Grandpa had explained what had happened and why, then strictly forbade him from ever touching girls, young women or any women at all.
“Otherwise an hour later, you’ll be flying head-first off the roof,” Harold added. “Got it?”
Trixie did get it. For him, grandpa’s word was always law. That incident remained his only attempt to interact with the opposite sex in real life.
Soon after Trixie got better, a lone invalid moved into their building. He wasn’t yet old, but almost never emerged from his apartment.
Harold Furtado liked to know everyone he shared a roof with, so he went to see the new neighbor. He turned out to be a former space pilot, paralyzed from a crash. His name was Andrew Clayton. And he was in sore need of a helping hand.
Harold sent his grandson to him. Trixie helped Clayton happily, and Clayton shared his UNBs with the boy. The two, united in their outcast status even in Cali Bottom, became friends. The dwarf spent whole days with him, helping him around the house and absorbing information.
Clayton had plenty to tell Veratrix. The dwarf held his breath as he listened to the pilot’s stories of a completely different world: of space, other cities and an endless ocean, of his studies at the space academy, of war, women and friends. He understood little; some concepts and ideas just wouldn’t fit into his limited world-view, but Andrew explained it all carefully, showing Trixie holovideos from the internet and old films from the start of the century, to which non-citizens had unlimited access.
At the same time, Dis came onto the scene. Snowstorm decorated the sky over Cali Bottom with colorful adverts and offers of free capsules for working in the game. Nobody believed it was true. The only thing the government gave non-citizens for free was beatings. Only a few people from the living complex where Trixie lived took the risk and put in an application. The next day, all of them received immersion capsules, detailed manuals and step-by-step instructions on how to find work in Dis.
Once the pioneers had withdrawn their earnings, every family ordered capsules. Then many encountered a problem: the capsule systems took up almost all the free space in the non-citizens’ tiny cells. A ‘tomb,’ as the capsules were called, could just fit into a residency, though it would be crowded, but no more than one. Harold also ordered one, having decided that there was no such thing as too much work.
Creaking, old man Furtado said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, and let his grandson try it. You can swing a pickaxe, right, Veratrix? he asked. Not yet understanding what this all meant, Trixie joyfully agreed.
The world that opened up to him was a thousand times more exciting than the real one. Even just the food in Dis was a miracle! It was there that Trixie, spending his bonus gold piece for registering, first tried real meat — insofar, of course, as virtual meat could be called real. Snowstorm claimed that their capsules provided one-hundred-percent identical tastes and smells, so an experience had there should be the same as the real thing.
The neighbors helped the little hunchback sign up for work at the same company where most of Cali Bottom worked. In a few years, they had fully exhausted the mine, after which the company sent them to the Olton Quarries.
The new mining spot was in the Tristad sandbox, which was a great disappointment at first to Trixie and the other miners due to the lack of adult entertainment. However, the market soon satisfied the demand: a House of Pleasure appeared in the town, and alcohol began to be sold at the local tavern — the AI managing the city had adapted. The women were too expensive, but the alcohol at least helped to brighten up gray nights after a shift.
A year and a half before, Trixie had gotten a strange letter. He could read, but the letter was written in a language he didn’t understand. Although the words had meaning on their own, the sentences fell apart in the dwarf’s head. Clayton helped him understand, explaining that Snowstorm was inviting non-citizen Veratrix Ribeiro Furtado to enter the experimental HCMO program.
“You’ll control a mob, Trixie, and hide that you’re a person,” Andrew explained. “And they promise to pay you twice as much as you’re getting now. But you can’t tell anyone about it, got it?”
Trixie heard ‘twice as much’ and broke into a grin, nodded and started repeating in trembling tones:
“Trixie got it! Trixie make more money! Got it! More!”
By chance or design, Trixie’s character, a Brainless Zombie, ended up in the instance called Crypt of the Temple of Nergal the Radiant, controlled by none other than Andrew. Clayton had gotten the job as the dungeon’s boss — Dargo the Cursed Lich.
Then he had met Alex Sheppard — first in the dungeon, then in real life, on a roof in Cali Bottom. That same day, Andrew took his last flight out the window, and Trixie’s new life soon started — he and a number of other non-citizens began working for the Awoken.
* * *
Trixie remembered his night spent in the district of forbidden pleasure for the rest of his life. He had spent the preceding day changing his craft and strolling through Darant with Scyth, but even that adventure paled in comparison to what he had experienced after dusk.
As soon as Scyth left him alone, the little man had rushed there, to the red lights behind a translucent veil. Some of Trixie’s acquaintances had been there, and their tales of what went on inside reddened his ears and clouded his eyes. He had never dreamed of seeing it all with his own eyes, but the clan raised Trixie’s status by making him a gardener.
The system was satisfied that Trixie was not underage and was allowed to visit the district. He went through the veil almost instantly. All his organs rejoiced with the glut of colors, smells, sounds. To the little man, it seemed as if the hands of thousands of tiny fairies caressed him — his skin raised in goosebumps, his breath caught.
