The Way of the Clan 2 (World of Valdira)

by Dem Mikhaylov

  Squeaky didn’t recharge his crossbow. He threw it away and dashed towards me making the distance between us shorter and shorter. What an experienced bastard!

  A silent ‘thornbush hedge’ appeared on Squeaky’s way who was running towards me and hugged him happily to stop his further movement. One more ‘hedge’ emerged in front of the first and behind the trapped elf to close him inside a thorny ring of vegetation. Squeaky who didn’t understand what had happened jerked backwards while swearing and sharp thorns entered underneath his knees. At the same moment my first ice pins reached his face and chest. But I hoped to get crit that’s why I was targeting the open neck although it was a good result taking into consideration the distance.

  ‘You’re a mage!’ Squeaky cried out in a rage, he tore off a potion flask and drank it fast. ‘You’re a mage!’

  Nope, damn it, crazy parrot! I’m a mage, definitely!

  The elf’s life level came back to the green area but I didn’t stop throwing ‘pins’ at him while ignoring his yells. Moreover, the hedges were still there to consume my enemy’s life. Squeaky jerked aside and it cost him a dozen of life points to get free. He dashed towards me getting down to the ground.

  ‘You’re dead, Rosgard! You’re dead!’

  ‘An hedge’… A miss!

  One more! And to cast it again but towards another direction!

  Squeaky made a beautiful movement aside to avoid a thorny bush that emerged in front of him but he ran into the second hedge that literally got him down. He failed to keep the balance and fell down right on the third hedge that I casted. It almost exhausted my mana capacity. I casted the last hedge while running towards defeated rival. When I came closer to Squeaky who was trying to get out of the lethal bush, I jumped high into air and landed my staff on the rival lying on the ground aiming at the head. The elf put his right hand against my blow to cover his head so that his life level jumped back into the yellow area. A blade of the strange sword glistered above the ground and touched my legs. I managed to jerk away from the thrown daga. I took my staff as a baton and started batting like hell almost knocking the gamer into the ground. The yelling elf was trying to use his sword and he actually reached me once or twice but I didn’t reduce tempo though I was yellow too.

  ‘Rosgard! Son of bitch! Wish you were dead!’ Squeaky continued screaming. I was keeping silence as usual. After blowing one more strike, I stepped backwards and suddenly raised my hand to send the grass-snake into Squeaky’s face. The gray snake blistered in the air and flopped on the elf’s chest, then twined around his neck like a tight scarf. Too tight. The elf caught the strangling snake by both hands and tried to cry something out but I could hear just a stifled croak instead. I took advantage of that mistake and hit his head several times targeting the center of the forehead. At the forth hit ‘tingling head’ skill worked at last and the elf lost control. His movements suddenly slowed down and became very weak and awkward. His red life scale blinked the last time and turned into black. At the same time I ran out of mana. The snake set the ‘dying’ rival’s neck free and disappeared with a slight crack.

  ‘Don’t take my stuff! Please, don’t take…’ Squeaky whispered and his face vanished inside the clot of silver mist.

  ‘Bite the ice!’ I exclaimed enthusiastically while putting my hands ‘inside’ his body.

  He was so brave to loot but he lost all his courage when it was time to give away his own stuff. If you decided to be an aggr, live up to it! Real aggrs never cry!

  I needed one movement to take the elf’s outfit and put it into my sack. As for personal belongings, there was some money and gear. Not much…Obviously, the guy enjoyed being light-handed.

  I decided not to spend time viewing my loot. And the reason was very simple – the nearest respawn location was inside Mossy Hills. Naked Squeaky could appear here in a few minutes. He would either attack me at once to take his stuff back or would start following me and murmuring it had been an accident and other nonsense like that to make me give him back all his treasure that had been very difficult to gain. I knew it for sure as it had happened to me a thousand of times.

  Besides, my mana capacity hadn’t recovered yet.

  I wonder why most of gamers believe that an aggr’s way can guarantee fast prosperity and classy gear! PvP in sake of profit is real art! And art knows no pain!

  Thinking over that philosophic matter, I started walking away fast from the village towards the nearest wood. It was getting darker. I wanted to level up by two levels and to arrive at Jogly’s funeral dinner on time.

