by G. Akella
"Have you seen any express trains here?" Max sighed. "Also, the Royal Demesne is ten times bigger! Although the Great Swamp accounts for about a third of it."
"But you just said there were only fifty zones corresponding to her level," Luffy butted in. "Which is only half the size of your precious Muscovy."
"Is everyone from Kiev as smart as you?" Max chortled in response. "You should take a look at the map to see how they're scattered around before you open your mouth."
"There must be some other way!" the mage pressed on.
"Well, there might be mages capable of finding her here," suggested Bonbon.
"There might be, only they'll probably want us to complete a ton of quests before they concede to help, or demand a thousand gold coinss," Max shook his head. "Still, I like the idea... We should ask around."
In the meantime, the girl had finished eating and was now paying close attention to the conversation, taking sips of milk from the jug. Max noticed this and gave a wave of the hand, ending the discussion, which had become pointless by then.
"Right, so let's start looking for mages," he sighed, turning to Saté. The girl's grimy face looked so cute that he couldn't help cracking a huge smile.
"Now where did you come from, little wonder?" he asked her. "And where are your parents?"
"No parents," the girl's face grew sad. "I'm on my own. The debt collectors took father's house away two days ago..."
"Aren't there any shelters for the homeless?"
"None. There's nothing here for me but the Caëntine Mines or the Vaalen Woods. And it won't be easy there for someone like me," she sighed heavily. "Mining for ore or digging out roots..." she showed her tiny palms to Max. "Anyway, I shouldn't bother you with it. I thank you for your kindness, warrior," she nodded to Max and was about to rise, but he held her by the sleeve.
"Hold on, is there really no other option for you?"
"Well, Tano Listesse is looking for apprentices now. She's a fine seamstress, and provides boarding for those she takes on. I've always been good with a needle, but..."
"But what?"
"Apprenticeship with her isn't free—I'd have to pay her," Saté sighed, her shoulders drooping. "And I won't be able to earn the gold coins fee charged by Mistress Listesse even if I spend a month working in the mines. I'll be lucky if I manage to earn enough to feed myself..."
"Here, take this," Max fished out his very last gold coin and handed it to the girl. "But promise you'll enroll for apprenticeship."
Hope flashed on Saté's face. She started to reach for the coin, then jerked her hand away.
"But it's your last money, warrior..." she said in a low voice.
"No big deal," Max said to the girl. "Warriors are supposed to make money, after all."
Taking the girl by the hand, he pressed the yellow metallic piece in it, then had her make a fist.
"One day you'll become a famed seamstress—maybe you'll sew me a ribbon or something," he smiled to her.
Suddenly there were bells ringing in his ears. Incomprehensible data flashed up in his system log.
????????! ?? ???????? ?? ???? ???????? ??????? ???????? ?????? ????? ???? ????????? ? ??? ????????????
The girl looked at the gold coin in her palm, then raised her almond eyes at Max, wide with wonder.
"I was right about you, Gray One," she said in a low voice. "You are heading down the right path. I shall keep this coin, and I will definitely sew you a ribbon—more than one. I promise."
Max was taken aback—instead of a grimy-faced ten-year-old, he was looking at a beautiful young woman, her green eyes exuding wisdom mixed with irony. Most importantly, time around them appeared to have stopped. Neither Luffy, nor Bonbon, nor anyone else around them, seemed to have noticed the changes in the girl's appearance.
"You two-lived have a saying—how does it go?" she smiled. "To each their just deserts, was it? Well, let it be so! You will find your woman in Talyan—she will be there when you reach it. Good luck to you, Gray One. I'm not saying farewell, for we'll see each other again," Saté gave the warrior a sly wink, and made haste toward the exit.
Once the door had closed behind the girl, Max was buffeted by the cacophony of sounds and smells from all over around him.
"You have just given our last gold coin to an NPC beggar girl," Luffy's thoughtful voice broke the warrior's reverie. "This was pretty silly, of course, but you know, Max, I'm proud that I can call you my friend," said the mage suddenly, rising and giving his friend a hearty handshake.
