“FOREMAN AREN, it’s a boy...”

The head of one of the most prosperous mining crews in Orchus, Foreman Aren looked deeply into the gloomy gaze of the woman who delivered his wife’s baby and was sincerely perplexed. What possible reason could there be for someone to tell him such joyous news with a sour face? But a few moments later, it began to reach him. The child was born, but he can’t hear crying...

“Is he dead?”

Aren was a man who had seen all manner of things in this life, but still the words didn’t come easily to him.

“He is alive,” the healer woman answered darkly and quickly added softly, nearly in a whisper:

“But he’d be better off not...”

Aren squinted his eyes predatorily and took a step forward. If his gaze could burn, even the ash pile he’d have quickly reduced her to would have been incinerated by this point. Dalia calmly bore the miner’s hateful stare and said:

“But there is also good news. Your wife took the birth marvelously.”

That extinguished the newly-lit fire of rage in the soul of the new father. With a bit of effort, he composed himself and continued the questioning. This woman is the only healer of her level in the whole region. What’s more, it’s remarkable luck that she’s still even in Orchus. She was supposed to leave for the capital ages ago. It’s all down to the rainy season, which came a week ahead of schedule. Now, Sleepy Pass would be closed for two months. Only a crazy person would even think of traveling through the mountains at a time like this. And fortunately for Aren and his wife, Dalia was sound of mind.

“Speak,” the foreman grunted shortly.

No matter how he wanted to be at Liana and his son’s side, business came first.

“He’s nulled,” the healer squeezed out drily.

Aren’s face went completely blank. His immovability could inspire envy even in Black Crag, the great stone where northerly storms of the Dead Ocean first broke. But inside, he felt a cold grip clenching around his heart. The poor boy! How could this be?!

Meanwhile, the healer continued:

“First I thought he was born dead. But then I looked at his life and energy supplies. Just ten points each... And the lower limit usually is twenty.”

“But how is that possible?!”

“I don’t know,” Dalia shrugged, perplexed. “I have never encountered anything like it before. But I didn’t even have to listen. One of Bug’s tricks, no two ways about it.”

“Do you blaspheme, crone?” Aren’s calm again showed a crack. “What does the malevolent spirit have to do with this? Or do you not believe that everything in this world happens by the will of the Great System?”

Hearing that, the healer’s face twisted up like she just ate a lemon.

“As a matter of fact, I do believe that...”

“Then where does the evil spirit come into it?”

“Alright,” relenting to the foreman’s pressure, the healer began speaking wearily:

“But first swear that you will not drag me off to the nearest temple of the Great System to be slain as a heretic.”

“You have my word,” the foreman promised gloomily.

The healer, receiving a system message that the oath had been accepted, shifted to a hushed toe and began:

“As you know, when we are born, the Great System grants us our first level, fills our supplies and awards us our first characteristic tablets. And their number is defined by the god Random. Most get ten or twelve. The most tablets I’ve ever heard of is fifteen.”

Aren nodded in silence. Ivar, his firstborn had received fourteen when he was born. A shadow slowly crawled across the foreman’s face. It had been just two years since he and Liana received the news that Ivar died in battle in the Wastes. He was hoping the birth of a second son would drive off the gloom that had taken root in their home after Ivar’s death. But apparently it was not to be...

“But some have also received less than ten tablets. They all had rough childhoods. They were weaker than their peers... But with time, many of them worked their way up to a respectable life.”

“Yes,” Aren agreed. “Some of the men in my crew were born that way.”

His face lit up a bit. How could he forget! Does that mean his son can live a normal life in the future? Right then and there, he made a promise to himself. Of course he can! Aren will see to it!

Seeing the foreman’s mood, the healer hurried to bring him back down to earth:

“I know what you’re thinking, Aren. You’re under the impression that your son is like them. But you are mistaken. Your baby is nulled. He did not receive level one or the tablets due to him. And his supplies are pitifully low. I don’t believe Random had any hand in this. It was all Bug...”

