“Correct.”
“But I’m also getting the feeling that he wasn’t considering the place he lives. I’m surprised he managed to get up to sixteen around here in the first place. If I’m not mistaken, the highest level resource in our lands is lilac sturgeon.”
“Right,” father nodded and added. “Level eleven. But our Baron decreed them illegal to catch.”
“And the highest level land animal is the cave bear I think...”
“Yes,” father confirmed. “It’s actually level fifteen. Great System give me memory, I believe the last time there was a hunt for one of them was five years ago. And they’re also protected by the Baron. After all, the offspring of our ruler need to level too.”
“Then how?” I asked. “Was he buying experience essences? How much dough would that have been? Each ding is a thousand points per level. Right? That means going from one to sixteen would have run him... Hm... One hundred thirty-five thousand essences! Was he the son of a rich man?”
“No, a woodcutter,” father laughed.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” I asked with suspicion.
“Haha! You’re onto something! I had to slightly tweak Drox’s story. He never went anywhere. At the very least on his own two feet. As a matter of fact, he really liked it here.”
“So?”
“He was executed,” father answered shortly.
Seeing the surprise on my face, he explained:
“Now do you see how he was levelling? It was very simple. He was killing people. He linked up with a group of riffraff like himself and started robbing upstanding citizens. But this isn’t what we’re talking about.”
“Yes, we started with Haakon.”
“Exactly,” father agreed. “I don’t consider Ulvar your classmate’s father an idiot, but I do have to admit I don’t understand why he allowed his son to level up to five so quickly. After all, you understand that you need to squeeze those levels for all they’re worth. And I do not believe that Haakon hit the ceiling on his characteristics and skills. In fact, I’ll go one further. It’s not possible for someone like him. That means there can only be one explanation...”
“Oh yeah?”
“He disobeyed his father and must have secretly used all the essences he was earning. Sure, he made an impression on his peers. No doubt there. But in the eyes of his father and the other adults, it’s just a stupid stunt pulled by a youthful moron.”
Father was no longer smiling. There was sadness in his eyes. His face was sunken. Much to my surprise, I could see how much he’d aged in the last few years. What was the matter with him?
“Did I say there’s nothing new under the sun already?” he asked gloomily.
“Yes, father...”
“Well before you were born, your older brother Ivar made the exact same mistake...”
I felt a chill run down my spine. We had a family taboo against talking about my brother. We did talk about him, but very little. Mom usually cries when she remembers Ivar, and father gets mad.
“Was he strong?” I worked up the courage to ask.
“And agile,” father confirmed. “But not as smart as you...”
“They say he was the pride of our school... he won tournaments and competitions...”
“All true,” father nodded. “He was also a good son. But the constant adoration spoiled him. He used to obey everything I said, but then he got noticed by our baron’s scouts at the winter tournament. And those creeps don’t give a damn about family ties. Their goal is finding brave warriors for the army of their lord... To achieve that goal, they’ll drip as much poison into someone’s ear as it takes.”
I was listening with bated breath...
“He left home to go serve in the baron’s retinue. He abandoned us, you understand? He gave up on everything I taught him...”
“Did you try and stop him?”
“Did I ever... And he had some very choice words for your mother and I in response. That took us by surprise. As it turned out, he hated our life. He was ashamed to come from a family of miners. He envied the sons of the retinue soldiers...”
“And you let him go?”
“We had to make peace with his decision...” father answered sadly. “We thought that if we tried to pressure him we’d lose him... But nevertheless they took him away... He died in the Wastes for a distant patch of steppe no one has ever even heard of... All because the Baron had a little flight of fancy… And now his bones are bleaching under the sun of those accursed lands...”
“I’m very sorry, father...”
“I know, son... You two would have made great friends. He had a kind and valiant heart. I’m very sorry that pride and anger kept me from telling him how much I loved him...”
That was the first time I saw my father cry...
Chapter 12
- You have dried Gray Moss.
- Congratulations! You receive:
- Experience essence (3).
- Clay tablet “Herbalism.”
- Clay tablet of Mind.
I SAW A SERIES of identical messages raining down on me one after the next as I walked toward the mine. When all was said and done, I counted out sixty-four messages! So that meant my first batch had dried out.
My mouth spread into a self-satisfied smile all on its own. In the end, setting the moss out to dry was the right move!
Yikes! Good thing Happy was walking in front of me and didn’t notice anything. He’d have just called me stupid again.
Pretending I was readjusting my knapsack, I took a look inside.
- Experience essence (192).
- Clay tablet “Herbalism” (64).
- Clay tablet of Mind (64).