Stunned, he stood not knowing where to go or what to look at. The lights of adverts, colorful images of beautiful naked women of all races, gambling dens, watering holes and restaurants, pet battles, ‘all-inclusive’ private rooms — his eyes darted back and forth and his money burnt a hole in his pockets.
An ornately dressed troll drew Trixie’s attention, muscular, broad-shouldered, but in a skirt and high heels. “How’s it going, bro?” Upon closer inspection, it was revealed that the troll was female. “First time in the district?”
“Yep,” the dwarf grinned and nodded. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh…”
“Uh-huh, got it.” The troll woman smiled too and winked, batting her long thick eyelashes. “Got cash?”
“Uh-huh,” Trixie nodded even more emphatically.
“Wanna fly away?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then take a look, bro.” A magical display unfurled before Trixie. “The forbidden achievements of culinary confectioners and alchemists! Made in Kinema! Fresh! Lucky Toffees, Flyaway Lollipops, Sweet Joy, Chocolate High… The toffees are so strong, you’ll be out of your mind with happiness, if you know what I mean. The lollipops only work while you suck them, but you won’t get a buzz like it anywhere else… Woah, woah!”
Trixie reached out for some candies in a red packet, but the candy saleswoman’s hand darted out to stop him.
“Not so fast,” she shook her head. “Cash first. A hundred for one, one-fifty for two.”
Even Trixie had enough sense to know that Scyth wouldn’t be overjoyed at that expense. In the old times, the little hunchback would have had to work ten weeks for that kind of money. The friendly smile slid off his face, and a second later he exploded with multi-story swearwords in the finest tradition of Cali Bottom. The offended troll woman repaid him in kind. The rules of the district prevented her from laying hands, on punishment of permanent exile and a ban on visiting.
This encounter with the pusher of forbidden confections jolted Trixie out of his initial shock, and now he stopped in at a bar to look around, listen to the people and decide where to go next.
The establishment was unusual. A little too unusual, even. Girls writhed and swung their hips enticingly on something like a stage. Th
ere were elf girls, gnome girls, fluttering fairies. A half-naked busty brunette was dancing right on a table with three customers sitting at it. Confused and trying not to stare at the women, the little man took a seat at the bar and ordered some beer.
“Bored, handsome?” an angelic voice sang to him. “Buy a girl a drink?”
Trixie turned… and stood struck dumb for a long moment, but then got a grip on himself and nodded. It really was an angel standing before him. The elf girl — a player — had been working in the district more than a year. Her name was Jessliodar, but she said he could call her Jess.
“Jess is beautiful!” Trixie declared, afraid even to look at her. He drank his beer and glanced at her sidelong. “Jess is very beautiful!”
“You’re so cute, Trixie,” she laughed, mussing his hair. “Don’t be shy, tell me about yourself, little guy…”
She sat down next to him and crossed her legs. Now he looked at her alluring bare waist and the plunging neckline of her dress. When his gaze slid upwards from her waist, his breath quickened and his heart raced at a gallop. He remembered grandpa’s words about not touching women, and made himself turn away, but then turned back and couldn’t believe his eyes — was Jess smiling… at him?
After he put down three hundred gold for drinks, Jess led the little man into a private room. That cost him another thousand, but he would have gladly parted with all his money just to be there a little longer.
Jess humored her client professionally, keeping the conversation going, letting him talk. Trixie was rarely properly listened to, but the beautiful elf girl, it seemed, was head over heels for him. Taking her interest at face value, the hunchback said much — that he personally knew a god, that he had been eaten by a dinosaur, that he was rich, that he had become a gardener to plant a tree… He didn’t forget to mention the terrible and sinister corpses that had attacked the clan base either. Undead in Dis? It was hard to believe such nonsense, but Jess didn’t care what tales he told as long as he paid.
In the morning, when Trixie, his eyes gleaming with love, shyly inquired as to whether he could see her again, she kissed him on the nose:
“Of course, cutie! Whenever you like!”
And let him add her to his friends, but demanded that he tell nobody about her.
“If my boss finds out I’m talking to you, I’ll be punished, Trixie! Never tell anyone about me, got it?” she put her hands on her hips and looked at him sternly. “Otherwise we won’t see each other again!”
The little man nodded so hard his gardener’s hat fell off. The very thought that he might never see Jess again scared him.
She’d only just left, and Trixie already missed her. He had half a day until Scyth was due to pick him up, and the dwarf spent it well, visiting a few more establishments of forbidden pleasures and entertainments, choosing a busty ginger girl for variety, and then a gnome girl. None of them measured up to Jess.
Since then, Trixie had lived in anticipation of their next meeting. He tried to contact her, but all his messages went unanswered.
A week passed. Nergal announced his summons to a holy war against the Sleepers, Alex and the rest flew to Distival… Trixie was busy with his gardening, finding satisfaction in his new profession. Conversation with the kobold shaman Ryg’har helped lessen his longing for Jess. He’d told no one of his meeting with the elf girl. All his boastful stories to the other workers were about what he saw and tried out after he and the girl had parted.