It hurt to even look at Aren. Hope just gave him a little wink but now the very concept of hope was being dragged through the mud.

Meanwhile, Dalia continued:

“As you know, Bug is known by many names. Glitch, Failure, Virus, but there is one more. My teacher read it in a manuscript of the Ancients. The Departed called him System Error. Do you understand? Error! That means the Great System is not perfect and can make mistakes! There were many other things written in that book, but I do not wish to speak of them. And they aren’t for your ears...”

Aren collapsed wearily on a bench.

“Level zero,” he whispered. “But that’s...”

“Yes,” the healer nodded sadly. “He will not progress. He cannot use tablets. Even if you gave him your experience essences, nothing would come of it. Almost everything created by the Great System has a limitation: minimum level one.”

“But then what can we do?” Aren asked fatedly.

Dalia sat down on the bench next to the foreman. Her face, lined with deep wrinkles, was frozen in deep thought.

“How old is she?” he suddenly thought. Everyone knows healers have long lives. They also say they have discovered the secret of eternal youth. The man chuckled to himself... Nonsense of course... But Bug works in mysterious ways... And if Dalia looked seventy, that number could safely be doubled, maybe even tripled...

“Ha!” the woman exclaimed at a surprising volume. Her dark blue eyes glimmered with joy. “I’ve got it!”

Rubbing her bone-dry palms together, Dalia turned to the workman:

“Strange that it took me so long to think of this. I’m getting old... You aren’t doing much better...”

Aren stared at the woman in confusion.

“Okay,” she waved a hand. “Let me explain. I can see you’re not much for thinking... For now, the only solution is artifacts of the Ancients.”

“You mean to say...”

“Precisely... They are the only items without restrictions. In fact, they have no requirements at all. But you have to understand... They are a rarity and cost dearly. But your son will only need two or three items with plusses to main characteristics...”

The old woman said a bit more, but Aren was only half listening. He was already imagining where and how he would buy artifacts of the Departed. And he wasn’t thinking of money... His son’s life — that was his main concern...

14 years later...

“You’re a heavy sumabitch!” flatulating and cursing through his teeth, a fat mover was dragging a heavy armchair over to the front door.

My great grandfather’s “throne.” Father loved to sit in it after dinner, warming his feet by the fire and smoking a pipe. That always put him in a very tender mood and he told me many stories, tales and legends while sitting in it...

“Yeah all their furniture weighs a ton!” a peevish voice from the dining room echoed.

“Old oaken armchair — one,” the bank clerk stated in a calm voice, ignoring the mover’s cursing and farting. His long desiccated fingers fluttered a white goose-feather quill, carefully taking down every object removed from the home. Three sheets were already fully covered in his small calligraphic handwriting.

A wiry bearded man emerged from the kitchen. A cracked tureen in his quavering hands. The cloudy gaze of his reddish eyes paused on the gaunt figure of the clerk.

“This thing looks like trash. We gonna take it?”

My mother’s favorite tureen. Every time she placed it on the table, we heard the same old adage. “Who cares if it’s got a crack! It keeps soup warm a long time!” Then she would scurry back to the kitchen for another dish, and father would whisper that all women have a hard time parting with material things. Meanwhile, with a smile, he would pat his old vest, which mom was constantly threatening to throw it out.

The clerk tore his gaze from his notes and looked at the bearded man. His small narrow-set eyes were full of obvious scorn.

“Tox,” he rasped. “You were given a simple instruction: ‘remove everything from the home and load it onto the carts.’ Exactly what part of that did you not understand?”

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

“Well it’s just so...” Tox tried to object but another man, a giant, came into the house and interrupted him rudely:

“Shut your fat mouth and do as you’re told! And move your butt!”

The bearded Tox, his head slumped between his shoulders, tried to slip away out the front door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the giant barked.

Tox gave a blank stare to the immense man, his boss, who was standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest and a big gut sticking out in front.

“Did you think I was gonna let you just bring out one tureen at a time? Come on, step to. Back to the kitchen and do your job!”

Tox blew away like the wind.

