The Renegades

by Vasily Mahanenko

  “Erm…You won’t slay us with a single spell, will you?” I asked cautiously, remembering the damage the necromancer did to the mobs.

  “You, for sure. Chip, I’d have to see what his resistances are. But I’m just going to smack you with my staff, don’t worry.”

  “Well in that case, en garde!” Chip removed Sloe from our party, stepped in front of me to shield me and saluted the necromancer with his halberd like a regular duelist.

  “At least I’ll get to see how much real damage I do with one blow,” the necromancer smiled, raised his staff and brought it down as hard as he could on Chip’s nose. Chip tossed his furry head and then performed some fancy flourish with his halberd and drove it straight into Sloe’s stomach. Sloe doubled over from the force of the blow and dissolved into thin air, dropping some change which I instantly picked up. It was about three gold.

  “I think it’ll be fairer if we take thirty apiece and he gets forty.” Chip rubbed his nose. The staff left a notable scratch on the pirc’s nose and he now looked like he’d just been in a cat fight.

  “He did sacrifice himself,” the pirc explained his reasoning.

  “Uh-huh. And we should remember to give him his change back.”

  “There it is!” Chip patted me on the shoulder. “That’s your proletarian solidarity speaking! Well commissar, let’s go claim our blood money and after that we can get back to cartography. Dang…” He suddenly smacked himself on the head. “The hell did we get into this for! This…topography!”

  “What? Why?” I asked surprised.

  “‘Cause if there’re any grunts playing this game, all our labor will be in vain. While the enemy peers at maps, the ground infantry alters the landscape by hand and the enemy loses his way!” Chip winked to me. “Come on, let’s go. You’re just standing there, staring at me, scaring me.”

  “They haven’t offered you the ‘Comedian’ trait yet, have they?”

  “Is there one?” the pirc grew animated. “Oh boy, oh boy. Can’t wait till I get it…”

  “Come on you bard-wannabe,” I barked. “You’re just bursting with song…”

  Chapter Eight

  Snug in a shack in the Branch of the Craftsmen, Chip and I began to chart our first maps. Having no idea how this was supposed to be done, I blindly followed the forum’s instructions. I tried to recall the path we took that day as clearly as possible. And indeed: My hand twitched like a hand possessed and began to make confident strokes on the paper, which gradually rendered a map fragment of the location abutting the Root we had set out from. We hadn’t really covered a lot of territory so my recollections only sufficed for about five minutes or so. But Chip went on drafting and drafting, piquing my envy and curiosity.

  “Do you recall the name of that creek we waded across?” he asked, pausing and looking up.

  “I don’t believe the creek introduced itself,” I grumbled, kicking myself in my head. I’d somehow forgotten all about that creek and now surreptitiously added it to my map. Something told me that its inky course deviated from that of the true thing. “Check the map that the cartographer gave us. The name should be there.”

  “Uh-huh.” The pirc buried his snout in the scroll, pressed his ears to his head and growled unhappily.

  “Nope, nothing. And the entire creek is misplaced. The topographer—may he take a spike in his beaver—is off by half a league. We’ll just have to name it ourselves. We’ll call it ‘the Rude Creek,’ After all, it didn’t introduce itself, right?” The pirc went on scratching the parchment with his quill. “Now let’s see, the fording depth was about…” He stared at me and wriggled his ears pensively. “…a meter thirty. Dang, and what if it’s shallow at the moment? What season is it here anyway, eh?”

  “I hadn’t gotten around to inquiring. I’m not sure there’re seasons here at all. I’ll need to check the fora.”

  “You should…I’ll indicate that the data requires clarification on seasonal precipitation,” the pirc scratched with his quill. “Like that…And then there was marsh beyond the creek.”

  Once he’d completed his piece of the map, Chip decided to compare it to mine. Is it even worth mentioning that the comparison didn’t go in my favor?

