C3 02. Never fall in love pt1

The soles of my shoes crunched as I stepped onto the glass field of cup shards. The coffee drips still glistened in the sunlight, driving me to embarrassment. I was ashamed of the floor art, though it transformed the interior, made it much more cozy.

I crouched down to collect the six surviving large pieces of ceramic, my index finger already touched the sharp, rough around the edges of the chip...

“I’m sorry, I’ll clean it up now,” the electronic child’s voice, too cuddly and friendly, tickled my ear unpleasantly. I still haven’t found out the reason why the house cleaners were so loud: maybe the developers screwed up the vocal chords (mixed up a couple of numbers and commands), or the cafe owner was deaf in both ears.

And blind. In both visual beauty receptors. There were cheaper and prettier versions, the global market was large. So why, among all the variety of home helpers, did he choose the TP-32?

“Thank you,” I leaned over slightly and patted the white machine on the back. The robot sang the universal song of hospitality in response.

“We all die, but we don’t all live...” Again the face of the most hated man in the country appeared on the visor. Probably no ruler has ever been so close to his overthrow as Rizor Cirkul after his five-minute appeal to the people.

I put the ring on the payment pad, the little gem on my index finger blinked a few times, informing me that money from my account had been withdrawn. And I hurried to leave the empty cafeteria. I didn’t want to hear that harsh voice of the nastiest man in the universe once more.

On the one hand, you were right, Mr. President. Yes, all mortals die, but you were wrong about life. I lived in Virtul, I felt more alive in it, and I think half the world would agree with me on this – having dared to encroach on our game, you’ve become a threat to our lives.

You dug yourself a hole on the eve of the election. I’ll bet my appendix that there won’t be a third term in your career.

It was apple blossom snowing outside. I stopped in the middle of the street, the air was filling my lungs with the sweet scent of the sunny morning. I closed my eyes for a second and raised my face to the sun, the rays touched my cheeks warmly. It had been a long time since we had such a nice day in the capital.

The silence of the alley was diluted by the growing rumble from the Theater Square; it seemed that people still had hope, since they could go out to rallies and protests. I’d have to go around.

I bit my lip in frustration. It was too long and dangerous to wander around the back alleys. But trying to cross a crowd that could be swept up in a wave of rage at any moment was even more perilous.

The new boots had left me with a few minor blisters. They had managed to ruin my already dull mood, so I returned home sullen and despondent. I kicked off my shoes and stomped barefoot to the garage.

“Father.”

My voice sank into the darkness. If there weren’t heaps of electronic junk and stacks of books, the echo would have gladly answered me instead of silence.

“Dad,” I called a little louder, looking around at the piles of tools and the couple of plates of sandwiches on the work table that were already dried up. He hadn’t even touched his breakfast today.

“You’re here,” was an indifferent reply from the darkest corner. I adjusted my lenses for midnight vision. My father was squatting in front of the mono-server box, fiddling with the soldering iron in the intricacies of the green and blue microcircuits.

“You should eat at least…”

He didn’t even hear me. With hands trembling with impatience, my father screwed the protective cover back on, dropped his glasses, rubbed his tired eyes with his palms, and lay down on the couch. His gray hair stuck together long ago, and I had no idea how many days he hadn’t showered. His skinny fingers traced blindly across his chest, found the medallion with the imprint of eternity in it. A slight movement, and the locket, I didn’t see it – I felt it, sparked with technomagic.

Envy pricked me unpleasantly. My father had never allowed me to take the pendant with my mother’s imprint of eternity. Only once, on my eighteenth birthday, he allowed me to see her in Virtul. The rest of the time, day and night, he lived in his own world, surrounded by the care of the only woman he truly loved. A woman who had last laughed and breathed fifteen years ago.

My father was called a gricker. He was so deeply immersed in digital reality, so addicted to Virtul, that if he had not been one of the main developers of this very game, he would now be scratching the walls with his gaze in a country dispensary, wrapped in a straitjacket.

I threw off my cloak and yanked the scarf sharply, trying to untie it quickly and painlessly. No, I was obviously in a good mood this morning, drawn to creative achievements in the form of tying knots, and now I couldn’t free my neck from this noose. I gave up this futile task, sat down in my favorite chair, and closed my eyes.

The login word, the customary loading screen. And the System’s voice, so familiar to me, announced: “Nice to see you back in Virtul, player 13-06-13. Shall I send you straight to the teleportation tower or to the training room?”

I bit my lip, thinking for a moment.

“To the guild mansion... no, wait. To the Central Market.”

