The Time Master

by Dmitry Bilik

  I did a fake thrust, then jabbed with my spear as hard as I could. The rachnaid didn’t croak; he only twitched his head, avoiding the blow. Immediately the other one attacked me from behind.

  [ ∞ ]

  Step forward, fake thrust, jab. This time I didn’t aim at his head — I pointed the spear at the thin air just next to it.

  I heard a shuddering noise like the sound of a wineskin being ripped in two. A revolting green goo flowed down the spear.

  Your Pole Weapon skill has increased to level 1.

  Your Unarmored Combat skill has increased to level 1.

  I let out a yell, realizing what had happened. Swinging round, I held the spear out in front of the rachnaid’s bloody claw. Shit! He still managed to graze me. I tried to thrust the spear at him but the creature effortlessly dodged it.

  My wound ached. Under any other circumstances I would have already collapsed to the ground grabbing at my bleeding hand, and called for help. But that would be useless here. No ambulance would come to spirit me away.

  I had to earn my right to live.

  The rachnaid must have decided not to drag it out. Perhaps that was how his companion’s death had affected him, or perhaps it was the taste of my blood, but it was as though the creature had gone amuck. He barged at me, apparently unconcerned for his own safety. He would have trampled me had I not remembered what Arts had just told me. After two unsuccessful attempts to hit him, I stabbed him in the closest foot. That worked pretty well.

  Your Pole Weapon skill has increased to level 2.

  The rachnaid didn’t wound me anymore. However, because of all this waltzing, my Vigor had dropped below 20%. My strength was about to run out; I was a ready meal for them now. And the rachnaid looked as if he was just warming up. I needed to do something, and fast.

  I thrust my left arm forward, casting Light. Of course, I wasn’t counting on the blinding effect that the Kabirid had demonstrated a little while ago. According to Arts, a spell like that was quite rare. My plan was simple. It was dark all around — the sun had just begun to rise, barely peeking from behind the mountain. The light might disorient the rachnaid: who likes to be pulled out of a dark room into a brightly lit space? That might help me gain two or three seconds.

  It turned out that my head was good for something other than blabbing. It sometimes worked like that in critical situations.

  The insect stretched out his front legs and froze. I stabbed him. It was hard: my right arm nearly went numb while I raised the weapon. I’d thought that thanks to my agility work I’d be in good shape. As if!

  The vile goo went everywhere. The rachnaid collapsed, very nearly smothering me. But I survived.

  Your Pole Weapon skill has increased to level 3.

  I looked around for Arts. A shiver ran down my spine: things weren’t going very well for her. The Alpha truly lived up to his name. He barged like a tank, only delayed by occasional flashes of her staff. At this point, the staff was no longer spewing a flame, just spitting out an occasional feeble light.

  As for Arts, she seemed to dance gracefully around — you’d be hard pressed to call it fighting. Just watching her made me jealous. Step, turn, dodge, jab, lunge forward, another jab.

  However, it was obvious that things weren’t adding up in her favor. Her sword wasn’t powerful enough to harm the creature’s feet, let alone his body. After every thrust, the Alpha gave out a yelp that made my blood run cold. Still, Arts’ blows seemed to only give him mental discomfort.

  Also, he must have hit her a couple of times: I could see blood on Arts’ armor. Every time the girl swung round, claret would splatter everywhere. She wouldn’t last long at that pace, unless she had thirty pints of blood in her body instead of the usual ten.

  Despite everything, I wasn’t in a hurry to step in. For one thing, my Vigor was almost down to zero. If I ran over there now half dead, five minutes later I’d be gasping for breath. Also, I needed to observe the Alpha and figure out his weaknesses. Finally, I was scared shitless. I never would have thought that I’d go to kindergarten, make it through school, graduate from university, find a job, all this only to discover that everything I’d learned was useless because I’d just end up having to fight this monster. How was advanced math going to help me now?

  Meanwhile, the Alpha was applying pressure. He kept doing the same thing over and over again. Whenever Arts attacked him, he simply clung to the ground and snapped his sharp front feet, trying to seize his adversary. There was only one solution: try to accomplish what I’d failed to do with the other two, namely surround him between the two of us and have a go at him from both sides until we achieved the desired result.

  But everything turned out to be much more mundane. The creature simply didn’t notice me. I stabbed him a few times in his chitinous rear end, under his gut and then in the feet — but only that latter maneuver finally made the Alpha pay attention to me.

  He half-turned toward me, gave me a studying look, then kicked me — gave me the boot, literally.

  Your Unarmored Combat skill has increased to level 2.

  By the time I read this notification, I was already sprawled on my back six yards away from the Alpha. The bastard didn’t even turn around to finish me off. Somehow that felt insulting.