  “A little off…” the pirc assessed my cartographic talents diplomatically. “Look, right here,” he pointed at a glade in the forest that I had recalled and reproduced, “there’s an elevation there. When you recall it as you’re creating your map, remember its details: the height, the little features like the springs or the conspicuous tree with the symbol. By the way, we’ll need to figure out what that symbol is. On your map, it’s not clear whether it’s a glade or a hillock or a ravine. And there’s a little marsh here, but on your map it’s all just one glade. Someone will go following it and sink to their ears in the muck. We don’t want that. It’s not that I care about the guy who gets stuck but if this happens, a spot will soil our little firm and that spot will be the dirt from his boot!”

  I tried my hardest to recall all his important details but for an urban dweller who’d only travel out to the forest for picnics, all of these subtleties were like Greek. I never even noticed the little marsh. Maybe the grass was taller and denser, but in my mind it went down as a glade. It’s not like I walked into the marsh or anything.

  “Yes, we should definitely ask about the symbols. I asked Amaryllis about one I came across and received a class quest for finding similar ones all around the Tree.”

  I sketched an outline of the Tenth’s sigil on the map’s margin. Chip scratched his nose pensively, furrowed his brow and said uncertainly:

  “I’ve seen this before somewhere…Either among the Buddhists or among the esoterics searching for Shamabala…Give me a sec.” The pirc froze and his eyes went glassy for a few minutes.

  “It’s the flower of life,” Chip announced upon returning to the game. “An herbarium of sacred geometry. No one really knows what it means, so everyone kind of just runs with their own interpretation. We’ll need to ask the locals about it. Maybe they have superstitions about it.”

  “Amaryllis would have mentioned them,” I said dubiously. “It does make sense to check out the library though. We could research the one in the forest too. Could be another quest in it.”

  “Agreed,” the pirc accepted the plan. “Now work on the map some more.”

  I looked with melancholy at the inaccuracies Chip had pointed out in my map.

  “We really need to grow our respect with the biota so that we can record video. Everything’ll be a lot easier then. We’ll just watch the video and fill in the details. Or even simpler—I could just copy your maps,” I drawled dreamily.

  “It’s better if you learn how to remember landmarks and measure distances accurately,” Chip brought me back to, uh, virtual reality without any anger. “And so—we’ll commence with lessons on topography,” the pirc adjusted his imaginary glasses on his nose and switched to a mentorly tone. “As we may recall from our geography lessons in school…”

  I wonder if this guy’s ever serious. He seems to find a reason to goof around in everything he comes across. It’s a good thing at least that he explains things so clearly to a dilettante like me—it’s experience after all. Or perhaps a hidden talent for teaching. But one way or another, in a few hours I managed to get a grip on the art of the topographer, even though Chip kept referring to it as ‘mere sketches,’ ‘botchery,’ and ‘invention.’ He forced me to redraw the map several times until he was sure that I had gotten some knack for indicating distance and size relatively accurately. In the process, I leveled up my cartography skill to three and stopping only to dump my accumulated mana to heal Chip and level up my Intellect, sat down to the task of updating the map we’d received from the Cartographer. The updates we contributed didn’t even add up to one percent so we could forget about completing this quest in the coming week.

  “Right. I desperately need the ‘Scroll Scribe’ specialization. In addition to the +5% to Intellect, I’ll be a
ble to craft you more scrolls and you’ll be able to heal yourself in combat. But to do this I need to level up my cartography to ten. One option is to explore every nook and cranny in this city and make a map of it. When are you going to sleep?”

  “Not any time soon. Either way I have to…” Chip cut himself off mid-word. “I don’t sleep much. Are you going to sleep already?”

  “Not yet, I was just trying to figure out how much time we have. Wouldn’t mind a chance to off you,” I drawled dreamily. “Another hundred from the bush. But since you don’t sleep a lot, you can do the honors when I go to bed.”

