(World of Valdira 01) The Way of the Clan (13 page)

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A stiletto, a cloak pin and a vellum scroll laced with unknown letters – exhaled the shop-keeper all in a breath and started panting as if his confession had cost him incredibly much.

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What did you say?! – I was shocked – No, please, wait… don’t say it again. Where are they? Where’s this stuff?

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No way! I sold them!

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Frol!

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God is my witness – I sold them! – the trader held his ground. – I sold them in the City, not here. The stiletto and the pin and the… damn it!

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What about the vellum scroll? – I grabbed the slip of his tongue. – Where’s the scroll?

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I hid it – answered Frol in a dull voice, then jerked his head up and added firmly – I won’t show you! Don’t beg me! And stop interrogating me! You took up this case, I told you everything properly! So let’s agree the following – I want you to learn what has happened to those two guys. If we can believe the guards, they didn’t leave the Cradle that night. Locals neither saw any aliens nor let them stay in their houses. As if they just vanished, in a word. So find out what has happened to them – that’s the only thing I want you to do. But if you find anything valuable, we’ll divide it into three shares – two go to me, one goes to you!

The Money-box went on muttering something else, but I didn’t listen to him anymore lost in my thoughts. I was dwelling on the quest conditions from different sides, replaying our conversation, but I didn’t manage to find any limitations. Frol – a savvy and suspicious trader – didn’t have any warranty of my honesty. It proved again that it wasn’t an ordinary quest at all. Actually it seemed to be not a mere quest but… something odd just in the form of a quest.

May be a bug.

I got increasingly sure in it.

There can be a glitch in the game or Frol the Money-box can have invented this quest himself in frame of his responsibilities, but it looks like a fatal nonsense. But the quest is so lop-sided that it’s obviously makeshift not a hip-art by game designers’ talented minds. But are locals able for such things? Quite likely. But it’s not an autoquest when a hunter who has just killed a deer can ask a gamer passing by to help him take the pray to the nearest village for a symbolic award. It is definitely something different…

I decided not to share my fears with Frol as well as not to confirm our agreement for the second time to approve my one share against his two shares. Just in case. It’s not to my liking.

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So, is it a deal? – Frol didn’t get off my back.

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I’ll do my best and even more – I promised rather loosely and stood up. – Wait for good news from me, honorable Frol. And wish me good luck.

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Keep it a secret! – the shop-keeper was whispering passionately to me while tittuping after me – Don’t tell anyone! Not a single soul! Let it be our secret! You know people are so crazy about gossiping!

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Sure – I nodded and hurried to leave the stifling storeroom.

I rushed through the shop so quickly as if I got kick at my bottom. At the door I almost knocked down a gamer who was dropping in the shop. Without excuse I hurried away whirling up road dust by my bare feet. There was a complete mess in my head. I needed some time to settle down all my thoughts. The only way I could achieve it was to do some monotonous work that didn’t imply intellectual activity and that could help me let off steam. I obviously know one nice place that meets all these conditions perfectly.

I made an apocalypse for rats indeed. Poor rodents learnt what a cruel genocide was and they anathematized the day when I emerged in the Cradle quite unfortunately for them and dropped in their peaceful and quiet barn.

A careful scout, an enemy’s power estimate, lightening-fast attacks and tactical withdrawals were left far behind. I grew out the rats’ scope long ago and I wasn’t afraid of their formally fatal bites anymore. Besides, I have acquired an iron-reinforced staff that kills rats by two hits for sure, and if I’m lucky to get a tiny critical hit chance, then one hit will be enough.

But unfortunately experience points were not flowing like water into my hands but only trickling. It will take me long to level up. But I am not striving for that so far. I was acting subconsciously like a universal slaughtery combined machine if such machines exist. To kill, to pick up the pray, to put it into the sack. A step towards the next rat and again – to kill, to pick up, to put into the sack.

I took a break only when two hours of this bloody eradication passed. First my rucksack that was actually not very capacious was bulging at its seams due to a great amount of rat hides, meat and tails. Second finally I helped myself out of my main dilemma and knew where to start my search to progress at least a bit in Frol’s quest. Third I was fed up with gamers running around me with their endless questions, requests and complaints.

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Rosgard, let me join your party! I am second-leveled and I contributed all my points into intelligence. Can you help me? Please…

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Hey, dude! Leave these rats alone! We must complete the quest! Advance yourself in another place!

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Advance me!

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What’s your level? You’re a warrior, aren’t you? A barbarian? Or a monk?

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Where did you get such clothes? I want such a decoration on my shirt too! Is it questlike? Why are you keeping silence?

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Rosgard, can you advise me? What’s the best way to distribute characteristics?

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You’re too old for rats! Go away! Or let us join your party!

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Hey, bro, can you lend me fifteen coppers – I lack them for a dagger! I’ll pay you back! Don’t worry, once I obtain enough loot and sell it, I’ll pay you back! Finance a beginner, won’t you?

The leather-dresser’s workshop was open. And I made the owner happy with one more pile of rat hides, got two silver coins and fifteen coppers. My rucksack became much lighter and it couldn’t but make me delighted. Talking with the leather-dresser and his apprentices I learnt the needed address and after saying thank-you politely left. The day declined – I had to hurry up. I found the house that I was looking for on the next street. I even didn’t have to enter it – right in front of the gate there was a low table overwhelming sheets of paper and scrolls. A guy in an inky shirt who was definitely bored was sitting at the table. There was a sign with a crude image of a pen in the inkpot hanging above his head.