"You guys... anyway, I've been thinking... Why sit and wait for the Asians to kick the demons' butts, or the other way round?" Bonbon crossed his arms and looked at the companions sitting at his table. "This is to say, count me in, boys. It sure is more fun together."
He rose, smiled drunkenly, and offered his hand for a handshake... At that very moment, the enormous cauldron of boiling oil that had hung over the fireplace crashed into the fire. The lid flew to the side, the embers scattering all across the floor from the shock, and the oil that splashed on them instantly caught fire and began to spread across the floorboards. Clouds of smoke filled the dining hall, and there were screams from every direction. Some of the patrons dashed for the exit. In the meantime, the puddle of burning oil reached the bar, slithering like a snake. The bar caught fire as if it were made of kindling sticks and not massive planks of wood. The innkeeper screamed in a high voice, trying to beat out the flames on his sleeves.
"The well in the yard! Hurry up!" one of the players shouted.
Panic gripped the hall as a stampede of players tried to reach the doors and windows of the inn.
"Max! What are you staring at? Let's split," Luffy gave him a tug on the sleeve. "By the way, where's the girl?"
"The girl left," Max shook his head as he gathered the remaining food and stuffed it into his bag. "Aren't you supposed to be a fire mage? Frightened of your own element, are you?"
"Ugh, this is pretty damn weird! The flames are black in my magic vision—this is no ordinary fire!"
At that moment, flames roared behind the bottle rack, and the bottles started to explode. The inn was clearly beyond hope now.
"Hey, do the two of you have maximum fire resistance or something?" Bonbon snorted behind their backs. "If not, let's get out of here." There wasn't a shade of worry on the bald man's face.
Emmanuel rolled out from behind the bar. He was on fire, and his health bar was halfway gone. One of the players covered him with a cloak and dragged him toward the exit. The serving girls kept on screaming. Players were running down the staircase leading to the second floor, and jumping out through the windows. Someone must have run down the upstairs hallway and alerted the resting guests.
There was but a handful of people left in the dining hall. One of the players, a mage, ran into the inn with a bucketful of water, splashing it over the flames, but it may as well have been a bucketful of gasoline. The flames burst out with such force that the young man threw the bucket away, cursed, and slipped back outside.
Max glimpsed the very piece of sausage that Saté had dropped lying on the bar, and got a sudden brainwave of the silliest sort.
"Get going, you two," he pushed his companions toward the exit, and headed for the bar right through the flames.
"Max! Have you lost your mind? Where are you going?" shouted Luffy, already near the exit.
The warrior just made a dismissive gesture with his hand. The flames that roared around him seemed to be hugging him without causing any harm, and he heard a woman's laughter ringing in his ears. He calmly took the piece of sausage—quite untouched by the fire—from the bar, and headed for the exit just as unhurriedly. As he was leaving the burning inn, something moist touched his cheek—he didn't quite understand what it was, but it felt mind-bogglingly pleasant, as if he had just received a kiss from the woman of his dreams.
"Is there something that escapes my understanding, or is your friend immune to fire?" Bonbon scratched the back of his head, look
ing at the unharmed warrior.
"No freaking idea—my companion is full of surprises," Luffy muttered. "What exactly did you forget back there?"
"Just got me a souvenir, that's all," Max smiled widely. "Never mind that."
They stood and stared at the burning inn for a while. The guards wasted no time chasing the gawkers away. In another minute or so, a group of five NPC mages came to the burning building. Their leader, wearing the blue cloak of a water mage, cast a transparent shield of some sort on himself, approached the burning inn and thrust his hands upward, forming a spell. A blue mist enveloped his wrists, and instantly disappeared. He froze for a few moments—you could see how much strain there was in his back—and then just turned around, facing his group, and made a helpless gesture with his hands, an expression of disappointment and surprise on his well-bred face, saying something that was rendered inaudible by the crackling sound of the blaze and the general commotion. It was nonetheless clear that something went wrong with his spell. The inn burned through in just a couple of minutes. The fire turned the whole building into a pile of ashes—there wasn't so much as a charred piece of wood in sight.
