The Renegades

by Vasily Mahanenko

  Three tea cups clinked triumphantly over the table as though placing a period to this discussion.

  “So what? Did you manage to make a super ninja out of old Beast?” I brought up the topic everyone was curious about.

  “Nah,” Alex shook his head. “Soon as he laid eyes on the sapper’s shovel he recalled that he’s a musician and he has to watch his hands. Like that cat that couldn’t do anything because he had paws. And when I showed him how a ‘Vietnamese music box’ works, he went green all over and went back to cooking. After all, Barliona isn’t real life—in there, everything is soft and polished.”

  “Have you lost the plot?” Pasha roared. “What the hell are you showing off your stupid toys for, you idiot?”

  “He wanted to know how it worked,” Sasha replied calmly, but his eyes turned to ice for a second, “so I showed him. He didn’t take a liking to it, it happens.

  And the ranger turned back to his sandwich.

  “You psycho,” sighed Pasha but let the matter drop.

  I didn’t risk getting involved in this exchange. Something told me that in the best case scenario, I would encounter only apish mockery interwoven with the same weighty stare that was starting to make me feel like I was an extra in this company. At times, there was something in these people beyond my comprehension. And it wasn’t a matter of my dullness so much as too great of a difference in the worlds we had seen.

  In the end, I used my first opportunity to say goodbye to the ranger and dived into my capsule, leaving the friends to their own devices.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The game greeted me with unexpected changes: The inapproachable stockade around the training compound had turned black, deformed and gaps appeared in the even weave of its branches. Gaps large enough to admit two waltzing elephants. Through the hole closest to me, I could make out the already familiar, terrifying landscape of blight, seeping with a viscous dark fog and slowly spreading and consuming more and more of the forest and the training ground.

  “Would you look at that…” I muttered to myself.

  It’s well-known that when an exit magically appears in a location that has no exit or entrance, it’s not just for nothing. Had the quest’s critical moment arrived or had one of the players launched some scenario? Who knows? But I had to make up my mind about what to do. Should I head over there and see what’s going on? But then, technically, I’m leaving my place of imprisonment on my own and might really get it in the neck. Should I stay here and wait for the Seventh or one of his apprentices? But then I’ll miss out if there’s something interesting going on there. If you ask me, it’s better to get it in the neck than spend the rest of my life wondering what could have been.

  Having arrived at this uncomplicated decision, I bravely set forth for the implacably-growing spot of heightened thorniness.

  You have stepped onto a blighted part of the forest. -50% to all stats. +50% to strength of all blighted creatures. -1% to max HP for every minute you spend on blighted ground.

  The shoes that the pirc had reinforced for me, no longer deteriorated as I walked and I confidently crushed the thorns under my iron-shod boots. And I couldn’t care less that they weren’t actually boots: It sounds better and you can’t tell a good story without telling a pretty lie.

  The clods of dark fog floated exotically from place to place which, in the general perspective, looked incredibly sinister. As luck would have it, this time I was spared the blighted bunnies. In exchange, I was blessed with a different crew. Having walked about a hundred meters, I came upon a strange biota whose left hand seeped that very same terrifying fog. On top of this, this distant cousin of mine looked quite unique: His body was covered with sharp thorns, giving him the appearance of a porcupine, and his eyes glowed with a strange green light. At least the name of this NPC was perfectly familiar to me: It was none other than the missing Vex in person. Bending one knee, he plunged his left hand into a small crevice in the ground and when he straightened out, his fingers no longer seeped the odd fog. It was now seeping from the ground.

  You have discovered that the source of the mysterious blight afflicting the forest are the renegade biota. Report your finding to Eben.

  You have located the missing Vex. Report your finding to Tauvolga.

  So that’s it? It’s that simple? I came, I saw, I reported? I suppose Eben will forgive my prior transgression in exchange for this information. Hell, he might even send me on another quest chain. It’s not bad in theory, but…It’s boring! Where’s the catch?