Even magic was not able to speed up the loading of the largest Virtul location, the inter-world marketplace, where not only game trinkets were traded, even the actual currencies of the countries that supported the game mode were honored. I opened the inventory window, and while there was time, I scoured it for trash and long-forgotten junk.

“The province of the Grey Mountains, Agri Central Market, northern pavilions. 11:34 a.m.,” the information note alerted.

The first thing to do was to go to the fence. The inventory bags were empty in about thirty seconds, I sold everything I’d accumulated over the years. Surprisingly, parting with my favorite weapons and equipment wasn’t so hard. Either I just fell asleep in a dream of conscious reality, or I had an unprecedented attack of indifference, but I looked with slight apathy at the overstuffed wagons of the hoarder, driving away with my hard-earned goods.

The money was even more than I expected to get. Well, there was only one thing left to accomplish. The last gift to my daughter was supposed to be unforgettable. I had to try hard to find the biggest dravosaurus on the market.

I walked around six corrals before I stumbled upon the “Wild and Unbridled” shop. I grinned, the name spoke for itself.

“Looking for something special?”

The shopkeeper first looked out from behind the counter, grunted, dragged the box to the stand, and froze, smiling at me with empty black eyes without whites.

“Dravosaurus,” I didn’t say in riddles. I had no desire to waste my time now, though another day I would have tortured the System. I liked sometimes bringing the NPCs to white heat and stuttering.

“Oh, I have something to offer you,” the salesman turned toward the tiny paddocks.

“The biggest and deadliest,” I murmured with a smile. A large sack of gold plumped heavily on the counter.

The shopkeeper immediately pulled out a box with a picture of a toothy skull from his pocket.

“Three thousand,” this crook set the initial amount.

I rolled my eyes and sighed. The System wouldn’t let me buy that easily. If you don’t bargain, you won’t get anything.

“Five hundred,” I decided to kill this damn program at once.

The person opposite rounded his eyes, which made it seem as if two huge black holes had eaten half of his face.

“Two thousand gold and three hundred silver.”

“A thousand gold pieces and five hundred in small change,” I spat an ultimatum in his face and was about to turn around, going to seek my luck in other market stalls.

The black saucer-eyes turned into squinted slits.

“Deal.”

In a minute, having signed the formal documents and received the pet’s passport, I was strolling contentedly down the wide street of the market town. A small dravosaurus that looked like a hybrid of a lizard, a gammy dragon, and a fluffy otter was basking in my arms. I couldn’t wait to see Di’s reaction to her new pet, mount and protector.

But first there was another place waiting for me. I took a teleport crystal out of my pocket.

“To the guild mansion.”

Daylight flickered, the sky darkened into a black agate haze, and then my eyes were dazzled for a moment by the shimmering northern lights. For a couple of seconds, as the structures loaded up, I admired the tattered skies, blackening more and more with each beat of my heart. The headquarters of the Northern Crown was located, as you might guess, on an icy continent. There was always night, the cold, the glow ringing the sky, and the stars twinkling with distant light. And also endless ice and half-stone plants (the only living creatures, other than players, capable to survive the frosty air of the edge of the world).

Only in one window of the mansion was a candle burning, which meant the clan sisters were either on a quest or had decided to go on a raid. Although... How could I forget? Three days left...

I clenched my fingers on the hilt of my sword, chasing away the bleak thoughts. This was no time for regrets.

And then I took the box with the little dravosaurus in both hands, to make it easier to hold. Unfortunately, I couldn’t put it in my inventory – it was a living creature, and I forgot to buy a special carrier. So I stepped cautiously onto the icy road leading to the guild gates. The silence and the mountains were mesmerizing, and my heart beat faster, excited by such beauty.

In front of the porch, I turned around in a circle, changing my clothes. The head didn’t like it when we walked around the house not in guild uniform. And the red and white tunic with the dark pants and the high heeled boots looked very nice on me. As for the black cloak with the white crown on the back, I loved it madly.

The bloody scarlet carpet led me up the stairs, down the couloir, through the hall of fame with the armor of great warriors, the art gallery. I stopped for a moment in front of my portrait. And a high military-style ponytail suited me very well, after all. I made a note to try it someday in real life.

The door to the office was ajar, I knocked and, without waiting for permission, entered. The head Gridа was invariably seated at her desk. In my memory, she was the first NPC who hardly ever left her anchor point. If she did leave her favorite chair, it was only in an emergency. The last time was when the war with the Black Wolves was about to spill over into a fifth inter-server war, and Grida went to the enemy’s lair to propose a truce.

