A Second Chance

by Vasily Mahanenko

  “Because we’re only level one, and there’ll be swarms of demons in places like that. We need to avoid needless confrontations.”

  “There’s nothing like that on my island,” he said. “No demons anywhere near the clover and ore.”

  “That needs checking,” I insisted. “Show us where they are.”

  “Like I have nothing to do but schlepp around the island with you,” said Argalot dismissively. “Why don’t you tell me instead what you’re going to do with that beauty of yours. Feed her too?”

  “First I’ll have a word with her.” I summoned my pet. “Aniram, what will stop all your carping?”

  “Your brains and soul,” she replied cheerfully.

  “I’ve heard that before. What about knowledge? I can tell you about Barliona.”

  “Why do I want to know about a world that will soon be invaded? We shall recast everything and erase your history. There will be no reminders left that Barliona was once inhabited by non-demons. I will annihilate you and gain access to all the interesting places of our Barliona!”

  Kvalen: Come on, adviser, any ideas?

  Eredani: She doesn’t need knowledge. Or gold. She’s a demon. The easiest thing is sacrifice. Offer her ten souls a month.

  Kvalen: I’m not doing that. She wants access to interesting places. What does that mean?

  Eredani: Could mean anything. A beautiful canyon, a dungeon, something new and unexplored.

  “You will receive access to a dungeon.” Eredani had given me an idea. On the island was a new, as-yet-unexplored dungeon. “You can visit it as often as you like.”

  “Pfft! Who do you take me for? What’s there that I haven’t seen before?”

  “The fifth archdemon of this island,” I said. “Argalot, what’s his name?” The demon needed a prod. “You promised us a clue. Now would be the time to give it. What’s the name of the archdemon in the dungeon?”

  “Hmm,” said Argalot pithily. “You’ve got me there. His name’s G’Rot. He’s the chief of the Path to Enlightenment dungeon.”

  “G’rot lives in this hole?!” We’d managed to get a rise out of the ice-maiden. “That trickster! Who does he feed on? Where does he find his victims? Why doesn’t Barliona wrest him away?”

  “You can put those questions to him personally,” I said, clinging to Aniram’s interest. “I plan to reach his dungeon in a month. If you’re as good as gold, I’ll let you speak with him before I send him back to the Abyss.”

  “A month?! Are you delirious?” She was outraged. “A week! I’m prepared to give you a week of peace if you take me to G’rot!”

  “Not happening. I have to be in the training camp for three weeks. They won’t let me out any earlier. And I need another one and a half weeks to get to the dungeon. A month in total. If you want to speak with an archdemon who has never left this island, agree to my terms.”

  “Two weeks. That’s my last word on the subject,” said Aniram. “If you don’t take me in two weeks, I shall refuse to converse with you for a month. I shall root out the most devious means to destroy you, and sooner or later I will prevail. I will exterminate you and return to the Abyss! Two weeks, not a day longer. Now I know where he is, I can speak with G’Rot after I’m freed.”

  “I don’t accept your terms.” I had to decline. “Just as soon as I complete the training camp, I’ll summon you again, and we’ll discuss the terms of a truce. Argalot, let’s finish our training. I understand the principle of parleying with a demon, but right now I have nothing to offer her.”

  “But I do.” Argalot was unexpectedly accommodating. “What about access to the Barrows of the Fallen?”

  “You’re bluffing!” said Aniram. “A level-one Free citizen cannot have access to them.”

  “He doesn’t have it. But I do. Name your price, archdemon. How many weeks are you prepared not to pester your host, in order to get to the Barrows? Bearing in mind that I’m not negotiating. If Kvalen considers your first and, for the record, only offer insufficient, the Barrows will remain inaccessible and will drop off the radar when your invasion takes shape.”

  The demoness snarled, but didn’t dare argue with the stronger demon. “Five weeks!” Aniram hissed. “I’m willing to give you five weeks of peace and quiet for access to the Barrows of the Fallen. That’s enough for the traitor to complete the training camp.”

  “Not you,” Argalot corrected her, then pointed at me and said, “Him. It is your host who will have access. Do you agree?”

  “Yes!” she said suspiciously quickly. I wasn’t about to sign up for something I didn’t understand, so I decided to check:

  “What are the Barrows of the Fallen? Is it dangerous to go inside?”

  “It’s a demon burial place,” explained Argalot. “Many years ago some demon spies intruded into Barliona. They were captured, and so that the information they’d gleaned did not fall into the hands of the supreme demons, they were confined in a place now known as the Barrows of the Fallen. There they rest, beneath the bodies of their vanquishers. With time, some of the barrows have deteriorated, and some of the demons been unfleshed, while some of them were able to return to the Abyss. Our little beauty is dying to know the names of those residing on this island, for which she is willing to leave you alone for five weeks. Is it dangerous? No, it is not. If you don’t suffer from claustrophobia. It’s cramped in the Barrows. The guard will not permit you to do anything stupid. The location will be marked on your maps.”