  “Really is a nice name you chose for yourself,” hummed Chip. “You’re bursting with humanism. All right, you bloodthirsty clump of violets, let’s go put our plan in action. We’ll start the first information booth in this place. Eh, there is much to be done in pursuit of the freedom of the proletariat…”

  We decided to start our map of the Tree right from the place where we were—the Branch of the Craftsmen. I should mention that given the pirc’s methodical approach, our task moved ahead at a snail’s pace. He wanted the map to include every tiny trifle and depict the buildings’ proportions accurately without limiting ourselves to schematic notes. He also insisted that we add descriptions to each building.

  “This pace will send me back to the grave or the bulb or whatever,” I objected after several hours, once the Branch of the Craftsmen with all its details was depicted on our map. The only consolation were the several sigils we’d found in the process. “On the other hand, my cartography skill is growing. I’ve reached six already. Let’s go on. I have to get it to ten.”

  Raising my foot, I froze in mid-stride. An idea had bloomed in my green head. No, that’s not even right. AN IDEA! I quickly relayed it to Chip who agreed and praised my intelligence, after which we reached the Market Branch and began to put our plan in motion.

  First we marked all the buildings on the map and then, rustling with parchment, burst into the nearest vendor stall.

  “Good day,” Chip began from the threshold. “We are representatives of the Red Guard and you, esteemed merchant, have been selected for an unheard of opportunity to participate in a historical event that could well revolutionize the merchandise industry. As you know, we are currently mapping the Tree with all its details and for a measly—and I want to emphasize measly—fifty gold, you my esteemed…” Chip paused for a second, checking the name of the stunned proprietor—“Orchidea, have the unique opportunity to memorialize you and your establishment for all posterity! For a mere fifty coins, all maps of the Tree will indicate your establishment with a description which you can choose yourself! Hurry—in two days, our promotional event will run its course and the price will grow to one hundred gold for future updates.”

  As Chip chattered, his Attractiveness with Orchidea grew by 1 point. On the whole, though, the NPC did not look very convinced.

  “Everyone already knows where my store is located and if a traveler needs to find it, they can ask the guards and they’ll tell them where to go,” she said uncertainly. “And we don’t get that many travelers anyway, just some odd pircs like you from the Lair.”

  Oh how I wish I could tell her about the coming changes, the alliance with Kartoss and the opening of the border. If I could do that, we could easily charge her five hundred gold instead of fifty. If it weren’t for those meddling state secrets…

  “And how will your guests even know that your store exists?” I came to my furry companion’s aid. “Take me for example. I’ve been out of my bulb for two days now and it wasn’t until this promotional event that I discovered that your wonderful establishment even existed. But with the service we’re offering you, someone would just have to stop by the Cartographer’s stall, buy a map and he’d see this business: ‘The best household supplies store in the entire Tree!’ And you get to choose this text yourself.”

  The NPC chewed her milk-white lip, which matched her hair for some reason, and then objected:

  “But fifty gold…is a bit pricey.”

  “A bit pricey for a chance to become a part of history?!”

  Chip really missed the mark with his meatspace profession. He’d do well in an ad agency. He’d do more than sell Australian sand to construction projects in the Sahara—he could sell sand dunes to the Bedouins for the price of a house!

  “All the maps of the Tree will bear your name,” the furry salesman went on chirping. “You’ll be able to frame the map and hang it above your mantelpiece. You don’t have a mantelpiece? Then hang it on a wall in your bedroom! And it won’t be a mere map, but a…” the pirc paused for effect and then continued reverently: “an artifact of enormous historical value!”

  For a moment a glowing aura surrounded Chip, indicating perhaps that his Chatterbox trait had grown. Although perhaps he improved his Bartering too…who knows?

  “Are you offering the same thing to the others?” Orchidea was clearly on her last legs. Little-versed in the advertising business, she was already reckoning up the income from the influx of customers.

  “Absolutely,” I didn’t bother to equivocate. “And try to imagine how much money will be lost by the vendors whose stores aren’t described on the map with a recommendation. All the customers will go to the stores who’re using our service!”

  This finally convinced the poor NPC and she opened up her wallet, insisting only that we complete the map in the next two weeks and then sell her a commemorative version at a discount.

