The portal opened next to the gnomes right at the moment when I was yet again staring at my comm screen. I hid around the corner quickly, peeking out just enough to have a good view, and made a sign for the druid and the orc to keep still. Despite the harsh demand of the thief that those on the list were prohibited from appearing within the estate, the chief Paladin fighter appeared from the portal in no hurry, and in all his shining shamelessness. Could anyone say still that Iven had nothing to do with the theft of the pendant?
“Follow me‒ your relief will be here shortly!” He ordered the gnomes; after that Gerhard’s right-hand man turned sharply towards us. I barely had time to hide, and held my breath. Dolgunata dropped silence cover on us just in time. In a few seconds I heard Iven’s voice, tense and not very close:
“Did anything happen while you were on duty that I should know about?” Presumably the fighter sensed our presence but was in too much of a hurry to stop and investigate the area.
“Aye, m’lord. I called ya aff-hand. A druid Paladin came he’ with scrolls o’ Gerhard van Brast. Wanted me to let her an’ two more Paladins in the treasury. We told 'em to bolt ‘way.”
“And they just left?” Iven asked, surprised.
“Aye, m’lord. Right ‘way.” The response came immediately.
“Amazing.” The fighter snorted skeptically and urged the gnomes. “Hurry up, get into the portal, quick. You’ll report later.”
Soon the ruckus died down. I decided to wait a little longer and heard the loud voice of the golden Paladin:
“I know that you are here. Scuttling in the corners like rats. What else could be expected of Archibald’s brownnosers? You should be afraid to put your noses out, because I will be back, and it will happen very soon.” His voice was calm, but oppressive. It sent shivers down my spine, making me want to hide in some obscure corner or other safe hiding place. Even Dolgunata and the orc cringed, as if Iven was using some ability to beat on our group’s morale. “Neither Gerhard nor Bernard will save you. If you have any brains at all, use them to make sure to keep out of my sight! I have warned you! I hope you heard me, scum.”
And only now I heard the pop indicating that the portal had shut, taking Iven and the gnomes with it. I shook my head, fighting the desire to rush away, find a safe and quiet place and huddle there, hiding from Iven the Great and Powerful. It was prohibited to exert mental influence over recent graduates of the Academy, but there is no proscription on scaring them or forcing them to submit using charisma.
“Come: Iven will send the new guards soon!” I took several deep breaths to get some oxygen in my blood and dashed forward, pulling Alard with me. Unlike Dolgunata, the orc was hit by the golden Paladin’s grandeur, and now was kind of “stuck”, staring off into space. So I had to bring him around and practically drag him along. Iven’s words had no effect on the druid whatsoever; she did not bat an eyelash hearing threats hurled at her. Her restraint and self-control were truly admirable despite her tongue being so sharp she could slice one to ribbons with it.
“Yari, this is the point of no return. Are you really sure that you want to acquire such an enemy?” Right at the door to the treasury Nata paused, turning towards me. “Don’t even think that Iven will forget this.”
“If he is guilty of the disappearance of the pendant, that Paladin has no honor.” I answered in the way Alard would. “Gerhard will get rid of him as soon as things start heating up. All we would have to do would be to throw some oil on the fire to see his golden ass fried. After that Iven would be too far up shit creek to bother with us. Open it.”
The druid simply shrugged, and took out a long metal rod suitable for a Chubb lock. The lock got stuck, but Nata was still able to turn the key. There was a sharp click and the huge metal door slid aside smoothly. Actually, I did expect to see mounds of gold, precious stones and other nice things a treasury was supposed to be full of right away, at least in my understanding. However, all we saw was thick grey fog in the door. It was soft, cool and slightly resilient to the touch. My intuition screamed that we were unlikely to encounter anything nice in there.
“Guys: prepare all the ammunition we have.” Nata was showing she was ready to fight, and expressed what all of us were thinking. “I can’t say I like this fog a whole lot. Although if it had been a normal treasury with the pendant on a pedestal, I would have been disappointed in Iven.”