  Well, Father Mushroom! How could you pass away so unexpectedly? But it doesn’t matter much… I’ll find you even in the afterworld! I’m going to drink to you at your funeral dinner, admire your seductive daughter-in-law and after that go straight to your grave. Thanks to all the gods and Dame Fortune I have met amateurs not professionals so far. For example, I won’t be able to survive a minute in fight against the Red Demons. By the way… I should develop some tactics against another mage. In such a case I can’t just stand and show some enigmatic gestures. My plain snake has really surprised me today. I should think about its further development.

  ‘Rooosgaaard! You’re a dirty bastaaaaard!’ I heard from a distance.

  ‘Yup, definitely I’m a bastard!’ I agreed and increased my pace.

  Like in daycare! First a bigger baby-boy tries to take a toy from another baby. And when he hits back, that bigger boy starts crying and calling his mom.

  There were birches and asps in the wood. It looked very light, delightful and nice. But – I don’t know why – it made me think about vampires. Probably, due to the asps groaning in the wind.

  Or due to the birches with strange wooden glasses fixed at their trunks. Not all the trees were decorated like that but most of them. It looked rather strange and interesting. I came closer to one of those trees and leaned towards to view the strange device in detail. There was a small conduit inserted into the hole in the bark. Uncolored liquid was flowing via it into a glass. Well, somebody is collecting birch sap. It’s very useful as it can increase both life and mana regeneration. Plus, it is one of the ingredients of potions. I looked again at the stringy liquid that was reaching the edge of the container, then straightened my back and stepped aside.

  I got frozen at once as if I ran into a wall. A sixty-three level female gamer was standing in front of me. A human with long thick honey blonde hair. Peering green eyes were examining me with a certain surprise. The girl was carelessly holding a small stick topped with a knot of bright green leaves. All her garments were in a green palette. Definitely, it was a birch sap collector…

  ‘Hello,’ the friendliest smile spread on my face, I felt rather nervous and stepped backwards. ‘I’m just looking. I didn’t touch anything.’

  ‘I saw that you weren’t touching anything,’ Storm Prophetess, whose nick I read, smiled at me in response. ‘That’s why I’m not going to hurt you. What are you looking for, baby?’

  ‘I live here,’ I replied with dignity showing my open hands.

  The simple old joke worked – the girl smiled at me again. Obviously she wasn’t going to kill me.

  ‘You’re still a baby. Local mobs are too dangerous for you… Rosgard. What class are you?’

  ‘Hrmph… I belong to mages,’ I murmured with some embarrassment. ‘I’m a nature mage.’

  Judging by her garment and weapon, Storm Prophetess was the same class but much more skillful than me.

  ‘I see,’ the gamer chuckled. ‘Are you hanging over here as a party?’

  ‘Nope, I’m alone. Growing step by step.’

  ‘Well, and who is it?’

  I didn’t hesitate to turn my back on the girl and look at the pointed direction. If she wanted to kill me, she would have already done it. But after examining a dozen of birches and asps, I didn’t see anybody. Baffled I looked at Storm Prophetess.

  ‘He is hiding behind that bush,’ the girl laughed pointing out at the bushes
of some tall plants with broad fleshy leaves. ‘One moment, please… Eighteen level, the nick is Squeaky. According to his color, I suppose he is an amateur aggr who has just returned from a respawn location.’

  ‘Oh, I know him,’ I murmured in disappointment while subconsciously checking my status. ‘He’s pursuing me. He wanted to loot me but failed.’

  I changed my spells, then put ‘grass-snake call’ into the left hand and moved my hand gently. A plain grey snake rustled in fallen leaves. Its beady eyes blistered and vanished away. Finally Squeaky has found me.

  ‘Wait,’ the Prophetess stopped me and slightly whistled. A huge noiseless shade glimpsed in the middle of the wood and in a moment a monstrous grizzly bear emerged in front of the girl. He was about two meters high being on all fours.

  ‘Baloo, can you punish this bad boy?’ the girl nodded at the bush.

  The giant beast got activated instantly. It dashed towards the bush and we heard a panic scream there. Bush branches trembled when Squeaky who was hiding here stood up. Finally I saw him, put on my list of enemies and then looked at the failed aggr carefully.