Then Jess contacted him herself. Sorry I didn’t answer, cutie. We aren’t allowed to talk to the customers outside of work. I really miss you and want to see you again. I’m waiting for you. I hope you remember where to find me.
Trixie as if grew wings. He was so happy that for a moment he couldn’t even figure out how he’d get to Darant. Scyth had gone off somewhere, the others too, and he had no way off the damn island himself!
The next day, it emerged that Scyth was going to Kinema. Trixie asked to go with him, knowing that there was a portal there to Darant, but Jess made his job easier, answering that they could meet in Kinema.
To prepare for his date, Trixie washed, cut his hair, shaved and wore his very best clothes. Scyth delayed the trip a few times, and he languished in impatience and anger, but it got even worse when Scyth sent him right back to Kharinza right after they visited the gardening guild. Trixie had never been so angry! He would have killed the man if he could, but, powerless to do that, he just stopped talking to him instead.
Jess seemed mad at him. Once he hadn’t turned up in Kinema, she stopped answering again.
A few days of torture, then unexpected joy: the girl wrote back. She missed him so much that she wanted to come see him herself! Butterflies fluttered in Trixie’s stomach again… but suddenly it turned out he couldn’t tell her where he was. No matter how he tried to write to her about Kharinza, something within objected, and all he could tell her was: I can’t say.
Jess was distraught. Her love for Trixie was so strong that she decided to fly to see him in real life. Trixie’s breath caught as he imagined her in his room in Cali Bottom. His heart skipped a beat, then tried to beat its way out of his chest. He rushed to write Cali Bottom, 270, but again, he just couldn’t do it.
I can’t say, he answered Jess. She asked him to describe the place, tell her what he saw out the window, tell her his full name… But again, he couldn’t.
Then the girl suggested he go visit her. In real life. I live in a small, but very cozy house on the beach, cutie, Jess wrote. We’re going to have so much fun together! And she sent a photo: golden hair hanging past her waist, her heart-shaped face, the strap of a slinky dress slipping off her shoulder, long elvish legs… Trixie had never dreamed that such a girl would fall in love with him. He would give her everything he had. All his money. If necessary, he would tear his heart from his chest and place it at her feet.
He would have to fly across the ocean, to the South Europe citizen district. Another thing Trixie couldn’t do — he simply wouldn’t have been let in, since he had no citizenship status.
Are there flyers near you, cutie? Even a single one? Jess asked. Can you tell me the registration number on the side? I can find out where it flies and figure out how to find you.
The only flyer in the vicinity of Trixie was the one on which Hairo, Sergei and Yoshi flew in, Alex’s new friends.
The little hunchback jumped out of Dis and ran to the roof. Fortunately, they hadn’t left yet.
His tongue sticking out, Trixie wrote down the number on his palm and, by the time he’d ran back, had it memorized. By the time he was immersing in his pod, his head contained only the numbers which, he remembered, he needed to tell the girl. As for what the numbers were or where they had come from, he’d already forgotten. All he remembered was that they would help him meet his beloved.
This time there were no problems. Jess received the flyer’s registration number and told him they’d be seeing each other soon. But that didn’t happen; the girl disappeared again, stopped answering.
A couple of days later, Alex and his friends moved to Cali Bottom, to a new building. The construction of the castle on Kharinza was in full swing, and Trixie’s character started gaining levels — he asked to join the clan in a dungeon.
From his clanmates’ conversations, he learned that the Awoken would soon have a stationary portal through which he’d be able to reach Darant. He told Jess all about it. The girl was so overjoyed that she promised to meet him for free!
Another day or two, and Trixie would see her again. And then they’d get married and live happily ever after.
Chapter 17. The Wheel of Fortune
FORTUNE WAS expecting me. A lone gray-haired priest with a noble face and icy eyes, wearing a silver mantle embroidered with a golden pattern, met me at the foot of the temple and ceremonially led me inside, bowing low all the while. The thousands of parishioners within kept a safe distance from us, watching the strange procession: a priest and someone hidden benea
th a cover of swirling smoke.
We passed through the packed hall, the priest waved a hand before a wall and a door suddenly appeared, then opened on its own. As soon as I crossed the threshold, it slammed shut behind me, leaving me alone. I dropped Cloak Essence and looked around. It was a hall identical to the one we had just passed through, but without ornamentation or altar, completely empty.
But then laughter echoed lightly through it, tinkling like silver bells. The goddess of luck materialized out of thin air. Her image had not changed — that same ginger-haired, green-eyed and freckled beauty stood before me, smiling. She wore an emerald green dress, ethereal, as if woven from light itself.
“Greetings, my chosen one! It pleases me that you have shed the undead curse and are alive again!”
Path of Spirit (Disgardium Book #6): LitRPG Series Page 18