which means you’ll get the best price for your goods!”

  “The fee is still the same?”

  “Yes, ours is twenty percent.”

  In an hour, we were led along a long corridor and out onto a high boardwalk. We were arranged in a line, at a distance from each other, so everyone was perfectly visible.

  Right in front of us, there was a crowd of almost all the races of Noria. They looked at us with interest and, without any hesitation, loudly discussed our upsides and downsides.

  Then... a tall creature wit
h snow-white wings came out. It was Sayron, of the aynu race. The closest likeness to an angel. The name of Sayron meant it was a male. Although this was secondary for him. He could change his sex in a moment, if he so desired. It was a peculiar race and, in fact, a typical representative of the light forces. I couldn’t even imagine how he had gotten here and become the manager of the slave market.

  The crowd fell silent in anticipation.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen!” Sayron began, in a surprisingly clear, sonorous and bewitching voice, approaching the light elf. “You can see here a true representative of the well-known race. A magician of life! One of the best…”

  That was how he described everyone whom he approached, focusing on all the possible pros and just mentioning cons offhandedly. Only after that, the auction began, with that light elf being bid on...

  “Goodbye, man,” Drust, standing to my right, sighed. “God willing, we’ll see each other someday.”

  Both brothers were bought by a rich kobold, who paid 35,000 irens for each of them. He went up to Arkenrid, standing at the edge, and took both keys for their collars.

  “Kraven,” Sayron called my name, “the starting price is five thousand.”

  “Five thousand and five hundred,” an uncertain voice from the crowd sounded.

  “Five thousand and seven hundred…”

  The price was raised slowly and slightly. The aynu tried to praise me, but I didn’t arouse any special interest. The auction was delayed, but the price was still only at seven thousand.

  “Fifteen thousand,” someone said loudly and confidently, immediately raising the price and interrupting all the possible proposals at once.

  There were whispers and surprised cries. I even wondered who it was. Okay, somebody is willing to pay that much for me. You could buy an average warrior or archer for fifteen thousand irens.

  “Fifteen thousand going once, fifteen thousand going twice…” Sayron was staring at the crowd, or, most likely, at the one who had called out the sum. “Fifteen thousand going thrice... Sold!”