  “Hey Vex!” I hailed the local renegade.

  The biota turned his head lazily in my direction, as if sensing no threat to himself. He examined me and frowned, evidently not recognizing me.

  “Who are you, what are you doing and how do you know me?” he asked demandingly, lazily twirling a dagger that had appeared from nowhere in his hand.

  “It just so happened that wherever I went, fate kept leading me toward you. First of all, I came upon an encrypted songbook of Cypro’s and I’ve been looking for you in order to ask why it’s damaged. Second of all, I met your friend, Tauvolga. She’s worried about you and asked me to find you.”

  As soon as he heard the name of his friend, Vex relaxed noticeably and the dagger ceased moving in his hand.

  “How is she?” my thorny acquaintance wondered unexpectedly.

  “She misses you,” I replied curtly. “I imagine she would be happy to see you.”

  “That’s not possible,” Vex replied quietly. “At the moment, it’s not possible…”

  “You better be on your way, radish-head,” barked the pirc, struggling through the stockade’s remnants.

  Weird. I thought that Sasha was going to hang out for another few hours. What prompted Chip to get in his capsule?

  “And keep your rakes where I can see them or you’ll be sorry that you left Granny Lemon’s Cabbage Patch,” the pirc warned, eloquently brandishing his trusty halberd. A change of class is a change of class, but he had taken a liking to this weapon.

  The events that followed took up several seconds: Vex darted at Chip, whipping out a second dagger in mid-stride. The pirc took a better hold of his halberd, while I grabbed my lute and cast magic missiles. The renegade had only several steps left before he’d lock with Chip, but by this point my spell was ready. Two magic missiles cut Chip’s HP in half and Vex took off the rest of the health with one blow. The pirc’s silhouette dissolved in the fog leaving behind some orphaned coins—half of what Chip carried with him for daily expenditures. I’d give them back to him later.

  “As I understood it, that’s a friend of yours,” the renegade squinted menacingly. He looked like he had decided to send all unwanted guests to the Gray Lands and be done with it.

  “He was,” I explained quickly. “As you can see, we don’t see eye to eye anymore.”

  Vex clearly didn’t like my response very much. The renegade smirked and began to slowly walk in my direction.

  “Real good friend you are if you’re prepared to kill your friend over a disagreement.”

  I wouldn’t rustle about friends, blighter of the forest! Take a look at yourself first!

  “My friend is a free citizen. He’ll return from the Gray Lands and we’ll resolve our disagreement. If he had killed you, I wouldn’t be able to talk to you.”

  “We have something to talk about?” Vex asked with surprise, continuing his unhurried, calm and therefore quite scary approach.

  “Yes. As I already told you, fate has brought us together. I emerged from the bud very recently. In my Twilight Dream, I saw the Sixth, the Schism and Geranika.”

  Strictly speaking, I lied a bit here—I had only heard of Geranika, but this was enough for Vex anyway. He stopped and peered into my face.

  “And what do you think about all this?” The question was clearly an important one for this strange biota.

  “I think you’re right. All of you—including the Sixth and the Second. We must accept Geranika’s assist
ance and once and for all smash the other races’ will to interfere in our lives. I wanted to tell the others the same, but I only managed to tell about the Schism to my friend, whom you just saw. He had his doubts and while we were arguing, Eben somehow found out and imprisoned us here, further from the Tree. If it weren’t for you, we’d still be penned in there, locked in until the alliance was announced. It is dishonorable to make an important decision without considering the will of the people, all the biota and all the pircs!”

  You have increased your Charisma. Total: 4.

  You have received another training point. Unallocated training points: 4.

  Attention! A new stat has become available to your character: Deceit. The true art of deceit is available only to those whose charm and eloquence are capable of assuaging others. Deceit affects your chance of misleading NPCs, to the point that you can receive rewards for uncompleted or failed quests. Deceit allows you to display false stats to those around you, as well as use a false name temporarily.

