by G. Akella
Attention! Your astral body has been damaged by 3.9%. The strength of your astral body is 96.1%
Attention! Damage to your astral body changes your perception of and control over your character.
Attention! Complete destruction of your astral body results in the loss of your character!
Max came to himself. He realized he was lying on the ground somewhere. He opened his eyes, looked at the sun hanging in the sky, and sat up. No bindstone to be seen. He had revived in the same place he had died. Watching the numbers scroll by, he smiled. All those levels gone, but he would regain his skills and levels someday. Only the four percent of damage to his astral body concerned him. Judging by that message and what Roman had told him, complete astral damage meant full and final death. Perhaps he didn't have enough to plant all the mallorns, but he had to try. For here, each and every death meant something.
He smiled again as he stretched out his hand and stroked the small silver plant emerging from the ground. It was less than two feet tall and looked something like the artificial Christmas trees sold everywhere just before the holidays. The mallorn started at his touch, then leaned slightly over and pressed itself to the palm of the elf who had planted it.
"Well, ryhn, looks like this will work out." Max took a sip from his canteen and looked to his left. The grave had disappeared, and a small silvery tree was growing in the spot where the bones of the elf and his devoted animal lay. The Great Forest could show gratitude when it wished. Falanir and his gyrt had already made their sacrifice.
Getting up and shaking his limbs, Max checked the time and grunted. Just over an hour had passed since he died. Yet, that was no true surprise, since there was no bindstone nearby. I should be happy about that. All of this will take much less time. Alyona would wait for him. Though she would wait no matter how long it took.
The warrior smiled, picked up the bucket, and headed for the next hole in the ground. When the water failed to produce a mallorn, he rolled up the sleeve on his right arm once more, sighing.
Attention! Your character's death has resulted in the loss of 20% of your levels. Your current level is 147.
Attention! Your character's death has resulted in the loss of 111 stat points. Your current stats are distributed as follows: Agility—181, Strength—181, Constitution—181, Intellect—20, Spirit—20, Vigor—181.
Attention! Your astral body has been damaged by 0.71%. The strength of your astral body is 95.39%
Attention! Damage to your astral body changes your perception of and control over your character.
Attention! Complete destruction of your astral body results in the loss of your character!
"Well," Max replied to no one in particular as he propped himself up on his elbow, smiling at the third mallorn. "I hope I stay above level 30, at least."
He lowered his eyes and shook his head. His armor was gone. All of his items were gone. The dagger was too high a level now to open his veins with. He could equip it, sure, but he might as well be wielding a spatula. Too bad he didn't have a knife that did not require a certain level. There was a silver lining, though, besides the new mallorn—his astral body had taken less than one percent damage. So, perhaps he had a chance. Of course, he did not want to meet the true death, but there were worse things in the world than that. A whole universe lay between "died fulfilling a quest" and "gave up." Retreat was not an option. How could he ever look in the eyes of his woman and her brother after that? Roman and he had agreed to see this to the end, even if it meant the destruction of their astral bodies, and they would see it through. He stood again, took up his bucket, and pressed on.
…
Your Toughness skill has increased to 44%.
Attention! Your astral body has been damaged by 1.35%. The strength of your astral body is 65.47%
Attention! Damage to your astral body changes your perception of and control over your character.
Attention! Complete destruction of your astral body results in the loss of your character!
More than a day had passed now since he'd first entered the mist. The sun had given way to night, but that changed nothing of his behavior. The mallorns refused to grow on their own.
The worst part of this is I can't just kill myself with a quick knife blow, Max lamented as he leaned back against the newest sapling. He had tried that for the fourth plant, but death from the knife in his heart had been just as long and just as painful, and it had been harder to water the seed with his blood that way. His level had stopped falling. Level thirty, so what. I've been level thirty before. It's not that bad. Twenty one trees had been planted. Just a few more now.
He felt the changes now, after losing thirty percent of his astral body. His head throbbed and he felt the draws of fatigue and even apathy. He tried to sleep, but he could not, so he gave up. He pulled Alyona's sandwich from his bag and washed it down with water from his canteen. At least he had enough food and water. Enough for a thousand trees.
The mallorns were growing in earnest now. Each time he planted one, they all grew in size, and the newest was as tall as the rest. By this point, they stood twenty feet tall, lined up in two straight rows, their branches fluttering in the growing breeze. The sight was incredible, like a band of professional dancers clad in silver and performing, sometimes in unison, sometimes in complement. Amazing.
Max finished the sandwich and readied himself to stand when he noticed a mysterious movement near one of the trees. It was the one over the grave of Rhyn Falanir. The branches shuddered, as if the mallorn was trying to strip its own leaves, but then a small, silvery beast charged down its trunk and bounded over to the warrior.
A fox! Max thought, smiling. This soon, thought? I have like sixty five percent left. As it drew closer, he saw that the animal was closer to a ferret like the one that one of his friends from the real world had owned. It was bigger, though—almost two feet long—with silvery hair, a fluffy tail, a triangular snout and pointed ears, a long thin body and short legs. No information about the creature was visible—even its HP and name were hidden. When it came within ten feet of Max, it reared up on its hind legs and cocked its head, staring at the warrior with its black, beady eyes.