“I would have been fine with that.” I poked the fog and cringed from the cold. It was impossible to see anything beyond the door. “Who’s on first?”
“What does it matter? I’ll just do a quick foray to find out the lay of the land. Don’t get lost.” Nata breathed deeply, turned into a panther, flashed her eyes in parting and sank into the fog. “Boys tend to cover their cowardice with fake gallantry as they let girls go first. But we get all the glory!”
“True Paladin knows no fear!” Alard practically roared, and rushed straight after Nata as if he wasn’t the one I had just had to drag along the hallway. I did not hurry. I waited for a few seconds, watching my companions’ frames. Seeing that they had not turned grey, I looked at the empty hallway and took a step into the unknown, shutting the door behind me. From now on the only way lay forward.
My whole body was shivering. I was not in pain, but it was unpleasant. It felt like I stepped out of a warm apartment into a damp and windy November. I had to move slowly, like a blind kitten, trying to distinguish things around me. But the further I advanced, the more apathetic and listless I became. I lost my sense of time. It could have been half an hour or a couple of minutes when I realized that I had forgotten why I was here and how I had arrived in this place. I was overcome by panic. I was lost! This damned fog was everywhere. It grabbed at the skin and seeped into the brain! Like a dog endlessly chasing its tail I circled in place, trying to find a way out. I shouted and called for help, but all around was silence, grayness and cold. My thoughts were confused, my heart was pumping blood boiling with adrenaline… An eternity later my consciousness mercifully faded. We were caught in a trap after all…
“Doctor, will he live?” A voice came through the darkness, an unfamiliar and well-modulated voice.
“Yes, there is no more need to worry about that. His condition is now grave, but stable. The crisis has passed. It is truly an amazing case, general, sir. The soldier lost a lot of blood. In medical practice we call such cases miraculous. His thirst for life is amazing! We were even able to reattach one arm…”
“Leave those details for the relatives! What I am interested in is when he is going to wake up.” It was obvious that the general’s preferred mode of communication was issuing commands.
Were they talking about me? Was I the one in grave condition? I was frantically trying to remember what had happened and why I was in the hospital. So, I ended up in the army. That I remembered. What happened next? Then we went on a scheduled patrol assignment with lieutenant Sintsov. Yes, that was right. And then my entire body shuddered from the flood of memories: “Issue live ammo!” “It blew Vas up!” “All the way!” Hell, arms!!! My arms!!! Where in hell did that bastard with super-abilities spring up from? Apparently, I became too excited, since the sensors nearby trilled a whole sequence of alarms. The doctor reacted immediately, and I felt the prick of a needle. He stayed by my side and answered the general impatiently:
“Today, maybe tomorrow. But I do insist on letting him rest for a couple of days before you question him. Consider that I am the commander-in-chief here. And I will be the one to decide when you start your attack, general! For the private it will exacerbate psychological trauma, and may have additional negative effects! He’s facing a long road to recovery.”
Retreating steps were all the doctor got in response to his warning; meanwhile I was sure that had I opened my eyes, the “local commander-in-chief” would have to stuff it.
The general needed to know what had happened to the Lieutenant Sintsov’s platoon. And I was the only one who could shed some light on that. Ever
yone else had been killed by the superman. I wonder, would they shut me in a nuthatch once I described all this to the general? I imagined their expressions once I told them that a mage had killed the group. It made me laugh. As I was falling asleep from the shot of sedative, I recalled that the name of the mage was Devir, or so I thought. Strange, how would I know that?
