章 26: CHAPTER 26
"Of course. What, you think we're going to stop you?" the mage asked in surprise. "We're fair players, not PKers. And what would we even get from you? What could you have collected on the plain? The Sword of a Thousand Truths?"
The group laughed heartily.
"Obviously. Well, yeah…gopher skins…that's about it. Little by little," I confirmed.
"Okay, you'd better get out of here. The respawn is five minutes, so they'll be crawling back out soon," the mage added with some seriousness. "All right, men, let's form a triangle—they'll be coming from the center, I swear."
I quickly ran to the other side of the graveyard and got to the exit. The group had already forgotten about me. The tanks had made a triangle in the center, the hunter was moving along the right flank, and the mage patrolled the left. Only the cleric stood off where I first saw him, and I ended up right next to him. They got to work.
"Hey, be careful. There's a named monster around here," the cleric quickly said without taking his eyes off the center of the graveyard.
"Yeah, I already got him," I responded. "But still, thanks for the warning."
"No worries. Here we go!"
I looked back toward the graveyard to see that the ground around the central graves had opened up, and skeletons were crawling out.
It's all the same, I thought. First in the lowlands, now here...all the same.
"Watch the edge!" the mage barked.
I didn't care to watch anymore and started walking home through the dark and already not so scary for-est. While I was exhausted, I didn't really care if the local goblin horde heard me.
My map showed that the road I had already traipsed along several times that day was about a kilometer and a half straight ahead. So, I plowed ahead without bothering to look where I was going; I just pulled out my map every few minutes. I had almost reached the road and could just about see it when:
"M-m-m, food coming! Hey, goblins, dinner come! Many food!"
At that moment, I understood how Gandalf the Gray felt when he saw the balrog and said, "There it is. And I'm so tired!"
I took 20 damage. And 20 more. Branches crashed.
This time it sounded like there were about twenty of the goblins rather than the five I dealt with during the day.
There's probably some unwritten rule that says I should have turned to fight them. You can't let some hungry little goblins get the better of you. But I didn't care about unwritten rules. It's all well and good to be proud and brave, but it's better to live and fight another day. I sprinted, first to the road and then along it. The goblins ran after me for a few minutes, shooting arrows and screaming at me all the way, "Food run away! Stop food! We eat meat, bury bones! Hard year, dig up, chew bones!"
But then they stopped pursuing me. Maybe they couldn't keep up the pace with their short, bowed legs, or maybe they weren't allowed to go outside their location. Who knows?
To be honest, I was running on fumes. And it was only when I had completely run out of breath and felt like a horse run ragged that, thank God, I saw the familiar palisade wall. I dug deep to cover the remaining ground, tumbled into Tocbridge, sat down by the fence, and logged out of the game.
You know, I've reported on Sensation, I've judged a dozen wet t-shirt contests, and I've participated in Beaujolais Day (and that last one is crazy!), but I have never—I repeat, never—been so physically and emotionally exhausted.
I felt scraped and dried three times over. And I was incredibly hungry… Only I had no desire to cook.
I crawled out of the capsule, laid down on the couch, and said, "I'll relax for a few minutes, then grab something to eat and start writing my article." I mentally patted myself on the head for my gung-ho attitude and perseverance. And with that thought in my head, I fell sound asleep.
My phone woke me up. Gamroth, I thought with a sinking feeling in my stomach and looked at my phone. It wasn't him. Instead, it was Elvira, my latest flame, who I was supposed to take to some event that day or the day before—I couldn't remember. Maybe an exhibit, or maybe the theatre —I couldn't remember that either. Judging by the fact that it was dark outside, and she was calling, probably the day before. looked at the time on the display, which told me it was 4 a.m. and tapped the button to answer the call.
"You bastard! You scum! You animal!" She got right into it without so much as a "Hello" or "How are you?"
"Um," I grunted sleepily into the phone.
"You jerk. Look at that; he's sleeping! And here I am waiting. Nervous, trying to call everyone!" I wondered who she might have been calling since we didn't have any mutual friends. "Nobody knows what's going on, and he won't pick up the phone. Because he's sleeping!"
"Yes," I agreed.
"I hate you! I...hate.you!" She added some kind of Tatar curse and hung up.
"Okay," I said. "Time to think about some breakfast."
I turned off my cellphone and landline before going back to sleep, as I still had another two hours. The doorbell rang, interrupted only by the kicks slamming against the door. Elvira wasn't mincing words.
"And here comes breakfast," I said, this time completely awake. I wrapped a blanket around myself and went to open the door. It flew open, and I ducked immediately, which was the only reason I didn't get a purse to the face. I'd seen that trick from her before.
"You animal!" my morning guest hissed, stretching out her fingers in what looked like an attempt to decorate them with my eyeballs.
"An animal," I nodded.
"I hate you!"
"You're repeating yourself."
"How could you do this to me?"
"Not on purpose!"
"What wasn't on purpose?"
"Nothing was. I'm sorry!" There was one thing I did know.
Arguing with a woman was like going to the dentist; it's either painful or expensive.
Elvira spluttered and popped like an egg in a skillet for another ten minutes until she mistook my haggard expression for pangs of conscience. Somewhere in the middle, I'd mentioned that I hadn't eaten in a day, and her feminine instinct—feed first, yell later—kicked in. She cooked something for me, we had a romp in the sack (and on a full stomach...phew boy), and finally ended up kissing tenderly. I agreed to do the same for her that night, and she left for work.
"Quite the morning," I observed while smoking on the balcony and watching my little Genghis Khan drive off in her Matiz[8]. "It's enough to kill someone."
Dryads, goddesses, skeletons, Elvira... Too much. Soon, I was going to get a twitchy eye like that one saber-toothed cat. Or an aneurysm. Gilbert from the office was lucky; her column had her used to constant craziness, what with her being a cowgirl one day and a nun the next. I, on the other hand, had suffered through nothing more than the cigars, mojitos, various pop stars, starlets, mutant artists, and unrecognised geniuses of the quiet, restrained, and predictable public. And here I was breathing in the heady air of a week's worth of excitement.
I finished my cigarette, and with it, my self-pitying musings before heading online to gather more information. About gods and heroes.
The sun was high in the village, the roosters were long done crowing, and the village people had already drawn their water. Children's voices laughed in the square, while in the background, the blacksmith's hammer clanged away. And I was sitting up against the palisade wall right where I had collapsed the day before. In front of me, were two old ladies, and it appeared that I was the topic of their conversation, "They all come through here drinking just like our old fools!" one said.
"That's what I'm saying. He's sitting there with his eyes all bugged out like that, and he couldn't care less," agreed the second.
I stood up, prompting the old ladies to scurry off to the side in consternation.
"Watch it!" said one cautiously. "I'll tell my son, and he'll show you!" She waved a wrinkled fist in the air.
"Yes, I know, ma'am. He'll show me, and we're all alcoholics, and it's our fault the Soviet Union collapsed—damn democrats."
The women couldn't quite believe their ears—they understood the first part of what I said, but the second... I needed to strike while the iron was hot.
"How about telling me if the shepherd is in the village. Or did he take the cattle out to pasture?"
"The shepherd? Billie? I think he's at the smithy. Trying to get an apprenticeship there." She waved in that direction.
"What do you care?" the second asked, her inner interrogator kicking in.
~ ~ ~
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