"Hey there, glitch," Max smiled. "You grow out of that tree?"
The animal's HP bar blinked in response, and the name "Glitch" appeared over it.
Congratulations! You have named your familiar. To bind this animal to you, give him a drop of your blood.
Max was dumbfounded. "What? You're a..."
The animal acted like it had read the system message, too. It ran up to Max in a flash, slipped under his right hand, and bit the thumb of his left. The warrior winced.
????????? ??????? ??? ?????? ??? ???? ???????????
Your Toughness skill has increased to 54%.
"The hell," Max let out. "You little..."
His HP remained where it was, though, and his finger appeared unharmed. Glitch squeaked and twisted around in an impossible contortion to lick Max on the cheek. One instant later, the animal was on his shoulder, wrapping into a living fur collar, licking his other cheek and flowing down into his lap.
Max pet his soft fur, and Glitch nibbled him playfully, then returned to his shoulder and yanked his ear.
"Calm down there!" Max smiled and pulled some cured meat from his bag.
Glitch grabbed the snack and slid to the ground, wrinkling his snout up in ridiculous glee as he began to eat. Max placed a small bowl of water next to his pet, lit his pipe, and looked thoughtfully at the tree sitting near the stream.
So the Great Forest had given him a familiar? That had to be it. He hadn't seen any living creatures in this place, not even earthworms or bugs, and yet suddenly this silvery wonder had slid right down that tree. The exact tree under which the bones of another familiar lay at rest. The conclusion was obvious.
Glitch had already consumed the piece of meat and a few sips of water. He overturned the bowl, of course, and then ascended onto Max's shoulders once more.
"Thanks," the warrior said to the forest as he pet the little creature. "We'll be happier together, I think. All right, then," Max put his pipe and the bowl back in his bag, stood, and proceeded to the next hole in the ground. "Just a few thousand more buckets to go..."
Your Toughness skill has increased to 72%.
Attention! Your astral body has been damaged by 0.65%. The strength of your astral body is 13.87%
Attention! Damage to your astral body changes your perception of and control over your character.
Attention! Complete destruction of your astral body results in the loss of your character!
Attention! The conditions of the quest Return of the Mallorns have been completed!
80 out of 102 mallorns planted.
Congratulations! The Mallorns will now remain in the Great Forest.
The permanent boost Favor of the Forest is now granted to all elves within the territory of the Great Forest, as well as to elves in adjacent territories up to 6 miles away. The current strength of this boost is 80%.
Note: you may continue the quest and increase the strength of the permanent boost Favor of the Forest.
Note: you may stop the quest and make the current strength (80%) of the boost Favor of the Forest permanent.
If you continue the quest and fail to complete it, the Favor of the Forest boost will remain at 80% strength.
Do you wish to continue this quest?
Yes/No.
Max turned his head to see Glitch sitting on his chest. He saw him. But he had gone completely blind by the sixty third tree. And as soon as he had, the system messages were no longer shown to him but read out loud by a distant female voice. The System really did care about its players, and since the quest did not require that he search out the locations of each tree, he somehow just knew where each one was. His vision never returned completely, though he could perceive the world in something like a dim, hazy night vision. Directly above, he squinted to view the top of the newly planted mallorn. He could not tell its branches apart, nor estimate the tree's size. It was likely bigger. Each mallorn pushed his body aside as it grew, so when he returned to consciousness, he was always propped up against the trunk.
Glitch saw that his master had come to, licked his cheek, and lightly bit his earlobe.
"OK, OK," Max whispered, turning over on his stomach and pushing off from the ground, then sitting against the rough bark.
The warrior gritted his teeth, waiting for the pain these movements had caused to hit him. Then, he took a couple of deep breaths and slowly reached for his flask. I did it. Now the Mallorns will never leave this place.
He wondered, though, why the message had mentioned one hundred and two trees. It had initially said one hundred and one, but apparently the System had not accounted for the tree that had come from no seed at all. These mallorns were very strange, indeed.
He took a few sips from his canteen, jerked his body from the pang of pain that followed, and dropped the water. His toughness barely helped. Grinding his teeth, he picked the canteen up and placed it in his bag, then pulled out a piece of meat for Glitch. The animal grabbed it carefully but refused to eat. I guess he's full. Max couldn't remember the last time he had fed him. He did not know how long it had been since he had passed through that hazy shroud, nor what time it was now, since the numbers on the clock melted together in his vision. His senses of taste and smell had ceased working long ago, and his cat form icon became grayed out once he was under fifty percent astral strength. But he pressed on. He probably would have stopped, if not for Glitch. Each time he recovered from death, Max saw his familiar sitting on his chest. When he had grown blind, he just knew that Glitch was sitting there. From then on, he never lost more than one percentage point. The animal must have protected him somehow.
