Chapter 3
New to the World
Axios, Upper Midgard
13 Ianuarius 652
The girl returned shortly with an amphora filled with water. She washed Pawel, then herself, and lastly the defiled stone slab. Even with the slab being washed, Pawel felt bad for the poor kid who would wake up there next month.
Having already crossed the line once, it was sorely tempting to do so again, but he restrained himself. Life would probably be a lot better for him if he had done so earlier.
Dressing himself made it easier to take his mind off the temptation. The extra steps required meant you really had to be in the mood to commit to it. The garb was simple: a loincloth, a tunic, a sash to gird about your waist, and a pair of cloth shoes that would not survive your first ranging. The funny thing about the clothes here is that they always managed to fit when you put them on. Normally, it would have been a child about ten who would have appeared. No chance of him fitting into the clothes if they were strictly tailored to size.
Speaking of children of ten, he had three of them to account for and Zofiya as well. He thought he felt scummy about what he did, but the fact that he let it take priority over who were supposed to be the most important people in his life, there was probably no redeeming him. Was he always this bad of a person or was it the influence of this damned place? It certainly would be easier to put the blame somewhere besides on himself, which was why he figured he ought not do it.
Before leaving the vault, Pawel took one last look at the girl as she was still wiping off the stone slab. She really was a pretty little thing. Maybe if they had met under different circumstances... No, he could not think about that.
The girl saw that he was about to go and asked him, "Should I take you at your word, Sir Adventurer, or will you discard me like this cloth here now that you have used me?"
"I said I'd figure something out," Pawel said. "In the meantime, just keep quiet like I said."
"And if our sins are exposed? What then?"
"We'll be fine."
"What if?" she asked again with a little more force.
"Say you're pledged to the Adventurer Pawel."
"And what token will you give me?"
Pawel did not have anything on him, but then he thought to pluck a few hairs from his head and handed them to her.
"There's your token. It'll be enough to prove the claim of an Adventurer. They won't do anything to you until I've been called to give an account."
He realized she could take those hairs to a Witch and use them to craft a curse on him, but if he did not pacify her now, he imagined she would follow him around until she got satisfaction. The last thing he wanted was for Zofiya to find out about this.
"Sir Pawel, you said? I'm Anemone."
Anemone? Appropriate enough name for one of the Thoros Faithful.
"Yeah, well, take care of yourself, I guess, Anemone."
He did not let their parting go on any longer than that, lest he do something stupid like kiss her once more or even go beyond that.
He exited the vault and made his way to the central forum. Seeing the Pool of Sanctuary made the muscles in his back twitch. Ten children in the same starter gear were there, along with one mismatched adult. Seeing Zofiya again was very nearly enough to make him take her to the vault and finally resolve their years of unresolved sexual tension, but he had to check himself. He did not need to be making two of the biggest mistakes of his life in the span of a single hour.
As he thought, Arjun, Fedor and Zsuzsanna were among the children, sticking closer to Zofiya than the others. The faces of all four of them brightened when they saw him.
"Oh, Pawelek, thank God," Zofiya said. "I was starting to wonder if you made it here or not. What were you doing?"
Before Pawel could make any poor excuses, Zofiya tilted her head, as if she was looking at something behind him. He turned and saw Anemone exiting the way he came. She looked his way a little longer than a casual glance before quickly averting her eyes and quietly leaving.
When Pawel turned back, Zofiya had already closed the distance between them. Was she always able to move as stealthily as a Shadowcat?
Smiling pleasantly, she asked him, "Is that what you were doing, Pawelek?"
"I, ah..."
Zofiya's expression did not change in the slightest.
"Pawelek, we're going to have a nice long talk later, but right now we need to take care of our children, right? Our. Children."
Although her expression and the tone of her voice were sweet as honey, she had taken hold of both of his arms and was digging in her nails to the point that Pawel thought she might draw blood. He did not know how he was going to talk his way out of this one. And if he was ever reunited with Jun...
Trying not to wince, Pawel replied, "Our children. Right. We need to take care of them. They should be our first priority."
"They should, yes," Zofiya said.
She let him go and they returned to the children.
"Hey, kids," Pawel said. "You're not hurt are you?"
"We're not hurt," Arjun said, "but we want to know why you and Mama Zosia are acting like nothing's wrong. She said to wait until you got here. Well, you've got here."
"Gotten here," Zofiya corrected.
"Are you acting like Mama Junka because she's not here?" Arjun asked. "What happened to her? What happened to us?"
The other children, who were not fortunate enough to have a familiar adult around, sort of gravitated toward Pawel and Zofiya because who else could they turn to? Pawel did not intend to have the number of children in his care jump from three to ten, but he could at least try to do his part to put their minds at ease a little.
"Alright, kids, I know you're all probably scared and confused right now. You heard what the ladies who brought you your clothes said, how you're Adventurers chosen out of many in the hope that you might prove to be the Brave, the foretold hero who will save the World, etc., etc."
"Are you saying this is like a game?" one boy asked.
"Not just a game, the Game," Pawel replied. "This place is the board and you're the pieces."
"Nobody plays board games anymore," the same boy said.
"We play board games," Fedor said.
"Don't you have an Xbox?"
"What's an Xbox?"
The boy looked stunned. Largely because of Jun, the orphanage did not have any video game consoles and apparently none of the children's friends at school had an Xbox either, which was something Pawel himself was only vaguely aware of.
"Anyway," Pawel continued, "this Game has serious consequences. You can get hurt, you can get sick, you can die. I'm not kidding and neither is the World."
"Why do you know this?" a girl asked. "Why are you two the only grownups with us?"
"That's because we've been here before," Pawel said. "When we were your age, we were summoned here the same as you."
"You mean we can go home?" another boy asked hopefully.
"It's possible," Pawel said. "It's not easy, but it's possible."
He was about to add that if the two of them were any indication, the ability to escape the World was not permanent, but there was no reason to scare them any further. Better to let them cling to a slim, distant hope that to be crushed by despair on their first day.
"For now, you're going to have to focus on getting stronger. Stick together and things'll work out. Someone from the Adventurers' Guild should be here shortly to explain things further."
"You seemed to be doing so well that I did not wish to interrupt," a voice said.
Pawel turned to see a prim-looking man in the livery of the Adventurers' Guild.
"I must say this is quite irregular," the Guild clerk said. "I have never heard of grown adults being summoned before."
"It's not our first time," Pawel replied. "That may have something to do with it."
"It is just as irregular to hear of an Adventurer leaving the World except via the grave."
"Come on, man," Pawel growled. "You've got kids here fresh off the slab."
"My apologies," the Guild clerk said with a bow. "Shall we take up our business at the Guild Hall?"
"We can't just stick around here."
"Are you sure?" Zofiya asked in a low voice, "You seem to enjoy the company here."
"You said we'd talk about it later," Pawel whispered back to her. Then to the clerk, he said, "Let's get going. Come on, kids. Let's follow the nice gentleman here so you can get a proper explanation of how things work around here."