  Do you accept? Attention! You will not be able to remove an accepted stat!

  The temptation to accept the stat and thereby increase my chances of befuddling Vex was very great, but I swiped the notification away. At the moment, I was more curious about the change that had taken place on the renegade biota’s face.

  “And so what do you want, Lorelei?” asked Vex after a long pause.

  “I want to join the Sixth and help her make our people secure for centuries to come,” I lied without blushing.

  “Big words. But are you prepared to prove them with deeds?”

  “Try me and you will find out.”

  “For the sake of our people, we voluntarily accept Shadow, allowing it to alter us,” Vex held up his thorny arm. “Are you ready to sacrifice yourself and your nature for others? Are you ready for everyone to turn their backs on you, including the Guardian of our forest and even Sylvyn himself?”

  Quest available: Shoots of Shadow. Description: In pursuit of the power that could forever protect the biota and the pircs from the aggression of other races, the renegades have accepted Shadow and changed their essences. Demonstrate your readiness to follow the way of the renegades by accepting a particle of Shadow and changing your own essence. Quest type: Scenario. Reward: Friendship status with the Renegades of the Hidden Forest, Suspicion status with Shadow creatures, Hatred status with all other factions of the Hidden Forest, the Empire of Malabar and the Dark Empire of Kartoss. Race change to Blighted Biota. Penalty for declining the quest: Hatred status with the Renegades of the Hidden Forest.

  Attention! You may change your race in this scenario. If you undergo the change, your pain filters will be temporarily disabled.

  On top of it all, a supplemental agreement popped up, according to which I absolved the corporation of any liability for my physical and psychological state in the course of this scenario. I should mention that I was a little terrified. It’s one thing to change one’s race to FSM-knows-what and crash my rep with both empires. It’s something else entirely when the corp also forces me to sign a document which amounts to ‘we wash our hands of the consequences.’ On the other hand, they covered themselves exactly the same way when I did my sensory filter adjustment. No doubt, this was simply another requirement of their legal department. Why would they start torturing and killing their users over nothing? Or would they…?

  I didn’t spend a long time thinking about it. After all is said and done, we only live once and it’s worth trying everything. Declining the dubious Deceit stat (I don’t like to lie and something told me that in this scenario I could end up acquiring a more interesting stat), I pushed the scenario’s Accept button.

  “I’m ready!”

  Was it me or did a shadow of surprise slip across Vex’s face?

  “This is a serious step, but if you are resolute, follow me.”

  The way was quite long and not very direct. I don’t know what the matter is, but Vex outright refused to stray from the blighted ground, so we meandered and snaked along a winding path of fog and thorns. Very large thorns. A veritable labyrinth of thorny bushes. As soon as we entered further into the blighted areas, I lost my sense of direction entirely. The endless turns gave me the impression that we were going in circles. Maybe that’s the way it was. For the life of me, I wouldn’t be able to recreate our path on a map.

  The lengthy walk was less than average when it came to enjoyment. It didn’t matter much to Vex, he just trudged along his way. However, I had to heal up again and again to account for my falling HP. It’s a good thing that my shoes held fast because otherwise there’d be nothing but my ears left by the time we made it. Thinking about the shoes made me think about their cobbler. I wonder whether Pasha was annoyed by my attack or whether Sasha and he were currently laughing their heads off, discussing the latest turn of events. The latter was more likely—otherwise, I’d be seeing a notification about an imminent disconnect from my capsule. I’ll complete the quest, climb out and explain myself.

  When Vex and I were approaching the boundaries of the blighted ground, I kept noticing strange creatures that resembled living trees on the other side. They looked more like gorillas that moved on very long legs than Tolkien’s ents. Large, no shorter than six meters tall, they followed along the boundary of the blight with a fairly aggressive posture until we disappeared from view, plunging into the thorny labyrinth.

  “What are those?” I broke our silence for the first time.