I knelt on one knee, putting my fist to my chest, the formal greeting of our clan. Yes, for many, guilds were just a collection of players, seeking the benefits of teaming up in extra quests, reputation points, and the occasional tidbits that fell to the guildmates (by law, ten percent of the loot went to the guild). But for me and my friends, the Northern Crown was a clan, a family we were proud to be a part of, proud to fight side by side with our sisters.

“Did my deputy deign to visit me after all?” the head resentfully chanted without taking a break from reading the book. “Is the end of the world near, since you finally decided to remember your direct duties?”

You were right as ever, Grida.

I sank into the second empty chair in the room. The fireplace breathed warmth, it smelled of dry wood and tar. I always felt so relaxed in the guild house. Maybe it was because our mansion was one of the safest places in all of Virtul?

I raised my eyes to the angry Gri, I missed her so much.

“No, I’ll deal with my duties some other time. Today I came here to ask you a favor.”

My friend’s black eyebrows furrowed with anticipation.

“I’m all ears.”

“Can I borrow the Syracillus crystal for a while?”

“Are you going to find a husband?” She shook her tail in displeasure, and, seeing that I was not quick to refute her assumption, uttered such a familiar and annoying statement, “Don’t you remember our clan motto? ‘Never fall in love. Go hard. Survive!’ You still haven’t divorced him?”

I shrugged vaguely. This conversation came up every time I found myself in the head’s office. Having learned from bitter experience, I decided to remain silent.

‘Never fall in love. Go hard. Survive!’ Grida could repeat this phrase sixty times a day. I’ve always had vague doubts, a hunch that the developer in charge of our beloved head was a man-hater. Who knows?

This theory was also confirmed by the fact that only unmarried female players could join our guild. I was one of the exceptions. I didn’t want to get divorced, but I also wanted to join the guild, so I cheated a little, yeah.

Although in Virtul almost everyone was equipped with cheats, cheating has always been in use, the players could never live without it. But the System made concessions in this matter. If the cheats did not interfere with the main course of the game and did not cause inconvenience to other players, the penalties for their use were charged, of course, but the cheats themselves were not confiscated.

So I killed two birds with one stone: I’m married with a child, and the deputy head of one of the most prestigious guilds in Virtul.

“So, will you give me the crystal?”

She gave me a long, searching look.

“All right,” the head finally came to her verdict. “But if you win me at rock-paper-scissors.”

I raised my eyes to the ceiling.

Oh, Great Developers! What was in your minds when you were setting up the System? RPS? Seriously?

With a heavy sigh, I folded my arms across my chest. I needed that crystal badly, or I wouldn’t be able to find Krile in three days. He was hunting in the Uncharted Lands, and the teleports didn’t work there. Only the Syracillus Stone could help, a very rare artifact item that allows you to find any creature in the game, be it a real player, an NPC, or an exceptional mob. No place in the game world has yet been discovered where it could not deliver its keeper.

Reluctantly, I nodded. You never know the result unless you play the game.

We threw our hands out in sync.

“Scissors!”

“Scissors.” Grida’s voice sounded calmer, but the gleam in her eyes spoke volumes.

“Scissors!”

“Paper.”

We shouted the words at the same time, and I froze, afraid to breathe, my heart rejoiced. Uh-huh, I beat my guild head! Grida shrugged in frustration and I was afraid she was going to demand a rematch, but no, the NPC pulled open the top drawer of the desk and placed a crystal that shone with the colors of the seven rainbows in front of me.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I murmured, bowing and retreating towards the exit.

“Remember,” she called out to me, “never fall in love, always go straight ahead and don’t look back, don’t make your heart suffer...”

But I cared little for her advice, I broke the crystal with the inscription ‘home, sweet home’, closed my eyes and immediately smiled, inhaling the smell of pine and wild lemon, feeling the cold wind that blew from the mountain peaks.

Ahead were the high arches of the aqueduct, casting a shadow over the valley. Near the woods, on the edge of the forest, there were a couple of cabins nestled together. My husband and I had deliberately chosen the furthest refuge from civilization, in a remote location, so that no one would interfere with our happiness.

The birds were singing, the flowers were blooming, the bees were buzzing, and the butterflies were dancing over the field (perfectly harmless insects, if you don’t touch them). Now, with my high level, they weren’t scary to me, but they used to attack in swarms, and I’d have to swing my sword and cast fire spells for five minutes to get them off my back. Di and Krile were lucky, they were NPCs, and no creature could ever take them. Not like me, real flesh and blood.

“Mommy!”