  What a look! He was wearing a leather waist-length jacket. A pure white diaper was below it. Bare legs and a dagger in each hand. Obviously he had managed to run into the village inn and take his hoard put aside for a rainy day in his private room. Then he tried to pursue me. I suppose he wanted to creep up and hit my back. I didn’t have time to appreciate other details of his strange and rather frivolous costume as the yelling elf hurried away pursued by roaring grizzly bear. I wonder why some people are sure that bears can’t run. A real 4x4! Sharp-toothed and furry.

  In a minute we heard echo of a wild scream and a roar of the beast that reached his prey. That’s all. That’s how the long-eared avenger ended up.

  ‘Thank you so much!’ I said sincerely to Prophetess.

  ‘Never mind! I hate aggrs. When I was a beginner, I experienced their bad treatment so often! Even now I hide when I see them.’ The girl snorted. ‘Are you a beginner?’

  ‘Yes, I’m.’ I nodded while checking if the sleeve covered the silver bracelet.

  ‘You shouldn’t have become a mage,’ said the gamer. ‘You’d better level a tank. Damage is less but you feel more confident.’

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  ‘Maybe. Certainly I have some difficulties, but it’s fun. Sorry, I must go.’

  ‘See you!’ Storm Prophetess burst out laughing holding her hands out. ‘Hey, take it!’

  Gleaming green mist left her hand and wrapped me from top to toe. It didn’t satisfy Storm Prophetess so she casted one more buffing spell on me. It looked like an azure cloud.

  ‘The first spell is to slow down fatigue increase, the second – to accelerate mana regeneration,’ explained the girl. ‘I could cast some other spells on you, but they don’t last for a long time. These can stay with you for three hours. Got it?’

  ‘Yup, thank you! By the way, Prophetess! Do you know about the Red Demons?’

  ‘No, why?’ the girl looked concerned. Everybody in Valdira knew the aggr-clan of the Red Demons.

  ‘They have been seen nearby,’ I explained. ‘A mounted troop. They looted somebody’s caravan at the entrance of Mossy Hills. They could have already gone away. But that’s not for sure. Be careful! You know these guys are very fast and furious.

  ‘I will. Thank you for warning, Rosgard. So I’ll have to hide in bushes with my teddy bear again,’ the girl snorted and stepped towards the bear that was heavily getting out of the bushes. ‘Oh, mu little Baloo, did you have fun? You’re my cutie, my little teddy bear! Oh, my poor furry boy! My sweetie cub! Whose little nose is it? Whose little ear is it?’

  I shook my head at Prophetess coddling the huge beast and ran away towards a clearing in the woods. I hoped to find nice weak mobs there and not to face a sweet teddy bear like that one, otherwise I could spoil the diaper.

  The bear didn’t belong to the category of call animals. It was a real companion like my Help. It cost a fortune… Let alone unbelievable efforts required for growing such a loyal companion and friend. First it is just a tiny grizzly cub almost helpless and very silly. At the beginning there is no use of it. No end of trouble. You have to watch it, to protect it. You can’t leave it in a farm or in your private room for a long time. You should feed it with special food. Although when a funny furry cub grows up and turns into an angry monster, the gamer’s life becomes much happier. Because he has a reliable defender, a mount and a loyal friend that will never let him down.

  A clearing covered with a carpet of flowers didn’t disappoint me. As soon as I got out of the woods and made the first step, I saw several stems of peppermint. I picked them up and put into my sack. The snake crept past me with a businesslike look and soon disappeared in high grass having waved me good-bye by its tail tip. Making sure that mana wasn’t decreasing at all I decided not to bother the snake and just followed it. The spells casted over me were accelerating regeneration a lot. It was the first time I didn’t have to worry about the lack of mana. I had three hours. Although I had planned to spend maximum two hours on self-improvement and leveling-up.