All right, no point just sitting around. Must finish. Max clenched his teeth for the thousandth time, leaned against the tree trunk for the hundredth time, and climbed to his feet. He stood for a minute, waiting for the pain to subside from his body, then recalled the last message shown, forcing the System to repeat it.
……….
Do you wish to continue this quest?
Yes/No
"Yes!" Max croaked, plodding along the soft moss to the next hole in the ground.
Attention! Your astral body has been damaged by 0.61%. The strength of your astral body is 0.27%
Attention! Damage to your astral body changes your perception of and control over your character.
Attention! Complete destruction of your astral body results in the loss of your character!
Attention! The conditions of the quest Return of the Mallorns have been completed!
101 out of 102 mallorns planted.
The permanent boost Favor of the Forest is now granted to all elves within the territory of the Great Forest, as well as to elves in adjacent territories up to 25 miles away. The current strength of this boost is 120%.
Note: you may continue the quest and increase the strength of the permanent boost Favor of the Forest.
Note: you may stop the quest and make the current strength (120%) of the boost Favor of the Forest permanent.
If you continue the quest and fail to complete it, the Favor of the Forest boost will remain at 120% strength.
Do you wish to continue this quest?
Yes/No
"YES!"
No pain now. Just an endless ocean of silver dreams, and not of the kind brought by sleep. Max could swear that he had never truly dreamed before. One picture came after another. Colossal monsters shrouded in gloom, attacking the Great Forest. Burning elven cities. Shapeshifters retreating for the Wild Wood. The war of brother killing brother, the blood, the corpses littering the glades and meadows, the Goddess of Vengeance holding her naked blade and the severed head of the traitorous king. He saw everything. He lived everything, present at once in each and every one of these dreams. And he knew that all of the pain had been but a shadow of the true suffering of the one who had made him the Guardian. His blood was not a sacrifice. The Great Forest had no need of it, and the mallorns did not need it to grow. It had all been a test. Their one and only chance at redemption.
One hundred trees stood in a ten by ten square. A little ahead of the rest grew the tree at the foot of which lay Falanir. The final tree would stand opposite, and under that tree, he would be buried. Not even Glitch could help him survive the last planting. But the mallorn would grow, and the quest reward would be even stronger. The First Guardian never perished. He knowingly sacrificed himself. In so doing, he protected the army that defended the Great Forest—at the cost of his own life. Max would do the same. Even if the bonus was an additional five percent, it would be worth it.
The pain subsided, but he could not feel his arms and legs. He had only reached the last three trees by crawling. Six hundred feet along the ground could seem like an eternity.
Right elbow. Left elbow. Right knee. Left knee. He despised his own impotence, but it would all be over soon. Glitch seemed to sense his master's feelings, and whipped around him, a furry streak of silver lightning. Maybe he's trying to distract me. Right elbow, left elbow. The gyrt had returned and died upon the body of his master. Max did not want the same thing to happen to his animal. He had grown so used to being with him over these past few days, and... No, we haven't been together long enough. He’ll forget me and run off into the forest.
Right knee, left knee. And there it was, the final hole. Max struggled to raise his head and look at the misty barrier. In his current state, all he saw was a monolithic gray wall. Somewhere out there, a few hundred feet away, Kirana was waiting for her former knight to return to her. Beyond her was his red-haired kitten and his friends. No, there are no "former knights." Any man can be a knight, whether the king has anointed your shoulder or not. In this moment, he knew he was the truest of knights. What you think of yourself is what really matters.
He smiled, remembering Roman's childish theory, and reached for the last see
d. He was glad that the wall still stood. Imagining how he looked, he knew he didn't want the others to see him this way. After this, well, it wouldn't bother him. Nothing troubled a corpse.
Tossing the seed to the bottom, Max scraped away at the edges of the hole with his knife, somehow covering the seed with soil. For countless hours now he had been unable to fill in the holes completely, and it turned out not to matter.
This is it. He saw the two dearest people in the world to him. Alyona frowned, worried. Roman stood by, with a pensive but approving look.
"Yes, Roman," he told his friend, trying his best not to look at his wife. "To the end means to the end. There is no middle ground." He put the knife to his wrist. But then, a sprout sprung up from the ground and knocked the weapon from his hand. An unknown power carefully lifted Max and gently lowered him down, away from the trees.
"How?" he croaked, but he failed to hear his own voiced over the deafening sound of a tree growing to full maturity in mere moments.
The one hundred and second mallorn had decided to grow on its own. The Great Forest had turned down his ultimate sacrifice. The earth trembled noticeably as the trunk widened, and the sounds of trouble turned into the joyous ringing of bells. The gray moss was scattered, and young green grass sprung up in its place. Soon a thousand bells were ringing around him, where for millennia silence had reigned supreme.
You've completed the quest: Return of the Mallorns!
You have regained a level! Current level: 31.
You have 3 stat points to allocate.
You have regained a level! Current level: 32.
You have 6 stat points to allocate.
.....................................................................
You have regained a level! Current level: 230.
You have 600 stat points to allocate.
