(World of Valdira 01) The Way of the Clan (8 page)

‘Now it’s time to have a nap’ – I made a difficult decision fighting against a desire to come back to Valdira and do something there ignoring night-time. And this is a depressing diagnosis, old chap…  

Getting into my bed – I should have changed the sheet and pillow-case long time ago – I nuzzled into the pillow and fell asleep immediately.

I had been sleeping for about five hours – if I could trust my electronic alarm-clock. I woke up with a start. I was wheezing sweetly in both nostrils just a moment ago, but then – bang – and I was absolutely awake staring at the wall perplexedly. The alarm-clock face was showing 04:55. It was still dark outside but in Valdira a new day was breaking. That’s a dear. It’s time to get down to business. While the kettle was on the boil, I managed to visit my full bathroom to get rid of accumulated surpluses and wash my face. The coffee was damn cold – I had added too much cream. However, strong. Now I should drink some water, throw an empty bottle into a waste bin, put the closed bottle of mineral water into the fridge and that’s all for my housework in this world. But in the world of Valdira it’s just the beginning…

A sleepy sun-rise was in full swing. The sun arriving from the watchtower engoldened everything all around by its tender beams. The street was empty and lifeless. And silence… ringing silence of a real country-side morning.

Pastoral to the last degree…

Standing at the barn that gave me a shelter for a night and admired the sun-rise for a couple of minutes, then looked down and stared like a killer at the trees that survived after yesterday’s slaughter. Just a couple of oaklings! It’s time to get done with you, guys. Vlasilena wasn’t in the yard. The door opening into the house was tightly closed. The hostess must be sleeping and enjoying the seventh dream. Well, there is nothing I can do with it – I’ll have to bother her with the axe thundering. I wasn’t going to wait until the NPC got enough sleep and deigned to get up! Normally villagers must get up before sun-rise, as far as I know…

Digging the axe out of the pile of cut boughs, I studied its characteristics first and a smile of satisfaction spread on my face. I guessed about its self-recovery right indeed! I did it!

A lumberman’s cheap axe. Two-handed weapon.

Hit:8-12. Hit type: hacking. Durability: 120/120

Brand-new again!

I’m itching to privatize this unique sample of carpenter’s tools but it doesn’t do any good. Since I’m not going to become a professional lumberman. And even if such a thought came to my mind, I would find a much more perfect tool at the blacksmith’s. And besides it can be fraught with consequences – the hostess won’t understand if I walk away with her axe. She’ll get offended and fink on me to the guard. Do I really need it? To scuttle off along dark back alleys and start at every noise just because of a cheap axe…

I spoiled the pastoral silence with some gloating delight by resonant axe strikes and dashing heave-ho. If some neighbors deigned to be reposing then they must have woken up and be ‘praising’ me.

The axe was biting into the next-to-last tree steadily, plunging deeper and deeper into the dead wood at every strike. It was smooth sailing, much better than yesterday. And it took me less than an hour to defeat the oak! Recently acquired skills and strength worked together to win me a load of time. It’s not like I was in a hurry but I didn’t fancy staying in that yard for over the day left.   

Sleepy Vlasilena emerged in the door exactly at the very moment when the oak exhaled a long-drawn out groan, lurched and fell down on the ground. I shrugged my shoulders that had grown numb due to the upcoming tiredness –the effect of three miserable points of stamina – I approached the next tree after checking my health characteristics.

Life: 52/100 Mana: 15/15

Not bad. I can visit the well boasting plenty of cold water but due to kind-hearted Vlasilena’s attention, I decided to take a different track and use all my charm:

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Good morning, auntie! Could you be so kind to give me some kvass? I got tired a bit and thirsty.

Smiling sleepily Vlasilena nodded and disappeared behind the door again. My attempt succeeded. I was meeting the hostess at the door, took a pipkin full-brimmed by my hands carefully and gulped cool refreshing drink at once. I recovered some life points and got +1 to the strength for an hour.

