“Gnat, why the hell aren’t you dressed?! We’re leaving in ten minutes, and you’re not ready!”
“They told me to be ready by ten, but it’s just nine fifteen...” I tried to object. But the commander barked in reply:
“You dolt! We’re supposed to be at the Border Post Eight on the Antique Beach by ten. But it's a half hour away! Get dressed quick!”
I caught myself off guard with how quickly I changed clothes but, just thirty seconds later, I was standing before the commander with all my items equipped. Kisly nodded in approval, but couldn’t hold back a snicker:
“Gnat, what was that? You have experience getting changed in a jiffy? Maybe your girlfriend’s parents come home at odd hours? Did you forget you were in a game? Just open your inventory, set the object in the slot and it appears on your body. You didn’t have to hop on one leg to get your pants on.”
Dang, that was dumb... I really had not considered that, in a virtual world, I could just move objects in a window and not have to monkey around with buttons and laces. Meanwhile, the radio on Kisly’s belt started sounding. With a sullen face, the high-level soldier listened carefully, confirmed and signed off. After that, he flared up again:
“What is this preschool?! Listen, Gnat, there are another two coming with us. Some newbies. They say you know them. Zheltov is bringing them here right now. But, we’ve got a few free minutes, so set your respawn point on the base and use up all your skill points, if you’ve got any. Antique Beach is fairly calm, but you still might die there.”
I didn’t ignore his valuable advice and dug around in the settings for how to change my respawn point. Ah, there! Some coordinates and even a mini-map. Apparently, my respawn point was right where I’d first appeared in the game that bends reality. I even managed to find the Geckho diplomat’s tent on the mini-map.
Would you like to change your respawn point?
Yes, I would! I found a spot on base free of buildings and set new coordinates to respawn at in case of death. Great! Now I needed to spend up my skill points.
All six into Scanning and Minerology, as Tyulenev wanted? I would have done that, but according to my calculation, I would hit Scanning level six any time now. Since arriving to base, I had activated the icon a few times, so it would be dumb to lose the progress. Meanwhile, it would be totally irrational to spend my free points on Mineralogy. The very first levels of a skill always come fast, and I figured I’d first get to five or seven the usual way before wasting any valuable points.
So, hoping greatly that Tyulenev would never find out, I put all six points into Rifles, raising it to thirteen. Patrolling the border was a dangerous and important mission, and with my harmless “burp gun” (as Vasiliadi had disrespectfully called it), I felt very unsafe.
Chapter Twelve. Antique Beach
EVEN FOR A MAKESHIFT VEHICLE, this mode of transportation looked very exotic and sluggish. It was a huge wooden box, with sheets of metal tied to the outside and eight wheels plugged right on the frame. Inside, there were four wooden benches, polished to a shine by innumerable butts. The walls had carved firing slits and the canvas roof was full of patches and stitching. And that was all the protection this moving coffin had from rain and dangerous beasts.
Half of the inside was taken up by cargo space. The driver had to look through a heavily smudged sheet of armored glass, with matte white streaks on the outside. All eight wheels of the hell cart were not rubber, but metal rings, with a contraption of wire and springs stretched over them. Perhaps that would increase their resilience to perforation, but it clearly increased wear, and my poor butt felt each time we went over a rock.
I was sitting on the very first bench next to a level-63 Mechanic-Driver by the name San-Sanych. A red-headed joker with curly hair, he had already been regularly ferrying members of the H3 Faction to their shifts on his bone-shaker for half a year. The driver turned the donut-shaped wheel, pressed the pedals and jerked the levers, yammering the whole time about himself and his unusual method of transportation.
As far as I understood, the “little bus,” as San-Sanych tenderly called his vehicle, was the very first transport our faction constructed. The diesel engine had been carved and assembled in the Capital, along with the majority of the other parts. The remainder had been bought from the Geckho or brought in from the real world.