  Grunting, I scrambled back to my feet, picked up my spear and staggered toward the creature. Never mind. Just you wait-

  Once again I stabbed him in the foot and received another kick in the chest. This time, I managed to tuck midflight and rolled away.

  [ ∞ ]

  This time, stepping aside wasn’t enough — I literally had to leap away. That threw me off balance for a moment. Shit. What a waste of charge points.

  But then the monster’s kicking foot straightened completely. I had plenty of time. I took a swing, investing all my rage into the blow, and jabbed the Alpha in the leg.

  Your Pole Weapon skill has increased to level 4.

  Except that the creature had no respect for my success. He jerked, finished his turn, and struck with another foot.

  This time I hit my head on the rocks and spent some time lying sprawled on the ground. I also noticed that my half-cocked attempt at levitation had dropped my Health by one-third. Or it could also be caused by my wound, you never know. My whole sleeve was now wet and heavy with blood.

  I was also saved by the fact that the Alpha’s sharp limbs were directed at Arts. Otherwise, I would have already been dead as a doornail. I needed to keep going.

  With a somewhat misplaced tenacity, I stood up and raised my spear. There was nothing I could do; if that creature finished off Arts, he’d make quick work of me.

  Meanwhile, Arts seemed to be sort of jittery. She kept casting meaningful glances at me, mouthing something.

  “What?” I shouted.

  “Your knife! The moon steel!”

  Was she serious? I couldn’t get to him to the length of my spear, and she wanted me to use the knife? The creature would just gobble me up like a mid-morning snack. On the other hand, the situation was a bit desperate. If we didn’t break the back of this fight, it would break our own.

  I tossed the spear aside and started to inch toward the creature.

  Your Stealth skill has increased to level 3.

  The Alpha didn’t really see me as a threat. I crept up as close to him as I could, staring at his horrifying legs. Each one was as thick as two of my own. They were twitching, distributing the body weight as the monster moved.

  What could I do? My knife was far shorter than his leg. But judging by Arts’ pleading look, I had to do something pronto.

  Never mind. I was already getting used to having my ass kicked.

  I took a swing. The knife penetrated the Alpha’s back foot like it was made of melted butter. What was that now?

  Your Short Blades skill has increased to level 9.

  A bloodcurdling scream echoed over the slumbery valley. The disgusting goo gushed under my feet, mixing with my own vomit.

 
Then something struck me from above.

  “Run!”

  Arts’ scream sank in my dimming consciousness.

  [ ∞ ]

  This time I didn’t miss it. I hacked out with my knife and, ignoring the flashing notifications, promptly recoiled.

  The Alpha’s agonizing screech made my blood run cold. My neck went stiff; my legs felt like they belonged to someone else. But stopping now would amount to death. We had to run.

  My wound started to ache, filling me with a leaden weight which dragged me to the ground. Run. My tongue, rough and dry, stuck to the roof of my mouth. Ru...

  My bare foot hit a sharp rock. I screamed. Blood went everywhere; the precious little number of hit points I still had now began to drop even further. The ground suddenly became very close as I collapsed. Wasting valuable seconds, I crawled after my knife, grabbed it and turned around, ready to face my death.

  But my death was in no rush to meet me. On the contrary — it took to its heels, absurdly dragging a seriously wounded leg as it headed to the mountains. The Alpha was retreating.

  Shaking all over, I stood up and sheathed my knife. I gingerly took one step, then another, and hobbled over to Arts. She’d already removed her armor and now was wearing her pants and a short linen top without a sweater — apparently, for fear of soiling it with blood while examining her own wound. It looked nasty: deep, ragged, stretching all the way from her side to her abdomen. I was truly afraid this was the end of her.

  But Arts was clearly in no hurry to die. An almost imperceptible plume of blue smoke shot out of her hand and landed on her abdomen. Was it some kind of a healing spell? She cast it a few more times. I wouldn’t say the wound had repaired entirely, but it shrank considerably and was no longer bleeding as before.

  “My Regeneration level is low and the spell is weak,” she explained through parched lips when I reached her.

  Arts crouched and reached up for her sketchbook which appeared out of thin air. She found the page she was looking for and pulled out a vial filled with a dull, brown liquid. She pulled the stopper out with her teeth and greedily clung to it.

  “That regenerates your health?” I guessed.

  “Yes. I tried to draw a regeneration potion, but it had some funny particles floating in it. I couldn’t get the color right, either, so it didn’t work. Come here.”

  She lightly touched my torn trench coat. The same pale blue spell emitted from her fingers. My health score flickered and stopped dropping.

  I pulled off my clothes: just as I thought, my wound had closed up. Only a light pink scar served as a reminder of the damage. It probably hadn’t been as serious as I thought.

  “Now what do we do?”

  “Now,” said Arts, going back to the sketchbook and pulling out an ordinary gauze bandage, “you’ll have to dress my wound. We need to survive until we get to Virhort. They’ll patch us up there.”