  “The sentries of the Forest,” Vex replied with a little surprise. “It’s odd you didn’t see them in your dreams. The First may summon them in times of trouble to guard the borders or—as now—to eliminate a threat to the forest.”

  “Are we the threat?”

  “At the moment, it’s just me. The sentries sense Shadow but cannot do anything as long as I remain on blighted ground. Shadow interferes with their link with Sylvyn and, separated from his will, the sentries turn back into trees. So they’re patrolling the borders, watching, looking out.”

  He smiled wistfully. This seemed like a painful topic for him. His entire bunch made for strange sorts of villains. They didn’t draw much dislike from me. I felt sympathy and curiosity but no negative feelings. A big thanks to the devs for avoiding cardboard cut-out idiots who spilled their plans the first chance they got and periodically burst into bombastic laughter. The formula of ‘kill the bad guy and ride your white horse into the sunset’ had put more than a few generations of players to bored sleep.

  “Why did you join the Sixth?” I asked Vex, trudging morosely beside me.

  “Like you, I beheld many things I would prefer to forget in my dreams. I saw battles, I saw the foreigners who brought war to our forest. It is time we end this.”

  “How?”

  “You shall see,” Vex replied enigmatically and fell silent again.

  I realized that we were getting close to the renegades’ camp on my own: We began encountering blighted biota and pircs more and more frequently. And I should mention that the latter were quite the sight: The same dark fog coiled around their fur, their eyes glowed with the same green flame, and their fangs and claws had grown several-fold. The renegades regarded me with suspicion but without any particular enmity.

  Blighted wolves, lynxes, bears, hawks, foxes and hares—as well as creatures that didn’t exist irl—lurked all around us. Some of the members of this menagerie began to show glimmers of appetite regarding my person, but as soon as Vex recited some verses, the same dark fog would appear beside me, I would receive the ‘Shadow Protection’ buff and the beasts’ aggression would evaporate. It was like they had ceased noticing me entirely.

  I should say that being able to cast a spell with nothing but a recitation was more impressive to me than the ensuing spell. It’s such an obvious form of performance and I’d never even thought about it before! At least now it’s clear how this guy manages to wield two daggers and at the same time use his bardic powers. You don’t need free hands for recitation a
t all.

  “We need to see Astilba,” Vex interrupted my reveries of poetic evenings.

  He was addressing a very imposing-looking pirc who guarded a passage into a dense hillock of brambles. The pirc didn’t bother with politesse and simply stepped aside, letting us enter. Either Vex was in good standing or the pirc was here to guard against external threats rather than bureaucratic ones. Through the bramble patch we came upon a familiar vista: A blighted meadow, turfed with thorny grass, shreds of fog drifting among it, and gnarled trees that looked more like bushes. One of them, the largest one, served as Astilba’s throne. The Sixth in person sat in a niche formed among the trees’ branches. Just like everyone else, Astilba had transformed: Her torso had darkened and become covered with thorns. The same thorns lengthened her fingers, crowning them with nails that were so long that I unwittingly assumed they were extra phalanges.

  “Greetings, oh Sixth,” Vex bowed his head in a simple, respectful bow.

  “Vex,” Astilba nodded in response.

  Her face was cold and majestic at the same time and her eyes glowed with an even green flame. Beholding such majestic repose, I couldn’t help but repeat Vex’s gesture, bowing my head before the Sixth. I had never seen someone like this in real life: Our epoch of democracy and avowed equality had practically eliminated majesty, substituting it with haughtiness, arrogance and self-indulgence. It was left to the games to recreate true majesty, the kind incident only to hereditary rulers and creatures ancient and mighty.

  “I imagine there is a reason you have brought me one of our sisters, Vex,” Astilba said with regal calm.

  “Yes, oh Sixth,” Vex met her eyes, but in a manner that was more of an unspoken addition to the conversation than an expression of opposition. “This is Lorelei. She saw you, the Schism and Geranika in her Twilight Dreams. She wishes to join our struggle and is prepared to pay the price to do so.”