  “I agree.” All said and done, I had no choice.

  Collaborative Tuition task completed

  Reward:

  Experience: +13, until next level: 811

  Reputation with Light of Barliona faction: +6

  You have learned how to negotiate with a subjugated demon

  “You have five weeks to deliver Aniram to the Barrows. If you don’t make it, she will refuse to speak with you for two months,” said Argalot. “I shall be expecting you at my place immediately after the trip. You must continue with your training. Uldaron has clearly neglected you. You’re useless.”

  Task received: continue collaborative tuition

  Description: A rare, class-specific task. You have completed your training with Hermit and were able to interest him. Visit the Barrows of the Fallen and afterwards return to Hermit for further instructions.

  Reward:

  Experience: +5

  Reputation with Light of Barliona faction: +1

  Agreeability to Hermit: +20

  Map updated

  Description of changes: Entrance to Barrows of the Fallen marked. Guard forewarned of arrival of two Free citizens and their demons.

  It had become clear that the seemingly attractive bonus from subjugating an archdemon was actually a headache. Just like any woman, Aniram had a penchant for information. To satisfy her curiosity she was even willing to make a deal with her own subjugator. But where was I going to find so many interesting places in the lower levels? After the Barrows I might be able to negotiate two weeks in the dungeon, but that was all. I had nothing else.

  Argalot froze, and Eredani nodded toward the exit. It wouldn’t do to overstay our welcome.

  “To get to the Barrows, we’ll have to go through L’Kri’s lands,” the tiefling noted. Hermit was showing in every way that the audience was at an end, but my sneaky partner was up to something again.

  “He’s in the Abyss now. His demons are being destroyed by recruits. We’ll manage,” I said, after reading the reply in the chat.

  “Agreed. The main thing is not to lose seams and clover. I’m sure after a couple of rebirths we’ll be able to find all the places they occur, and learn to avoid demons.”

  “There’s nothing near them!” said Argalot flaring into active mode once more. “Why would demons hang around something which can’t be devoured?”

  “As I was trying to explain,” I said patiently, “there are always Free citizens idling around objects like that. Strictly speaking, they can be devoured.�
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  “That’s absurd. There are only lowers and regulars on the island. They’re not that clever.”

  “Aniram, if you were the head of a pride, would you give the order to keep watch over places where prey was guaranteed?” Eredani came to the rescue, and my pet answered very quickly:

  “Hunting? Oh yes, I love hunting! If I had my way, I would personally capture them all and crush their heads!”

  “Even Aniram, who lives in cloud-cuckoo-land, understands that ambushes are unavoidable,” Eredani concluded. As far as I was concerned, the demoness hadn’t given an answer at all, apart from the inevitable “crush them all,” but Eredani had twisted her words to suit himself.

  “No, you are definitely trying to pull one over on me! I repeat, there are no small demons hanging around the seams and clover!” Argalot raised his voice to ram home the truth.

  “So if we get eaten there, we can easily make an official complaint, yes?” The wily Eredani cast his line, and the fish immediately bit:

  “Yes! Here are the coordinates of all the demon seams and clover on my island. If you’re ambushed by a demon near even one of these, I’ll… I’ll think of something to recompense you with.”

  Map updated

  Description of changes: Your map shows all the locations of demon ore and clover on Hermit’s Island.

  I weighed up the changes: the seams were marked with plus signs; clover with circles. There turned out to be surprisingly few natural resources on the island. No more than ten of each. Although each ore location contained two chunks, which was convenient. The nearest point wasn’t far, compelling us to go and open Mining. However, Eredani was on a roll.

  “How do we know you’ve removed all the demons? There aren’t any on the island. We go and check everything’s fine, we go to the Barrows, we get ambushed.”

  “I’m sick and tired of you!” Argalot was yelling now. “There are no demons near the seams! Take it! If you stumble across so much as a single ambush, I’ll give you all an object.”

  Task received: search for trouble

  Description: A unique task. Check locations of demon seams and demon clover in the eastern part of the demon-hunter training camp location. If you find an ambush near them, you are entitled to a reward from Hermit.

  Reward:

  Experience: +5

  Reputation with Light of Barliona faction: +1

  One epic object from Hermit’s collection, consistent with your level and specialization

  Map updated

  Description of changes: You have received a fragment of a map of the eastern part of the demon-hunter training camp location with locations of demon ore and clover marked.

  Familiarization percentage of current location: 60%.

  Improvements gained

  Charisma: +1

  “Now beat it!” Hermit snapped, then shoved us out of the cave and blocked the entrance from the inside with a rock. The audience was officially over.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll decline Charisma,” said Eredani with thinly veiled elation. “That was beautifully played. Shall we take a stroll around the island? By all accounts it’s safe.” I certainly had no objections. The closest thing to us was a patch of demon clover, so we set off in search. “Pull it!” he said, pointing at the plant.