I was having a strange dream. Someone said that my world did not exist any more. That all there was was the Game in which I was playing the Dark Paladin. But first the mage called Devir had killed me with a fireball. He tore my arms off, and while I was writhing on the ground in pain, came up to me and said: “My name is Devir, mage Devir! And what’s your name?” Then I saw an oversized cat who was trying to lick himself through the armor he was wearing. When he failed, he faded into the air; only a nasty smile was left in his place; it kept sneering: “You are a system error. Can true Paladins be Dark?” “Idiot!” A red-skinned orc answered him. Something to the effect of “True Paladins are only Paladins of Light. There is no honor in Darkness!” A black panther rubbed itself at his feet. She had mesmerizing eyes and hissed instead of roaring “Closer, Bandar-log, come closer...” I rubbed my eyes, pinched myself and shook my head in order to wake up faster. There was a status bar in front of me and a hologram of Steve. I knew he was part of my subconscious. Well, that must be a symptom of a split personality, but there, within the Game, he was my friend. He shouted, but I could not hear a word through the cacophony. They drifted more quietly, then became louder again. Sometimes it seemed to me that it I was on the verge of hearing him. The noise around grew, and new freakish faces appeared: evil elves, a man with a wolf’s head, a blue-eyed doll Helen who bent down to me, blinked her eyes and said “ma-ma”. I knew all of them. They pinched, talked, asked something, pulled on me, distracting me from Steve. All my attempts to hear him were in vain. Meanwhile, he looked me straight in the eye and kept shouting. I sweated with the effort; then there was a moment of silence pierced with a scream: “Yaropolk, wake up!” My subconscious was able to get through to me. I opened my eyes sharply and inhaled, as if coming up from under water after a long dive.
It was a dream, just a bad dream. There were blinding white walls and ceiling. And no strange beings or Steve. No one besides the people dearest to my heart. My mother and my sister. Dear. Alive.
“Sonny!” My mother wept, seeing that I had opened my eyes. “My baby!”
“Mom, he woke up!” Sveta cried out and threw herself on my chest. It was hard to breathe, but I welcomed the feeling. The sensation from the touch of people closest to me was priceless. The flood of feelings caused tears to flow down my cheeks. It was so good that all that had been a dream, and now I was with my family again. The doctor rushed in to shatter the idyllic picture.
“Get down, now! He just had surgery! Patient, can you hear me? Nod if you do!”
“Y-yes.” It hurt to talk, my throat was bone dry, but I wanted to hear myself speak. To feel that I was alive. “I can. Did anyone else survive?”
“All the questions later,” the doctor cut me off. “First we need to stabilize you. Your relatives need to leave the room.”
“N-nno, don’t!” I was alarmed. It must have sounded pitiful, but I did not care. I was scared that they would abandon me to myself. Apparently, the stress had affected my emotional state pretty badly. The doctor made a show of grumbling some, but then gave my mother some instructions and ran off to tend to other patients.
“We are here, baby. Don’t you worry.” My mother patted me on the hand reassuringly. She squeezed my pinky finger three times, like she used to in my childhood when she wished me good night. This half-forgotten gesture had a calming effect. At that point the door to the room opened and someone else came in. My mother sighed with relief: “Thank God they let you in! Helen, dear, he just woke up!”
I frowned, not understanding why “Auntie Helen”, our neighbor, would be here. Our families were not so close as to visit each other in the hospital. However, as soon as the guest came closer, the world stood on its ears again.
Helen was standing next to my mother and smiling. It was the doll from my dream.
“Hello, darling!” my ideal girl said tensely, and smiled through her tears. I returned a weak smile and looked at my mother with a question.
“Dear Nellie called me right away when this happened. Your phone had so many calls to her that Nellie was notified first. So that’s how we met. They didn’t want to let her in when they found out you were not officially married.” My mother started her tangled explanation, and was unable to restrain herself from reproaching me. “And you never told me anything about her when you called…”
I lost any understanding of what was happening, and was looking carefully at Helen, remembering in detail the first time we met. In the Game. Along with our walk around the city and the best night in the hotel in the Sanctuary. I knew this girl only as my Doll. But it was complete nonsense!
I swallowed and rasped:
“S-s-sorry, but I just don’t know what to say. W-water…”
Helen rushed to fulfill my request, trying to conceal her embarrassment at my words. Bringing a glass to my lips, she asked timidly:
“How can that be? You cannot remember who I am?” She tensely clutched the glass so tightly her fingers turned white.