I did some quick mental math to see how much money this would be worth locally. Around three gold! And Frodi said to just throw it all away... No way! From this very day, I’d be paying extra attention to every piece of grass I ripped up or stone I harvested! This was a bonanza!
“Listen, Happy!” I turned to my beefy escort.
“Whadda you want?” he grumbled. As always, he was in a bad mood in the morning.
“Wanna take a peek in our cave? It’s on the way anyhow...”
“Why?”
“I wanna get some cool water from the lake. Ever since I drank it, the water in the village well tastes like piss...”
“That’s true,” Happy agreed. “I’m also gonna fill my flask. Lake water is exactly what we need.”
When we got into the cave, the first thing I did, as if it was nothing, was to walk over to the stone with the first batch of moss.
“What is it?” my guard laughed, seeing the way I was looking at the dried out gray bunches. “Still waiting for that shit to turn to gold? Haha!”
I tried to squeeze out the stupidest smile my acting ability could muster. It was funny to imagine how he’d look if he found out how close he was to the truth...
I pick up one dried-out clump. All the moisture had gone out of it and it was five or six times smaller than before. It felt soft and dry. It was a bit dark. I took a sniff. There was something very familiar in it... I pulled the air into my nose again... Sniffed... No... I can’t remember. And what about the characteristics?
- Gray Moss.
- Weight: 0.175 ounces.
- Value: Extremely low.
- Quality: Dried.
I should mention that I was monitoring its transformation every day. In the “quality” line, it was showing a timer for when the resource would change again. To be precise, the quality changed every twelve hours. First it was “not fresh” then “slightly dry.” Today the countdown was gone. So the resource had fully transformed. All that remained was to figure out what it could be used for.
I looked at the rest of the moss. The stuff I cut on day two was now at “medium dry.” The stuff from yesterday and the day before had just started to lose moisture. Great!
I gathered all the dry moss in my knapsack. It’s just over eleven ounces. I’
ll ask Crum what I can do with it later. I set out the damp moss on the now freed up area. So every little clump got some sunlight.
“Hey, young crap drier!” Happy called. “You gonna get some water?! We’ve got a long hike ahead of us.”
“Yeah, yeah!” I remembered. “I’m coming!”
When I got to the new place, it became clear where all the howling sounds that scared me so much on my first day were coming from. In the middle of the gigantic cave, there was a frighteningly huge fissure in the ground. Like a black tear wound in the body of a gray stone corpse.
Being near it made me feel like a tiny insignificant bug that could be sucked into the crack by a gust of wind at any moment.
“What?!” seeing my state, Happy shouted with a chuckle. “You gonna cry?! Need to change your shorts?! I hope you didn’t wet your pants, hehe...”
I fell silent. It wasn’t worth replying to this dangerous brute. Though compared to the backdrop, he didn’t look quite so fearsome.
I carefully ambled over to the edge of the fault. Roaring like an enraged monster, the darkness seemed to draw me in.
“Hey, kid!” I heard Happy’s voice over my head. “Get back from there. It might start to suck you in. Remember the name. There’s a reason this place is called Maw of the Demon. Too many people have gone missing here to even count!”
“And what’s down below?” I asked when we’d walked over to the far wall of the cave.
“Who can say?” the big guy shrugged. “No one has ever come back. Alright, enough questions. There’s your moss...”
I looked where he pointed and gasped in surprise.
“See how much?” Happy asked in self-satisfaction. “I’m the one who found it! You’re sure to have a month’s work here...”
“Maybe even more...” I answered sadly.
“What’s the matter, kid?” I heard notes of concern in Happy’s harsh voice. “Something got you down?”
“Why shouldn’t I be down?!” I snapped, afraid at my own cheek. Anyway, let it be! To hell with it! I was in pain! Was he gonna kill me?! No way. He was tasked with protecting me!
“What do I have to be happy about?!” I asked, now bolder, meanwhile feeling a chill on my skin. “I’m just a sheep to you! Isn’t that right?! I grow some wool, you shear it. I grow some more, you shear me again! Doesn’t it disgust you to keep watch over a kid picking up crumbs? And then you shepherd him back to your boss to get robbed blind without so much as a twinge of conscience! How can you live with yourself?!”
Happy listened to me stone-faced. Then after I finished, something happened that I was not expecting. He laughed. Loudly and plainly, clutching his stomach with both hands. His eyes even teared up.
I open my mouth, baffled. What is happening?
When he finally finished laughing, he sat on a stone and pointed me to the one next to him. Not taking an eye off the man, I sat down on the rock where he pointed.
“Okay then boy, listen up,” he said calmly, wiping his tears on his sleeve. “About your idea that we’re stealing the fruits of your labor... Remember this once and for all... This stuff only belongs to you right up until you give it to us. As soon as you give something to someone else, that’s it... It belongs to them...”