  “You do it,” I said. “You need to open Herbalist too.”

  “Kvalen, there are two things I can’t stand — fishing, and collecting garbage, like mushrooms and herbs. People of my age like to wander, to enjoy the silence and solitude. Some simply like to walk through the woods with a knife. I don’t get that, either in reality or in Barliona. With a pickaxe I get it — stamina needs boosting. But everything else… count me out.”

  He was adamant, so it was me who had to harvest the five plants we found. Although he had no aversion to the ore. Gripping the axe confidently, he began to pummel a seam, aiming at the gaps between large rocks. One minute. Two. Three. Eredani struck and struck again, but he looked more and more perplexed. In five minutes he managed to dent the durability of the seam by just ten percent. It was time to remember Liveliness again — had they kept it in Barliona, it would be no picnic for us.

  “An hour on one seam?” After another five minutes Eredani stopped for good. “What’s going on?”

  “No speciality?” I suggested.

  “Durability is dropping. That means I’m doing everything correctly.”

  “Maybe the difference is in your levels. To extract demon ore normally, you need four hundred Mining, which you don’t have, so pay the price. Strike — you’ll still get the result. There’s no point wasting time.”

  Eredani continued to work and grumble. In total he put in fifty-two minutes on the seam, on autopilot for the last two percent, bored of the monotony. I was fine, lying there and enjoying being lazy, occasionally looking up in the hope of spotting a fleeting demon. Hermit’s island was indeed barren. The higher demon had rid it of all the little ones, driving some out, gorging on others — the bones in the cave must have come from somewhere. As a result, when Eredani glowed his white glow, he didn’t even fall to his knees. In fact he reacted with remarkable calm, bordering on glee. After all, when you’d had enough — physically or psychologically, it didn’t matter — the effect of the rapture was not so strong anymore.

  “You’re doing the next one.” He handed me the pick and lay down beside me. “If it’s the same shit at the mines, I don’t want to go there. Take this, your inventory’s bigger.” He gave me a small, dark stone. I turned Matty’s coveted object over in my hands — a dark metal, opalescing whimsically in the sun’s rays. It was quite heavy, but nothing that could have been worth fifty-two gold, which was precisely how much Matty had paid for one chunk of demon ore at auction.

  Eredani gave me a short lesson on where and how to strike, and I spent the next hour rehashing his feat, trying to obliterate the seam. Before I got the hang of it, I hit my own hooves a number of times, then realized it was no use hammering mindlessly away as I’d previously thought. You had to know precisely where you were hitting, why you were hitting, and who all those miscreants were.

  New speciality gained: mining

  Description: A gathering speciality. You are becoming a true master at seeking out and mining ore. From now on you are capable of sensing and finding ore it in the very shyest recesses of Barliona.

  The seam flickered and disappeared, leaving behind it another chunk of ore. My Mining scale increased by a whole two points: one for the seam, one as a bonus. Considering there were a thousand units in the scale, I would need five hundred standard hours to increase Mining to level two. Eight hours a day for sixty-three days. Had Barliona really been simplified?

  “We need another one,” said Eredani. “After gaining a speciality, loot-gathering speed should increase.”

  Common sense told me he was right, but my heart insisted the opposite was true. Never before had I done such monotonous physical work for so long. My idleness protested against all attempts to banish it and, shameful though it was, most of me was on its side. We got to the next seam, and Eredani, spitting on his hands all businesslike, gestured for me to begin picking away. The traitorous thought occurred that I was in a position to buy ore instead of mining for it. I had always valued my personal time. Nobody knew the cost to me of rallying myself to start work. Even me. One strike. Two. Three. I got stuck in and forgot about everything else. Just me and the seam. Ten minutes flew by in an instant, then the seam winked and bestowed my improvements on me.

  Improvements gained

  Experience: +14, until next level: 711

  Object received: 1 demon ore

  “Just what we needed to prove,” said Eredani. “Ten minutes on a seam is more like it. Let’s go on. There are another five seams.”

  We left Hermit’s island three hours later, exhausted but happy.

  “How much time do you have?” asked Eredani when we arrived at N’Got’s ruins.

  “It’s late, but I can
find two or three hours. Any suggestions?”

  “Diabettis, can you come here for a minute?” Eredani shouted to the player jumping about on the rocks. What a dedicated demon hunter! We’d been to Hermit’s and back, and he was still terrorizing the ruins. Having leveled up to eight, Diabettis continued to pound the big-eared level-three demons. He was gaining no experience, but his goal was clear enough — boosting his achievements. The more you beat demons, the better you became at it.

  “Just a second!” The player finished off the next jug-eared head to emerge from the rocks, and in a couple of bounds was with us. “What did you want?”