The water was really the water of life for me. Speaking became much easier now, and I answered carefully:
“I can remember… but not very well.”
Helen sighed with relief and chattered quickly:
“My love, I was so scared that something was wrong with your memory. The doctor said you had real bad shell-shock and it was possible. He said it was such a miracle that you survived at all. I called your mom right away. It’s a pity we had to meet under such circumstances, but it doesn’t matter. We still wanted to have me meet her during your vacation. Right?” Apparently, my memory had gotten lost somewhere together with my other arm. Because I could not remember any of the things presented by the girl. But she babbled on so happily and with such certainty that I did not doubt her words. She would tell me everything and I would surely remember it all. Otherwise, how could I possibly explain Helen’s presence here in a rational way?
“Frankly speaking, I can’t remember much,” I admitted.
My mother immediately rushed to reassure me:
“No problem, sonny. Once you get better, it will all come back to you. Nellie will tell you everything, right now she can. Start now, that is. We’ll go with Sveta, bring you some nice broth. You need to eat well, you do, get your strength back. And you talk here, little doves. It will all get better, it will.”
My mother grabbed the resisting Sveta by the arm and quickly pushed her out the door; then she left as well. Helen settled down lightly on the edge of the bed and stroked my cheek:
“You can’t remember anything at all?”
Her touch made me feel warm, and I said:
“I do, but it’s kind of weird. Everything is topsy-turvy in my head.”
Helen smiled again, looking into my eyes, and then brushed my hair back behind my ear with an all-too-familiar gesture:
“I will remind you of everything. We met a couple of months ago when I came to visit my father’s military base. You fell asleep right on the bench in front of the barracks, and I was going by in the morning and offered you coffee. You were so scared that I would tell my dad, you ran away almost immediately. Do you remember that?”
Apparently, my shell-shocked mind had changed that scene somewhat. But on the whole one could say that I did remember, so my conscience was clear. I nodded and dared to add a note:
“I think you were wearing a huge baggy sweater.”
Helen laughed, happily and openly now, while I lay there and enjoyed the sound of her laughter:
“Right! You kept calling it a sack until you found out it was my dad’s favorite sweater. The mornings were brisk at the base. So you see! Everything will be fine, and together we’ll remember
it all. Together. And now you should rest. I will sit with you.”
I closed my eyes with relief. This conversation exhausted me. This time as I was falling asleep I felt calm. I had the sensation that I was falling, but it did not scare me. Suddenly a harsh shout yanked me out of my drowsiness:
“Yaropolk, wake up!”
My eyes opened at once. Helen was still sitting next to me, and frowned, concerned, as she looked at my face:
“What? Did you have a nightmare? It’s to be expected, after all of this…”
“It seemed that you were calling me,” I whispered.
“No, no, of course not. I was not going to bother you. You just fell asleep,” the girl reassured me.
I tried to relax again and fall asleep, but different thoughts crowded my mind. If Helen’s father had served at my base she would know what happened to the others.
“Helen, did anyone else survive?”
She shook her head.
“No. There was one soldier whose body was not even found. He had a funny name.”
I raised an eyebrow to indicate a question without opening my eyes.
“Monstrichello,” I heard her answer almost immediately. “It’s a funny name so it stuck in my mind.”
It was a funny one for sure. I mumbled something in response as a way of agreement. I did see it all happen as I looked, yet hope refused to die. But what if? We fell silent and Helen was sniffling quietly; I was remembering the guys. Monstrichello, but that was… And then again I heard quite clearly: “Yaropolk, wake up!” The shout derailed my train of thought. I froze, then asked Helen:
“Did you hear anything?”
“No…” the girl said, puzzled. “Was I supposed to?”
“It seemed to me again that someone was shouting ‘Yaropolk, wake up!’ Could it be that I have audio hallucinations?”
“Don’t worry, Yaropolk. This must be consequences as well…” I did not hear the end of Helen’s sentence when that same “Yaropolk, wake up!” exploded in my brain.
The Quest (Dark Paladin Book #2) LitRPG Series Page 27