"Well, we were already done with our meal..." Luffy chortled, looking at the former innkeeper explaining something to the head mage. "And no one lost their life—that's what's important."
"Imagine the sheer amount of grub and booze that perished in the blaze," Bonbon shook his head dejectedly, turning to Max. "By the way, those are the clowns you wanted," he pointed at the mages who had come to fight the fire, all dressed in cloaks of different colors. "They might tell you where to look for your lady friend. Don't miss your chance!"
"No need," Max grunted. "I already know where to look for her."
"Did I miss something?" Luffy stared at his companion in surprise.
"You sure did. While you were boozing it up and leering at all the wenches in the inn, this girl, Saté, told me that Alyona was in Talyan. I took a look at the map—it's less than a hundred miles away."
"Yup, two grenade throw lengths," Bonbon cackled. "An hour by express train."
"Hold on," Luffy interrupted the bald warrior and looked at Max suspiciously. "How could a level 7 chit of a girl know that?"
"Well, she appears to have other talents but sewing. How should I know? The point is, that's where we're headed."
"And why the hell did you decide to take a walk to the bar?"
"I thought I noticed a glint there, so I decided to take a look—I could have found us some money," the lie rolled easily off Max's tongue. He had a distinct feeling that his new acquaintance did not want him to share certain details about their exchange with the others.
"Well, did you?"
"Nope, there was nothing there."
"All right, but how come you weren't even singed?" the mage would not relent.
"Damn, Luffy, how the hell am I supposed to know? I thought I'd grab the gold, and the two of you could wait for me at the gate for six hours if anything went wrong. Anyway, let's get going. We should find a bench, sit down, and iron out our plans."
They didn't find any benches, so they decided to sit down on the grass in a small park some fifteen hundred feet away from the charred remains of the inn. There were no signs saying "Keep Off the Grass," and there were other players around—a dozen groups or so. Alas, there was no privacy to be had anywhere in the city, and Max realized things would only keep getting worse, so they would have to leave Ellorian with as much haste as they could muster.
"So, what do we have here?" he spoke first, taking advantage of his party leader's rights. "A mage, a dps, and a tank. It's really cool that we have a tank. Inasmuch as I'm familiar with how things work around here, we're a healer and another dps short of a full set."
"The tank has a question," Bonbon raised his hand. "You guys got any munchies left?"
"Didn't you just eat?" Luffy grunted.
"I didn't eat—I drank," the bald warrior corrected him. "Now that I have reached a decision on my future, I feel ravenous all of a sudden."
"Here you go," Max took the remaining food out of the bag and gave it to Bonbon. "And enough with the 'you guys' stuff already. You're with us, so it's 'us' and not 'you guys.' Now, am I correct in understanding that we have no cash?"
"Forty seven coppers," reported Luffy.
"I have a few silver pieces, too," the bald warrior chimed in.
"So we don't have enough to join a caravan, right?"
"Indeed. Considering that Talyan zones are level twenty and on, and that it's best to have some money in your pocket once you get to your woman. You know: flowers, chocolates, condoms..." Bonbon mused in a didactic voice. "And, mind you, I still haven't uttered a single word about a white stallion and shining armor..."
"What the hell are you going on about? What condoms, what white stallion?" Max frowned. "And she isn't 'my woman' or anything like that! She's the sister of a friend of mine, who's also here, by the way. Marooned in Demon Grounds, wherever that is."
"A stallion has balls—that's the very thing that makes him different from a mare, which, characteristically, has none," explained the bald warrior in a mock-serious lecturing tone. "But yeah, I must have gotten carried away with the condoms—they haven't been invented in the game yet, that much I know for certain. But don't you try to give me that 'not-my-woman' spiel. Have you seen the look on your face when you talk about her?"