Remembering to thank the kind lady, I came back to the last tree and furiously hailed down a shower of strikes on it. I was cutting like mad as if trying to break the record. And I knocked the tree in forty minutes after all having lost about twenty life hits. Whatever! The main thing is that I’ve felled all the trees without an exception. The hardest and the most dangerous work has been done - if not to take into account the forthcoming sawing of lumber into billets of wood.

The yard became much nicer without ugly decoration in the form of six dried trees. Instead of them cut-down stumps with chips and rags of bark protruding in different directions were aligning along the fence. Hrmph… I completely forgot about them. I can pull the stumps out but it’s yeoman’s labor and it requires many efforts – my personal efforts, my spirit as well as game points of strength from the required column of attributes.

By the way, as for the strength – I haven’t got any bonus to my strength or stamina as I expected. That’s an epic fail, as they say, no freebies. Sure, they are growing and they’ll grow but much more slowly as they used to do at the beginning. And besides the stimulant – kvass, I mean, actually decreased the period of work and the amount of efforts contributed. Altering cutting off boughs and regular visits to the well I worked fruitfully up to the midday and managed to clean all the felled trees from their boughs. After all I gained a bonus to my stamina as an award for unceasing work:

Your stamina has increased by 1 point.

I didn’t get strength increase but well and good, although I was certainly disappointed… After having a hearty lunch in haste, I returned to my work and in about two hours I coped with a giant pile of branches turning a dreadful mess into two dozens of neat thin billets and the same amount of faggots. I acted like a real host – forgetting about laziness I put the wood next to the fence nearby the barn.

The yard free from the wooden waste became more spacious and you didn’t have to raise your legs high not to fall over a protruding bough at every step. I got so involved in my quest that I completely ignored NPCs and other gamers passing behind the fence. Let them passing by. We are hard-working people and we don’t have time to stare at looky-loos!

As if by magic, two rough but reliable saw bucks emerged, my belly button nearly became bigger than my stomach when I loaded the thinnest log on them. At that very moment when I was groaning strenuously while moving the log too heavy to lift, a long-expected message appeared in front of my eyes when the world went dark because of my tension:

Your strength has increased by 1 point.

Nice!

Smiling gladly I got armed with a sharp-toothed two-handed saw and bit into the wood dispensing the ground by a shower of sawdust.

‘Last time when I left the Cradle I had just two points of strength and stamina each…’ – a sudden thought flashed through my mind. Now I’ve got twice more and I’m still in two steps from the Birth Gates. Although my other attributes are equal to one point so far and there is nothing I can do. A mindless axe swinging doesn’t do much good for intelligence. The most important is that I feel enthusiastic due to drive – a sudden discovery of two wooden sawbucks that were impossible to hide anywhere in the small yard didn’t happen undetected for me. It means that we’re following the right way, my comrades! An axe, saw and sawbucks – all that’s required to fell down the trees and cut them into billets. The quest can indeed be completed on different levels – you can fell down only one tree or grit your teeth, go all the way and finish the quest to a full extent. I was absolutely unaware of it. I haven’t read about anything like this on the game forums. Game gurus spending all their time on the forum advised not to sweat away at that quest as it’s a waste of time with a minimum return. Although… it can be so indeed. I don’t have any agreement on any additional award. Working hard like a beaver and literally sinking in honest sweat I worked till the end of the day and sawed six oak logs into billets! If it was in the real world I would have already flaked out. But here it’s ok, it only does good for me – I hardly coped with the last log when my stamina went up by one more point.

Your stamina has increased by 1 point.

But it was nothing in comparison with what could happen at dinner when Vlasilena sitting opposite me leaned to me and touching my hand said gratefully:

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You stick to your word, Rosgard. You’ve done everything as promised – you freed me from those withered oaks that reminded me about one evil day! Like a thorn in the side – every day indeed, every single day they were in my eyes! I don’t know how I can reward you.