Seeing my interest the guy jumped on his feet and bowed.

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Would you like to have a letter written?

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Nope. I’d like to buy a map of this part of the City, a pen and a small amount of ink. Is it available now?

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Certainly, sir! – the scribe dug in his paper piles on the table and drew out a rolled sheet – Here you are. This is the most detailed map available. There all the streets and houses marked on it. Cookshops, shops and workshops are marked by special signs. And here is a pen sharpened perfectly and an inkpot with a tight lid. All together it is one silver coin.

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Here you are – without any hesitation I gave him the coin required and took my purchase instead. – Have a nice day, my honorable.

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And you, sir – the scribe bowed again.

Unfolding the map right on the ground I was studying the network of lines for five minutes until I realized where and what was. The scribe didn’t lie, the map was detailed indeed. All the territory of the Cradle spread out in front of my eyes.

Got armed with a pen, I dipped it into ink and started spoiling the scribe’s masterpiece cruelly by making my own marks and letter designations. The first mark was made at the northern gate – I put a bold ‘1’ there. Then moving the pen to the left step by step, I continued marking the places where two aliens left any proofs of their battle. The potter’s workshop, old Jameson’s house, the house of Frol the Money-box, Vlasilena’s house… it took me about an hour to finish this work and to ink my fingers but I achieved my aim. The map was laced with numbers, ticks, question marks and signs that only I could understand. I looked at the result of my efforts critically, dipped the pen in the ink again and with my tongue slightly protruded due to high concentration I drew a long winding line from the northern gate to the first mark. And further. Unless a long zigzagging trail appeared on the map. An approximate route that the aliens followed destroying everything on their way.

It wasn’t one hundred per cent precise as some places were left unmarked – just because of my unawareness, for example, I didn’t know where exactly the cats – got in the heat of the moment – had croaked, where the hiver with dead honey-bees was and where the soot spots had appeared. But the marked places would do.       

Holding the map at the distance of a stretched arm, I let my eyes follow the aliens’ route. Here they ran into the Cradle with the interval of several minutes from each other, here they had their first lightening-fast clash, then again a short pursuit and one more battle… As a result I got a knobbed string put over the streets and every knob meant a combat fight. One is running away, another is pursuing… It looks like cat-and-mouse game, doesn’t it?

Their route covered the whole town at a steep grade from the northern gate to Vlasilena’s house, then suddenly turned to the southern wall and was coming along it until it ran into the mill where the beavers dwelling in the hammer-pond disappeared later. Having scratched my head I collected all my stuff into the bag quickly – except for the map – and went straight to the mill. How long am I going to wander with the uncompleted quest and rat tails? It’s high time to get rid of them. And – that’s the most important thing – to look around properly. As the mark at the mill was the last. I didn’t have any other clues. Considering the map and the event time, it was the place where the aliens showed themselves last time. After that they disappeared in the thin air. The mill was located in the eastern part of the Cradle where a narrow swift-flowing river flew out from under the city wall. The river was blocked by a dam and a small pond emerged at that place with deergrass brushwood round the pond. There was the top of a beaver’s lodge outstanding in the middle of the pond, but there was no sign of its host. It goes without saying that frogs, toads, small birds and turtles harbored in abundance there. The pond could also boast a wide range of such living beings as crayfish, all possible kinds of fish and certainly beavers. It was one more place where gamers had a chance to try out their skills not only in the firm open space but in thick impenetrable brushwood or even in water. I gained that information from the game forum but personally I had never tried to get ‘advanced’ there. Although it’s much easier to level up thanks to harmless frogs and after that challenge angry rats in the barn.

The miller welcomed me heartily, patted me on the shoulder thankfully and paid as much as agreed. But unluckily he took only a dozen of rats’ tails and refused my faint offer to take all the tails available in exchange for a decent award. I tried to take the same quest again but failed. Instead I managed to talk the miller out about the trouble with the beavers and got first revelation:

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Beavers? Yeah, they were in trouble – the hefty miller nodded pointing by the shank of his pipe at the pond – Usually I’m fed up with them, with these busters. One day they spoiled the dam, the other fell a tree down, but still they’re my neighbors anyway. And then they suddenly disappeared. Absent for one day, for another, I was about to start worrying about them but on the third day I came out to the steps, hah, here they are, chewing on another aspen… There was no use to worry about them, heh…

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They were absent for two days, weren’t they? – I double-checked. I asked on purpose – beavers were usual monsters not a mere piece of the game interior. Gamers could hunt for beavers for sake of experience points and valuable loot in the form of beaver hides that the leather-dresser was happy to accept and paid far more for them in contrast to rat hides. That’s why the beavers were unlikely to have disappeared. As any other monster they’ve got their own definite period of ‘respawn’. If you kill one – it will revive in five minutes, and have a look – is splashing in the water again. So it was actually impossible to imagine that all the beavers could vanish for the whole two days.

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Yup, none at all. Not a single splash of water – the miller assured me puffing his pipe thoughtfully and then suddenly added – The same problem with other living creatures…

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What? – I nearly jumped up. – You mean, other mobs… sorry, other creatures disappeared for two days as well?