“This is the border of the Yellow Mountains node,” the driver declared loudly, demanding that the passengers in the back pull on the canvas roof. “Before us is a forest full of nasty predatory flowers. They spit fluoric acid,” San-Sanych said, turning my attention to the whitish blotches on the windshield. “Very corrosive, it even eats away at tempered glass. And most importantly, there’s no way to get rid of the white marks. We have to change the windshield once a month because it just gets pure white. A loogie from one of those things will kill a person instantly if they’re lucky. Either that or they have to walk around with a burn that doesn’t heal until they die and respawn.”
Anya was sitting behind me. Now a level-2 Medic, she gave a sob and started wiping indignant tears off her pretty face. Today, she had been sulking since arriving to the Capital, just crying and cursing her bad luck. It was easy to understand, though: no matter how Anya tried to distance herself from medicine, the game hadn’t given her much choice of profession: either Medic or Veterinarian. And she hated animals even more than the sight of blood, so she had to agree to the role of Medic.
Over the ten minutes we had been underway, we had already heard all the possible ways Anya could lament her hated and, most importantly, useless profession. She asked things like, “why do they even need Medics in this game? It’s easier to die and come back in fifteen minutes totally fine!” Group leader Kisly, which I found quite strange, agreed completely. When base is not far away, as a rule, a bleeding or crippled soldier would rather die on the battlefield and respawn, returning with a full store of health points and clips of bullets. The commander’s words had a very dismal effect on the already severely upset Anya.
The second of my newbie friends was Imran, a level-2 Gladiator. The Dagestani athlete was in a very bubbly and even motivated mood today, and it was all because of his class. From what I understood, he had the choice of either Bodyguard or Gladiator, made it consciously and intelligently. Imran had even left to get advice from Tyulenev. Bodyguards were a masters of shooting light firearms off the cuff, had a huge store of life points and could absorb some damage taken by other group members. Gladiators, though, specialized in hand-to-hand combat. To facilitate that, they had a cool unique ability to leap one hundred to one hundred fifty feet, so they could get right next to their enemies and shred them like cabbage with their deadly blade. Imran already had the blade, too. It looked something like a large sickle. And, it should be said that the Gladiator class could also use automatic and semi-automatic firearms, though was forbidden from using heavy weaponry or rockets.
Other than us three =, Kisly’s group had another four players at levels twenty to thirty-five. But, from what I understood, they were supposed to get out earlier at a different post. Kisly was going to maintain constant communication with them so that, in case any thing happened, both groups could quickly join together and come to one another’s aid.
Cartography skill increased to level seven!
Scanning skill increased to level six!
Scanning had, as I suspected, leveled quickly to six. However, Cartography was growing even faster. In the Capital, Vasiliadi told me all newbies are issued a full map of our faction’s territories, but I told him I didn’t want it. After all, if there was nothing to discover, my Cartography skill would remain inactive, and that just wouldn’t do. And practice was proving me right. Although it wasn’t as quickly as in Zheltov’s starship, riding in the little bus levelled my Cartography skill at a decent pace. What was more, I was watching the surrounding country not through a narrow gun slit, but through a full windshield.
The eight-wheeled bus passed through the d
angerous forest without any incidents with spitting plants. Then, its engine groaning in strain and bouncing on stones, it started climbing higher and higher up the mountain road.
“You should have seen the battles for these passes three months ago!” the driver continued, bringing us up to speed. “This node didn’t belong to any faction but that didn’t stop the centaurs, forest spirits and atlantes from regularly sending sabotage and recon groups up here. Look at that burned tower over there. Our faction was trying to build a fort here, but the centaurs burned it down. Then, at another pass, the First Legion torched the surrounding forest with flamethrowers and managed to fortify. After that, we built posts around the perimeter and things settled down.”
Eventually, the bus drove up into a gray cloud, and I could no longer make out anything through the damp glass. Together with that, my Cartography skill stopped levelling. I spent a long time staring at the progress bar to make sure. I had no idea how San-Sanych could see anything through this fog. He must have had a secret skill like “daredevil driver” or something because the bus just kept bouncing confidently, and he kept yammering.
