(World of Valdira 01) The Way of the Clan (4 page)

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Because the first aim of the gamer you’re going to help is located in the Cradle! – Gosha replied and I had nothing to do but zip my lip.

Checkmate.

He meant a small uptown that can be found in any starting city. The Cradle… a sandpit for beginners. A place where absolutely everyone without an exception has to start from. It’s a relevantly safe place, there are a lot of easy quests that let gain experience and a few coins fast besides there are quite friendly NPCs. And at last all attacks against other gamers are prohibited there. It’s an ideal place for a kick-off. It’s like a daycare. But there is one big disadvantage. If you leave the Cradle one day, you’ll never be able to come back. Go through the arch of the inner gate and that’s it – no way back. A magic veil hanging in the air won’t let you in again. But essentially it’s right. Grown-up gamers have nothing to do in the daycare. Only NPCs can walk in both directions without any restrictions.

If you want to get into the Cradle again, you must be born again. Delete your current character, reset your options of the cocoon and start your life in Valdira from the very beginning. Damn it…

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Did you get it?

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Gosha… but there is nothing special in the Cradle! Only a couple of quests. What shall I do there?

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You must win the tournament, - replied Gosha calmly, and I got staggered and stared at him.

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There are no tournaments. Even a gamer’s class isn’t determined there. All gamers are equal like eggs and are armed with sticks like Neanderthals!

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There is a tournament! Stop arguing! If I’ve said there’s a tournament then it’s really so! Ros, in short either you agree or not. If not, then I’ll lend you the money right now, you’ll go home, pay for your account, immerse, get your Crashshot astride and welcome adventure! If you agree, we’ll continue talking. Make your decision. Let me squirt out whisky into your glass. And one more thing, Ros… I understand just as well as you what it means for a real gamer to delete his ‘full blood’ character. The gamer who needs your help will do the same, just believe me, he’ll have to sacrifice much more than you.

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Is his character much cooler than mine?

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Definitely. But not only this… You know level and gear can come over some time… but as for the rest… Ok, think about it.

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There’s nothing to think about, - I gave up. – I agree and accept all your condition because…

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…it will be very stupid to refuse, - finished Gosha instead of me. – Right. Well, let’s talk about detail now.

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Gosha… explain one thing to me – why I? There are gamers much more experienced than me.

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I know you – replied the swole calmly and sank into the arm-chair, - I know you not only in the game but in real life. You know me and you understand that I’m not going to let you down. Plus some important factors coincide quite successfully – you’ve got great game background, you’re not a retard, due to your dismissal you’ve got plenty of free time that we both can benefit.

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I’m glad you think I am not a retard, - I cracked a smile. – A load off my mind!

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Do you have any other questions? Sorry, I am pressed for time.

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Hmm… Gosha, why do you need it? Why do you need victory in a children’s tournament in the Cradle? What’s all that for? This pain in the ass and waste of darn well amount of bucks?

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Mind your own business, – interrupted me Gosha, - sorry, Ros, but you have nothing to do with the clan’s life.

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Got it, - nodded I – I’m not a fool. I’ll be as silent as the grave. I won’t tell anyone.

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I know you won’t tell anyone. And I’m pleased you understand everything properly. So… now it’s time to discuss financial matters.

Having dried another tumbler my ex-acquaintance that I could always borrow a couple of bucks until my salary and that has just suddenly transformed into my employer, sat down in front of the computer and entered some commands as fast as a burst of machine-gun fire. He was looking at the display for about two seconds, snorted with satisfaction, then opened a drawer of his desk and put his hand inside. A short riffle of paper and here it is – a thin bundle of green and grey notes is hovering in front of my eyes.

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Five hundred bucks – pronounced Gosha as a matter of fact. – Let it be your prepayment. Two more thousand and a half are in your wallet. Well, take it.

I took the money feeling like Judah. I’ve sold Crashshot for thirty pieces of silver…

Although I didn’t have time to sorrow and to let a bitter tear of regret go. As quickly as possible I left the arm-chair and here I am in the hallway. Standing in the door Gosha threw the last parting phrase:

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Delete your account, reset the options of the cocoon, register a new account and then call me. But, please, hurry up! I should have immersed into Valdira and have been dealing with the clan’s treasury long ago. And one more thing… please, don’t back-pedal your deleting of Crashshot. The slower you are, the harder it is.

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So, you’re a treasurer, aren’t you? – I stared at him being stunned. The clan’s treasurer is a mythical man. The man who has a direct access to all the clan’s treasure collected. They don’t appoint an outsider for such a post. Trust must be total – I dare say it must be perfect.

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On, Ros, on! Clatter along and race like a horse.

And I raced off having forgotten about the elevator and leaping over three steps.

Although I didn’t manage to run further than the lounge where I was happily hugged by the well-known security guards. An iron palm clamped my right hand and a deafening bass thundered in my ear:

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Where are you running? Where did you get the money? Say!

At that moment I realized that my dirty and wrinkled sports-suit accompanied by the torn homy flip-flops couldn’t match a bundle of American notes squeezed in my hand. In the other hand I was squeezing almost empty tumbler with amber whisky splashing inside. What a great look! While I was collecting my thoughts the second guard decided everything instead of me. He talked to someone briefly on the phone, winced and grumbled:

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Let him go, Nicolay. Everything is all right. Sorry for trouble.