Max looked at Luffy, sitting right next to him and giggling, and spat on the grass in annoyance.
"Have either of you got anything useful to contribute? For instance, where could we make a few quick bucks and level up?"
"You know, I feel really parched all of a sudden," Bonbon sighed. "My throat has gone all dry, and you shouldn't tackle such serious issues without any lubrication whatsoever, should you now?" he looked at Luffy inquisitively.
"Have at it," the mage was still chuckling as he handed over a bottle of wine. "Where does it all go, I wonder?"
The bald warrior took the bottle and transferred its contents into his gullet in a single go, belched contentedly, lit up a cigarette with a satisfied expression, and finally spoke:
"All right, noobs, listen up! There's a small dungeon nearby, level 15-20, designed for a party of five. Toads, rats, and three bosses. We won't manage to clear it just by ourselves—we'll have to find a healer and another dps. However, those are easier to find than a tank nowadays, so you should be thankful you have me." Bonbon took a deep drag, blew out the smoke, and made a vague hand gesture in the air. "What was I talking about? Oh yes. There are four quests for that dungeon involving the spare parts from said rats and toads, and the final boss' fang. Just these quests should give you a few levels each, and I might level up to twenty myself. Then there's the experience for clearing out the dungeon. And that's not all! I happen to be a skinner—or a flayer, whichever terminology you prefer. My profession, if you please. Crafters give a gold coin for ten hides, and the dismembered corpses also drop alchemical ingredients which can either be sold or given to our friend here," the warrior nodded in Luffy's direction. "I can see how his eyes lit up. We will have to share with the guys who will join our party, of course, but I think we'll manage to raise about five gold coins altogether as a result, maybe more. So you'll be able to impress your beloved with your shining armor at least—the stallion will have to wait. As well as condoms—like I said, those haven't been invented yet. However, they say that herbalists have a special balm for that purpose..."
"Oh really now?" Max could barely hold back laughter. "How is it you've become such a fount of wisdom?"
"Duh, I spent four days boozing in that joint. I had about twenty raid offers—even for half the loot. Only I didn't care much about it then."
"Don't you start pouting again—your wife will be fine."
"I take solace in the fact that she has all the money," Bonbon sighed. "Almost fifty gold, last I counted, and we also rented a small house for six months. Her profession should keep her provided for, I hop
e. She kept trying to sew in real life—without much success, though. But once she got here, her business took off."
"One more reason to stop worrying. There'll surely be a working portal in six months' time," Max shrugged.
"It's not that, guys." Bonbon turned aside and frowned. "We had no kids for so long... but then... She was in her third month when it happened. Even when she was playing, she felt like she was... Well, you know. But since all of us are dead out there," he pointed his finger at the sky, "that means..."
"RP-17 transferred everything here, including your child. NPCs have kids, don't they? So your lady will give birth just fine," said Max with conviction. "We saw so many little kids with their parents in the Sunlit Forest, after all. A single capsule can take the whole family here, you see? Even husbands and wives, for some reason—probably since they were living together. Haven't you seen players' kids here? It's all a bit complicated, and I don't know for sure, but I think a kid under ten cannot choose a character class, and is simply transferred as a kid."
The expression on Bonbon's face made Max feel uneasy for a moment.
"Now where would I see anything?" he grunted. "I spent all this time getting plastered."
"I don't know whether women can conceive in this world, but if there was a child, she'll give birth for sure. So cheer up," Max smiled and patted Bonbon on the shoulder, "everything's going to be just fine."
"May your words be carried right into the Sage's ears," said the bald warrior in a more cheerful voice.
"There's something I'd like to know, Max," said Luffy, who had been listening to their conversation without saying anything. "Some of the kids we saw were really small, remember? All of them are level one, but what do they do next? How do they choose their class and their talents?"
"You shouldn't be asking me, but rather whoever had invented this whole thing. Maybe a menu will pop up for them in ten years. Who knows?"
"Nevertheless, I'll never understand how a mother or a father could put their child in a capsule," the mage shook his head.