“I’m not giving anything to anyone!” I objected. “You’re robbing me!”
“Follow the logic, kid,” Happy said patiently. “While it is on your person, what you harvest is yours by right. But the second you give it away...”
“Let me repeat!” I started boiling over. “I never gave anything to anyone!”
“Then why is something you harvested in other peoples’ pockets?” the man chuckled. “Let me tell you. You gave it away. Right? Obediently, without a word. Like what? Exactly. Like a sheep.”
I looked like a fish thrown on shore, my mouth opening and closing in search of new arguments.
“But you can’t do that!” I finally shot out. “What gives you the right to rob me?!”
“That’s easy,” Happy answered. “Might makes right.”
“Wait, wait, wait... So you think that’s the way it should be?!”
“Whether it should be that way or not, it’s the way of the world.”
“But what could I do alone against all of you?” I objected.
“What do you mean?” Happy asked in surprise. “Fight for what’s yours.”
“But then I’ll die!”
“Of course. And as everyone knows, the dead don’t need any stuff. That means you made your choice. You opted to give up your goods meekly, but keep your life. Not a bad trade, don’t you think? And who ever said might makes right only applies to others? Once you get big and strong, you can take it all back or get payback on whoever took your stuff from you!”
I sat there feeling like I’d lost the gift of speech. No one had ever talked to me this way before. Most surprising of all was the fact that I realized Happy was right.
“Now as for whether I like that or not, well...”
He didn’t have time to finish. A new cast of characters walked into the cave. Livid and his gang. Frodi was dragging someone by the scruff of the neck with a grin. When I saw who it was, my heart sank into my toes.
“Crum...” I exhaled.
“Livid, they’re in here!” Probe shouted obsequiously.
The whole procession came over to us. It hurt to look at Crum. His right eye was swollen. His nose looked broken. His mouth was all bloody... Our eyes met. He just gave a barely perceptible head shake and lost consciousness... I understood what he was trying to say. The kid was hanging on with the last of his strength just to send me a message. The criminals didn’t know a thing!
I clenched my teeth hard... Tears welled up in my eyes...
“What happened to the boy?” despite the calm tone, I could sense some coldness in Happy’s voice.
“Nothing he didn’t deserve,” Livid barked shortly.
“These two shit-eaters are trying to play us for fools, brother,” Frodi said, his eyes squinting predatorily.
“This one,” he pointed to Crum, lying limp on the rocks. “Was going around town looking for transport. He wanted to run away to Orchus.”
“And?” Happy asked. “What is the problem? He’s free.”
“That’s true,” Frodi nodded. “Just guess what he was offering in return. Clays of Herbalism and Knife Proficiency. Does that conjure up any memories? He was offering a hell of a lot, by the way. So, it looks like our little sheep has a couple secrets.”
The bandits’ gazes all turned to me. I clenched my fists tight, my nails digging painfully into my palms. Bastards!
I looked Happy in the eyes. Surprising! The fearsome and dangerous man was the only one looking at me without any anger... In his gray eyes, I could see sadness and seemingly determination...
“And what?” he asked Frodi. “That doesn’t explain anything.”
“Why are you defending them all of a sudden?!” Probe squealed and suddenly gave a loud shout:
“Ahh! I see what’s going on here! He’s working with them! Livid, he’s working with them!”
Probe started jumping around like a nut-job, pointing his finger at Happy.
What happened next shocked me. I could only see Happy out of the corner of my eye. Smooth as a droplet of water, he flowed in the direction of the squealing Probe. I saw the steel of a blade flicker, and the skinny gang member fell twitching on the ground, choking on his own blood and spraying a fountain from his throat.
“Hey old buddy, what are you doing?!” Frodi shouted in a daze, looking at the twitching body.
A wide hand lay on his shoulder from behind, Livid’s. My eyes climbed into my forehead. The boss’s hand was slowly transforming into a deformed animal-like paw.
“I think our old boy just gave us a clear sign that we’re no longer on the same path,” Livid barked out in an altered voice.
My body was shivering wildly in horror... The crime lord, slowly turning into an animal, took two smoot
h steps forward. The criminals took a step back almost in time with him.
Happy alone stayed standing in place. Calm, perhaps even no-nonsense, he wrapped a belt around his left forearm. All I could do was envy his guts... Much to my surprise, I realized I admired the man!
“You’re right, Livid,” he said calmly, not looking at the wolf-man and checking if the leather belt was holding on his arm. “This is where our paths diverge. I don’t wish to serve under a mad creature who has stooped so low as to take from the mouth of a half-starving child.”
Dungeons of the Crooked Mountains Page 14