“Let us out here!” The four soldiers threw back the canvas, jumped out and got lost in the fog.
“This is the highest point in the pass,” Kisly commented for the newbies. “There are usually two watchmen here. Now, its cloudy and damp but, when the fog disperses, you can see twenty miles in every direction. With good optics, you can even see the Geckho base on the other side of the gulf. Normally, there are two soldiers down below monitoring the path into the mountains as well, so no one slips through here from the forest.”
Perhaps, in clear weather there were excellent views from up here, but now I couldn’t even see two or three yards. Now though, we were going down and, a few minutes later, we abruptly emerged from the gray fog.
“Look, the sea! How pretty!!!” Anya shouted out, her bad mood instantly gone.
Far below, I could see the azure ocean starting at the foothills and stretching to the horizon. Our bus, turning for a few minutes on the mountain switchbacks, went down to the very water. There we were awaited by four shirtless sunburned soldiers.
“Hurry up! These guys need to get back!” Kisly sped us along, and we rushed out of the bus.
Cartography skill increased to level eight!
I looked around. The sea was stormy. Heavy waves were breaking on the shore one after the next and shells and small rocks rolled up with a rustling onto the wide sandy and pebbly beach. Nearer, past the raging waves, I could see a whole heap of seaweed on the beach that stunk of iodine. Behind me, there was a sheer rock face, going steeply upward, seemingly to the very sky. From there, it looked so impassable, I had no idea how our unprepossessing bus could have made it across.
“Alright, newbies, everyone listen up! That stone tower over there,” Kisly pointed at the massive square construction behind us, “is Border Post Eight. It’s got a good firing position, embrasures on all sides and, in case of attack, can be locked up tight until reinforcements arrive. Other than the beach, which is just fifty steps wide, our neighbors can only get here from high in the mountains where our soldiers got out of the bus. So, I’ll man the tower with my machinegun. That’ll stop the centaurs and whatnot from trying to cross the beach. They've already tried a few times, and always get lit up. They know me and my machinegun well, and they fear us.”
A couple seconds later our muscular commander was wearing a suit of metal armor like that of a medieval knight. Another second and a huge heavy machinegun appeared in Kisly's hands. Bluish green light glinted off it, and it had a sophisticated sight and a bunch of little doodads screwed on.
“My favorite toy!” the professional soldier said with tenderness in his voice, clapping his hand on his fearsome gun. “It’s based on a mounted Kord, but I invested heavily in modifications to reduce weight and increase firepower. And look what that got me! Once, a level-80 Minotaur came at us from over there, slashed his way through a whole division, but couldn’t stand up to my little sweetheart. Watching the bullets go straight through his horned head was a delight!”
Kisly turned around and, throwing the machine gun on his shoulder, headed for the stone tower. The three of us exchanged surprised glances.
“Uh... Commander, what are we supposed to do then?” Imran called out to the machine-gunner as he walked away.
“You?” Kisly turned around in surprise. “Well, I guess do whatever you want. I can hold the tower down by myself, and you three are too low-level to help. If you want, come up on the watchtower. From there, you can see living centaurs. Or walk down the beach and collect shells. Some of them have pearls. But don’t try to swim. The game rules are pretty strict on that. If you don’t have the Swimming skill, you’ll just drown as soon as you get into deeper water. In four hours, the little bus will come to take us back to base. I’ll make sure to write in my report that you all did a great job keeping watch.”
Well I’ll be damned... Kisly thought of us as nothing more than useless ballast. And he didn’t hide that. Perhaps he was right, but it stung a bit to hear it out loud. So, what could we do for a whole four hours? I went up the tower after the machine-gunner and looked out an embrasure. From there, I could see pillars going into the sea with barbed wire running between them, though it was torn in a few places.