  An agreement has been reached. You must complete the map of the Tree in the next 14 days and include a marker for Orchidea’s store with the following text…

  If you violate the terms of your agreement, your reputation with the Biota will decrease by 100.

  “The store of the venerable Orchidea…” Chip muttered into his nose as he carefully drew in the new location. Feeling generous, he even drew a little five-pointed star and wrote: ‘The first entrepreneur in the history of the Tree to be included in the register of entrepreneurs, businessmen and merchants, as compiled, maintained and certified by the Topographical Service of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army (henceforth the Red Army)’

  “Lordy, what a yarn I spin,” he giggled. “But it’s fun, isn’t it?”

  “Uh-huh,” I nodded with satisfaction, examining the rows of stores and estimating how much gold we could shake from this one Branch. “I’m not so sure about the whole Red Army thing though. If they start asking us about armed militancy and our odd color, what are we going to tell them? Why don’t we come up with some logo and name of our own? Something that stands out. So that everyone who sees it knows that they’re looking at the best map in the world,” I added modestly.

  “The best map in the world? Bah!” The pirc began scratching the parchment with his quill enthusiastically.

  “There!” he announced several minutes later, showing me his sketch.

  It was vaguely familiar: A globe surrounded by a wreath of wheat that was wound with a red ribbon. It was topped with a red star with a sickle and hammer within it.

  “All right, you history geek, why don’t you drop the sickle, eh? It’s a bit passive aggressive for us plant people. But on the whole it’s a curious idea. Give me your paw, pirc, for good fortune,” I declaimed, offering Chip my hand. He shrugged his shoulders and reciprocated my gesture—only to have me pour ink on his paw and press against the reverse side of the map. The ensuing mark was something between an animal’s paw and a human hand.

  “Something’s missing,” I muttered pensively, snapped my fingers and drew a claw at each finger.

  “Uh-huh, and below that write, ‘Non plus ultra, natch!’” quipped Chip. “Worthy of the Coat of Arms of the Duke of Alai…”

  I guess my stupefaction was evident because the dock-tailed nerd sighed and explained:

  “That’s not from history. Well, not real history. It’s from an ancient fantasy. There were these writers named the Strugatsky brothers. And one of their novels had a d
uke who had a similar coat of arms.”

  “In that case, let me add some distinguishing features,” I promised taking the quill again. Nature hadn’t granted me much drawing talent, but a stick figure lute isn’t exactly The Last Supper. My final touch was a floral ornament which framed the lute against the paw print.

  “Something like this, but with the paw in outline—otherwise the lute gets lost in it,” I offered my sketch to the pirc.

  “Excellent,” he agreed. “But also let’s add a compass rose, since we’re cartographers and all.”

  “Uh-huh,” I redrew the logo, crowning it with the compass rose. “Now we need a name with a ring to it. What’s a company without its brand? Red Army’s already taken,” I warned the pirc as he opened his mouth.

  “What about the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks?” He inquired carefully and receiving a nod and a fist with a grimace of ‘I’ll rip your tail off,’ sighed deeply and went back to thinking.

  “Oh!” He suddenly jerked up his head. “What about Allied Cartographic Society? We’re from different races after all,” Chip reasoned.

  “Too long, too dull. Better something significant like ‘Susanin & Co.’ I guess the only problem was that Susanin had a knack for getting lost.”

  “Hmm….” Chip scratched his chin. “Well there are all sorts of great names to choose from: Captain Cook, Lapérouse…no, the hell with Lapérouse, he didn’t end up so well…Krusenstern, Bellingshausen, Nansen…Nansen…listen, how about maybe just ‘Mason & Dixon & Co.?’”

  “How about something that a layperson will understand?” I offered. “Like ‘The Explorers’ or something? Or ‘Hardcore Maps’… Hmm…How does ‘Map Corps’ sound to you?”

  “Like the name of a porn site for cartographers,” the pirc replied honestly.

  “And ‘The Map Gang?’” I tried again.

  “It’s better, but still, it evokes salacious associations in my ailed mind,” Chip shrugged guiltily.