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Ok – I nodded and looking certainly mad rushed further. My body was moving in an autopilot mode. The vacuum in my head was buzzing. No emotions, no thoughts – I tried to achieve such a state on purpose. In order not to hesitate and not to change my mind in the dying seconds.

A hallway, almost empty due to that time of day flashed in front of my eyes. The hallway dirty steps blurred into a rainbow sheet and I saw my home door just in front of me. A short turn of the key, a long groan of the opening door, two steps along a short corridor past the kitchen and I got into the room. Right off the bat I came to the cocoon. I sprang open the plastic lid covering the cocoon control panel. Then I sprang open one more transparent square covering an unmistakable red button and pushed it all the way in so that even a light crunch could be heard. A slight jingle announced that a warning popped up on the screen of the computed connected to the cocoon:

Are you sure that you want to reset your personal settings?

Attention! This operation is non-reversible!

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Nope, I’m not sure – I replied and confirmed the reset. Damn it all!

Green lights glimmering steadily on the cocoon control panel suddenly changed to alarming yellow and started blinking discretely. The cocoon began munching the content.

And the last thing…

I should activate the account page. So… The user’s personal settings, some operations with the personal account, delete. A plenty of alert messages with a red text popped up again. Infinite warning that the operation was non-reversible. That I was doing something terribly stupid…

But I was clicking the mouse mortally and finally I did what I had planned – the screen was virgin clean. The account was deleted.

Only at that moment I relieved. Done, there’s no way back.

I noticed my tumbler with a little whisky left at the edge of the desk, stood up, cheered the bare wall and gulped all the whisky.

Farewell, Crashshot! May you rest in peace, bro!

Our last meeting occurred in my mind – I was sitting on the sun-heated bench looking at the fountain streams shooting up to the sky. That’s a nice place to die. Peace and quiet…

Over an hour passed when the cocoon finished the whole resetting. It took one more hour to set the default settings.

I didn’t waste the time and was clicking all around to register a new account in Valdira. A premium account of the diamond class. The registration procedure passed without any surprise, Valdira’s server gobbled two thousand dollars up in a blink of an eye. Surprises started at the end when I got down to creating my character and selecting his appearance. I used to type a nickname I liked in a spare box and faced a mocking warning constantly ‘This nickname is occupied’. But then at the moment I moved the cursor to the appropriate box, something clicked and a message popped up:

Would you like to look through the list of nicknames booked for premium users?

Wow!  For premium users! What did I use to be? Yep, I would.

A looong multi-paged list was thrown on the screen. Even at first sight it contained over one thousand nicknames. A continuous number of available nicknames was dancing before my eyes. A bit stunned because of such a sudden abundance I preferred using an engine line built in the list kindly and typed a Latin ‘R’ in it. I didn’t actually notice that the list shortened. Thinking for a while I added ‘OS’ to ‘R’ and then the list decreased to a readable amount of names – a bit over twenty nicknames starting with ‘ROS’. Looking through the suggestion skeptically I used my instinct and chose a nickname Rosgard.

Rosgard… why not? Maybe not understandable a bit, but it sounds great! Anyway it has nothing in common with lost Crashshot’s nickname.

Having selected that tag, I moved on to the next page and felt my jaw falling open again. Instead of a usual couple of dozens of the character’s looks I was offered several hundreds of settings which could definitely help you create a unique look of your avatar. But unfortunately I wasn’t prone to do it at all. I scrambled through all the settings quickly I left my character almost default – I dyed his hair from fair into dark only and changed his eyes from blue to dark-brown. His race was a human. That’s for sure.

Some more minor operations, a suggestion to study a library for beginners properly, a suggestion to take basic lessons, a suggestion to take a short tour around the world of Valdira, a suggestion to get a bird’s eye view of the sights… refuse, refuse and refuse.

And finally a long-awaited message appeared on the screen with much fanfare:

Congratulations! Your game character Rosgard has been created!

And one more standard greeting followed it on the background of the company’s golden logo:

Welcome!

The world of Valdira is waiting for you!

I took a sigh of relief, tore myself off the computer and got into my cocoon standing nearby.

It was very uncomfortable to lie there – due to the unset the cocoon didn’t have parameters of my body. It’s ok, in two hours the padded bed will get adjusted for the shape of my body. I can put up with it so far.

So… here we go!

Chapter 3

Return to the Cradle. Day One.

The rainbow vortex was whirling twice longer than usual – nevertheless the birth of a new character isn’t a routine entrance. But all must end and here I am, standing in the middle of a narrow street feeling dry road dust by my bare feet.

The Cradle.

Behind my back there is an entrance shimmering by a silver veil where according to the legend natives of another world that has been collapsing appear. They mean us. Put it crudely, we are refugees. We have pissed one world away and now we’re hurrying to immigrate to a sunnier place… Such a bloody legend we’ve got.

Low mostly one-storey houses of prevailing countryside type were rising in front of me. An uptown… What can you expect from it? The territory of the Cradle covered a rather large ground including about thirty houses, a shop, a cookshop, some warehouses, other household buildings and vegetable gardens. That’s what I could remember. After all almost two years passed since I’ve been there last time and besides I haven’t stayed here for a long time. As far as I remember I passed a couple of entering quests given by local NPCs and straight after that rushed further into the downtown.