  When I’d taken Basic Medical Skills at university, they taught us to give injections, perform CPR, and apply bandages. Wish I could remember any of it now.

  “Do you have another bandage or some cotton?”

  Rice reached into the sketchbook and produced another strip of gauze. I folded the first bandage several times and placed it on the wound. Arts groaned; still, she kept her eyes open, watching all my movements. Not that I did anything special, though. I gently wrapped the bandage around the wound, ripped the loose end lengthways with my teeth, and tied it in a bow.

  You’ve taken the first step toward acquiring the Healing ability.

  You’ve helped a Player who is neutral to you.

  +20 karma points. Current level: +40. You gravitate to the Light Side.

  “OK,” Arts said. “Now we should make it to Virhort.”

  The next thing I knew, she was already dressed in her usual attire. Her clothing seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Not that I was a pervert, but I found myself unintentionally admiring her body.

  “How about you help me up,” Arts said, jolting me from my thoughts.

  I offered her my arm. She leaned on it and stood up with a groan.

  “I’ll just go get the spear,” I suddenly remembered and staggered away to the spot where I’d wounded the Alpha. When I got back to her, I asked, “Do the rachnaids drop any loot?”

  She didn’t understand right away, but then she shook her head. “We could take their mandibles, I suppose. But it takes a long time to cut them off. And I’m bleeding.”

  I nodded. Whatever. I offered her my arm again, but she moved away from me, took out her sketchbook and pulled out a walking stick.

  Proud, are we? OK then, she could walk by herself if that’s what turned her on.

  “Phew, it’s a good thing we got away with that,” I said, deciding to make conversation.

  “That’s the third one,” Arts said through clenched teeth.

  “Third what?”

  “It’s my third wound in all the years I’ve been traveling between worlds. Even on the man-made central planets,” she broke off midsentence and looked at me angrily. “And then I almost died in Purgator because someone got the idea to go for a stroll under the Red Moon.”

  “No one asked you to come in after me. You could have said no.”

  “Greed will be my undoing,” she grumbled.

  I smiled. “You could say that.”

  In one sense it was true — no one had asked her to rescue me. She’d signed a contract without reading the fine print, so to say. But on the other hand, I was indirectly responsible for her wound. Had it not been for Arts, one Sergei Demidov would probably already be feeding worms. Or more likely, the rachnaids wouldn’t have left anything for them.

  But to my delight, Arts didn’t intend to hold a grudge.

  “Where’d you get the moon steel?” she asked.

  “A friend gave it to me.”

  “Don’t forget that Hunter has no friends. I don’t know why he gave you something so rare, but he obviously did it for a reason.”

  “It’s really rare?”

  “Did you see me fight? I couldn’t get the sword into that creature once. During the Red Moon, the chitin is the best protection from spells. Apparently, it starts to produce some kind of substance that only moon steel can penetrate — or an orichalcum sword. But you won’t find orichalcum anywhere, and moon blades are extremely rare these days, too. I’ve only ever seen one in my whole life, and it belonged to some real vile character. If only we had a couple of those....”

  “Then what?”

  “The Alpha wouldn’t have gotten away, and we could also find the Queen.”

  “Why would we need it?”

  Arts rolled her eyes. “Use your head.”

  She paused, thinking, then continued, “There are four days left until the full Red Moon. That means that the Queen will soon be hatching. That explains why the Alpha was chasing us. He’s overcautious, and I’d wounded one of his scouts.”

  “This Queen, what kind of loot does she drop?”

  “Eggs. You can sell one for fifty grams. And there are at least two or three hundred,” she fell silent.

  I could hear the sound of a clanging cash register in my head. Two hundred… two hundred eggs equaled ten kilos of dust. And that was... let me see...

  “So how come no one hunts for them?” I asked.

  “Because their lives are more important to them. Venturing into the Queen’s lair during the Red Moon while the Alpha’s on the prowl? I don’t think so!”

  “Yeah, but he’s wounded now, isn’t he?”

  “It doesn’t matter. He’s still very dangerous. For a mission like that you’d need a mage healer, a mage destroyer, a scout with the tracking ability, and a couple of good fighters with the right weapons. In other words, it’s a hassle.”

  “But can’t a mage be a healer?”

  “Theoretically, yes. Why?”

  I didn’t say anything, pondering the most lucrative business in Purgator.

  Arts must have read my mind
because she snorted. “If you value your life, don’t even think about it. You can’t defeat an Alpha. And you won’t be able to put together a team. You just don’t have the right connections. Here, everyone’s for themselves. You get it?”

  I nodded with an inner smile. That remained to be seen. I did have a team — they just didn’t know they were a team yet. All I had to do was introduce everyone to each other.