“The barbed wire doesn’t hold them,” Kisly shook his head, having noticed my interest in our broken defenses. “The minotaurs tear through it with their bare hands, and many centaurs as well.”
Just then, I noticed that the machine-gunner had taken his armor back off and was now wearing only Bermuda shorts.
“So, where are the bad guys?” Anya asked in surprise, standing behind me.
Fair enough. All I could see past the barbed-wire border was a lifeless beach and some cliffs. In reply, Kisly pointed to some far-away bushes and tall grass:
“The centaurs aren’t idiots. They don’t hang out under the burning sun all day. Over there, by the bushes, a small stream runs into the sea. They usually gather there in the shade near the cool clean water. Just so you know, that is the only source of fresh water on the whole beach. It’s morning now, but by midday, the sun here is so scorching that some soldiers have suffered heatstroke. So, I usually don’t wear my armor without a good reason. Sure, it isn’t regulation, but this thing is like a tea kettle, and it’ll boil your brains before a shift is up.”
He was right. It was sweltering in this tower. I was afraid to even imagine how blistering it could get in the hotter part of the day. And my canteen was totally empty. I hadn’t thought to fill it in the Capital. I’d been rushing and figured I’d have time later. Anyway, I could make it four hours without water, but it would be a lesson for the future...
I walked over to the opposite embrasure. I just saw more beach running along a mountain ridge. Far in the distance, there were some buildings.
“What’s over there?” I asked the commander.
Kisly looked where I pointed and, cringing in disgust, answered:
“It's a pier. It is on our land and technically belongs to our faction, but the Geckho run the show. They bring our trade goods and tribute there, then haul it away by sea. We are their vassals and pay thirty percent of every resource we gather: crops, lumber, metals and ore... Ivan Lozovsky assures us that's the way things should be, that we owe it to them for protection, and we could easily be exterminated if we fail to provide for our suzerains. But I don’t like it one bit. It makes me feel like we’re being occupied and robbed blind...”
Kisly spit loudly through the embrasure, expressing his feelings on the matter. But at that, as if answering himself, continued:
“But you're newbies. You must be curious about the aliens. You can’t see the centaurs right now anyway, and if you sit around here with nothing to do, you’ll get bored. If you want, go over to the pier. The Geckho won't let you into the warehouses, but you can take a look at the outside. By the way, you can ask the Geckho to fil
l all your canteens. They’re usually pretty good about little favors like that.”
Chapter Thirteen. First Patrol
EVERYONE LIKED the idea of walking to the dock. I don’t know why Imran or Anya wanted it, maybe they were just curious, but I saw many upsides. First of all, I could level Cartography by walking the nearly two miles of unmapped coastline. Second, our path took us along a crumbling rock cliff, and I was hoping to practice Minerology. Third, speaking with Geckho would increase my Astrolinguistics skill. And of course, I was just curious to see new parts of Antique Beach and didn’t want to get bored just sitting in the tower.
Medium Armor skill increased to level two!
The sudden message made me think. The sun was scalding. Following Kisly’s example, I was about to stash nearly all my clothing in my inventory and get back into my jeans. I planned on keeping the army boots on though, because the sand was red-hot, and I didn’t have any other footwear. But given that just wearing the kevlar jacket was gradually levelling my Medium Armor skill, I decided against changing clothes. I could bear the heat. The Medium Armor skill was very useful and leveling it would not only increase my defense stat, it would also improve the armor bonus of my equipment and let me use better armored vests in the future.
Unlike me, Anya changed practically at once, getting into a bright crop top, short shorts and a baseball cap. She wasn’t afraid of getting a sunburn here, either. She was tanned bronze, which meant she either spent a lot of time down south on the beach or frequented a tanning salon. Imran stripped down to the belt, demonstrating his athletic body with clear pride, especially showing off for the pretty girl. I even caught Anya staring at his rippling muscles, though she didn’t say anything out loud.
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