  A strange small beast of level sixteen became my first prey. It looked like a forest porcupine. It was very strange to find it in the birch woods. It had a narrow muzzle without any eyes and a disproportionate long neck. Long quills were growing straight along the spine up to the tail that reminded a thorny flexible pin. When I saw that ugly creature, it was engaged in digging the ground and snorting. It was ignoring everything around it. I took advantage of that situation. I released three ‘ice pins’ into its shaking fat ass. The spiny beast turned to face me with a blood curdling yell. I was shocked to see that actually it had eyes – literally, there was a bloodshot eye staring at me from completely bare leathery chest. And the glance was very angry… I had never met such a beast before. Maybe the administration allowed to diversify the fauna and added some innovations.

  I leaned forwards abruptly when the mob waved its tail and I had to fall down casting ‘an hedge’ in the air. Several buzzing quills flew over my head. I added some other ‘hedges’. Soon the beast was trapped inside. It was beating up and down to get free from thorns while sending a portion of bony quills in my direction. Still lying on the ground I turned my head a bit and faced the grass snake’s beady eyes fixed on me lazily.

  ‘What are you staring at, lazy reptile?!’ I hissed hugging the ground feeling like being shelled. ‘Come on! Protect your host! Attack!’

  The grass-snake started slithering slowly to the furious mob while I continued defending and constructing barriers with the help of thornbush. The snake squeezed through the bushes that I created. Just in a second the porcupine oinked with obvious surprise and fell aside spanning its front entangled hoofs in the air. If those strange sharp-clawed warts could be called hoofs. Shelling stopped. I was so happy to have a break that I raised my body a bit and inserted a fan of ‘ice pins’ into the dying monster.

  Nature magic handling has increased by 1 point.

  Nature Magic handling – 6.

  Nature spell casting speed has increased by 6%

  Elemental Power Magic has increased by 1 point

  Elemental Power Magic handling – 1

  Elemental Power spell casting speed has increased by 1%

  At last. One more point to the magic of the natural type and the first point in elemental power handling. I was making some progress step by step.

  Moreover, we killed the ugly beast… but I still couldn’t remember such strange mobs here. It looked so absurdly, it didn’t suit the overall surrounding. Like a African giraffe in Siberia.

  Actually it was easy to check.

  I leaned over the remains of the strange beast to pick up a big amount of stuff from the ground. A piece of ‘strange’ meat, about twenty thin bony quills that could be thrown into enemies, the hide of the unieye… oh… and the eye – bloodshot eyeball as big as mu fist. So it was a unieye…

>   I hid my loot into the sack and made a mental note to talk to the village elder who I hadn’t met yet. Maybe he had a special quest to kill a dangerous monster terrorizing Mossy Hills and abducting virgins… In fact he unieye that I killed reminded neither a dangerous monster nor a kidnapper of young girls. But there is no harm in trying.

  I was killing all beasts without an exception that were careless enough to catch my eye for next two hours. I considered all was fish that came to my nest. I killed even such low-level mobs as gray birds like sparrows that burst into heaps of feathers as soon as ‘an ice pin’ hit them. I didn’t gained any experience due to them but still… Quantity compensated the lack of quality. I could afford it as mana was regenerating very quickly and I wasn’t afraid of losing it. I was like a microcaliber machine gun that was cleaning out the area.

  Curious badgers, multicolored snakes, wood grouses sitting on lower branches, quick squirrels – it was very unusual to see them in birch-and-asp woods, partridges sitting on eggs, long-muzzled ferrets creeping in thick grass. Everything was good for me. Even colorful butterflies and buzzing bumble-bees that didn’t provide any experience at all. And I let my snake get rid of innocent insects.

  I didn’t meet any noble deer or wolves any more. And it was for the better. They took too much time. Actually I saw a huge moose that ran through the clearing and vanished somewhere in the woods. But I didn’t dare to hunt it – level thirty-five is a serious thing, you know. It could trample me to death.

  All in all, I was pretending to be a professional machine-gunner responding to any tiny movement by throwing either ‘an ice pin’ or a ‘thornbush’ hedge. Then I ran into a pack of forest woodchucks that looked like tiny but rather fat bear cubs. It took me many efforts to kill the whole pack of 12-level mobs. At the twentieth woodchuck I managed to level up but I decided not to contribute new points anywhere as it would have taken much time. At the same time I mastered my grass snake practices throwing it at the rival continuously screaming ‘Raaa!’ It chose that syllable as a command to attack. Sounded strange but brief and clear.