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You’ve already done it, auntie. You’re treating me such hearty meals and let me stay here a night – I bowed my head in respect trying to hide my eyes glistening with a burning curiosity. – Let me ask you… what evil day are you talking about?

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Oh… - Vlasilena shrugged her shoulders as if it was chilly there. – About the day when my dear oaklings turned into dead-wood at once. Would you like to listen to that old story happened three years ago? I have told it to nobody yet.

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Yes, I would – admitted I as if confessing with an appealing glance at the hesitating hostess. – I’d love to! And besides you’ll relieve when you share this hard burden with me!

‘How I am singing. Where does it spring from, I wonder?’ – I was surprised to hear such unexpected and eloquent words from myself. I can become a bard and hang out about pubs, saloons and other snack-bars to entertain gamers and ‘locals’ by singing and telling different false tales… no way, taking into account my humble talents in music, I am unlikely to become a star on the stage. I’ll hardly make any money but I can easily get a good drubbing – due to my nice nasal voice…

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Well, - Vlasilena made up her mind and stood up from the bench, - I’ll bring candles. It’s so frightening to talk about it in the darkness. Just a minute. Shall I bring some kvass? Would you drink another cup?

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With pleasure. I can’t even imagine how I’ll get without your cookery and kvass – you spoilt me, auntie.

I was literally spouting flattery following a simple principle – too much butter makes the porridge better. Judging by a smile spread through Vlasilena’s face, seeds of flattery fell down on the fertile soil.

Lit candles were brought in and put on a clay bowl turned on its head. Glancing at me over two shaking lights, Vlasilena kept silent for a while collecting her thoughts and at last started her story:

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It happened three years ago on a warm and nice day like today. The night was approaching and the first stars emerged in the sky. I was going to bed when heard some noise outside and started with fear cause it seemed to me that buglers could break into my house. I’m living all by myself, I have no hubby, you know, so I’m always trembling with any noise…

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I see, auntie, - I sympathized her.

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I took an axe from the anteroom – the axe that you’ve been swinging for two days without rest and sneaked out into the yard. And I was thinking all the time if I should scream like hell or wait a bit. I didn’t want to disgrace myself in front of people living next to me. If I had made such a noise in vain, the neighbors would have made fun of me. I hesitated at the door for a while looking around thanks god the Moon was lightening all around. Silence! As if no one had been making noise. I was about to decide that it had seemed to me as I was very tired, I had spent almost all day long in the garden in the full blaze of the sun. And it could seem to me. I almost relieved when I heard something like mutter from outside exactly from behind my oaklings. And some whisper… you know, like drunk alcanauts who are speaking something in their beard and trying to stand up from the ground. Have you seen it?

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Yeah, sometimes – I assured her, remembering my neighbor living under me who I often met in the entrance hall, he could hardly go upstairs to his door. I had to raise him and carry listening to his incoherent mutter and ‘enjoying’ disgusting fusel fumes from his mouth.

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They were muttering the same way. And my fear flew away at once – well, I think, Micklevan from the next street had too much beer again and while drunk came to me to say he’s in love with me… again… Vlasilena giggled but then became serious and continued. - I put the axe away and came to the gate. I wanted to tell off the wooer and send him home. But it wasn’t Micklevan! There were three steps left to the oaklings when I saw what was happening in the moonlight…

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What was happening? – I asked avidly, my fingers grasping the table top.

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The Moon is not the Sun so I couldn’t see everything clearly. I managed to identify two dark shapes of… men, I suppose. One of them was likely to be lying dead on the ground, the other was suspending over him and was digging in his clothes laid-back and muttering something angrily… something like ‘where is it? Where is it?’… At that moment the first suddenly moved, moaned scarily and waved his hand in front of him so widely… harsh frost crept from him, at that moment the oaklings died… the bark crunched, something started bursting with crack inside my trees, a kind of spasm twisted their branches. Next day when I crawled out of my house like a zombie, I saw them darkened without leaves.