“Mr. Dreher, you could stand to be a bit more selective with your choice of staff,” the clerk noted acridly.

“I don’t remember asking you, filing weasel,” the big-bellied Dreher waved it off and headed for my parents’ bedroom, batting the thin clerk’s notes carelessly.

The white sheets of paper flew out of his hands like a flock of startled pigeons and slid around the floor. The “filing weasel” then gave a loud feminine gasp and fell to his knees to recover his treasure. His body was shaking in indignation, a line of green snot drooping down from his long birdlike nose.

Fitfully crawling around the floor, the clerk grunted a curse at the idiot movers and their boorish leader. Mocking the pencil pusher’s humiliating position, a rude whinnying came from a few tinny throats in the dining room. The clerk’s face instantly turned crimson and tears of anger welled up in the corners of his little eyes.

Finally, his dry old fingers carefully put all the papers back in order. The clerk, clutching an inkwell hanging from a cord around his neck, got up from his knees. Patting the dust from his pants with his right hand and giving a few slaps to his very worn but neat frock, he settled down.

At that very moment, our gazes met...

I was sitting on a kitchen stool in the corner of the entryway and awaiting my fate. Only yesterday had I learned that the bank would be taking our house to pay back my parents’ debts. In fact, just one day before that was when I learned my parents lost their lives in a nearby mine.

“What are you staring at, half-baked whelp?” the clerk hissed.

He really is a weasel, I chuckled to myself.

“You think this is funny?” in the weasel’s eyes, a mixture of sincere puzzlement and acrimony. “After all, everything happening now is your doing!”

I don’t get it... What is he talking about?

“Haha! I can see you aren’t getting it.”

Dreher appeared in the doorway of my parents’ bedroom, his arms loaded with mom’s ceramics. He looked gloomily first at me, then at the clerk.

“Shut it, office rat!” he barked. “If you don’t leave the kid alone, you’ll be going home without teeth!”

Giving me an encouraging wink, the big bellied guy left the house.

Based on his angrily gnarled lips, the weasel wanted to say something, but a shout from above broke off his tirade before it could begin.

“Don’t do it, Sakis. Better hold your tongue.”

We raised our heads simultaneously. There was a man standing on the stairs leading to the second floor. His head, bald as an egg, was looking down at some notes, his full lips moving in time with the letters being written. His inkwell wasn’t so much hanging from the chain around his neck as perched on his gut.

“But Velen! You must see! This whelp isn’t showing me the respect I deserve as a bank employee!” Sakis howled.

“Just don’t,” the fat clerk repeated and continued down the stairs, continuing to take notes all the while. And then, tearing himself from the papers, he added:

“And really, leave the boy alone. He is none of our concern.”

“What do you mean?” Sakis asked, surprised. “I thought the bank...”

“No,” Velen interrupted. “The remaining debt was purchased by Bardan.”

The weasel’s narrow face stretched out so much his face looked flat.

“That Bardan?!”

“Uh huh,” Velen answered casually, again sinking into his notes.

Sakis slowly turned his head in my direction. A moment of pity flickered in his eyes.

“Ahem-m-m...” he drew out. “I do not envy you, half-baked whelp.”

Enjoying the confusion and disquiet on my face, he gradually made his way to the exit, his head raised proudly.

I couldn’t help but overhear a muffled conversation from the two movers in the dining room.

“Listen, Tox, why does that bank rat keep calling the kid half-baked?” I couldn’t see who was talking, but I recognized the voice. It was Roy, a big dumpy guy with blond hair and a body like a beer keg.

“Well, that’s what he his. He’s been like crippled ever since he was born,” Tox answered carelessly.

“Hmm,” Roy answered in surprise. “You’d never know it to look at him. I guess he is a bit scrawny, and has bags under his eyes. So, you reckon he fell ill recently? Well, he did lose his mom and dad a couple days ago. That must be why he’s pale as death.”

“Naaah,” Tox objected. “He was born that way. Hmm... I guess old Aren, Random rest his soul, had bad luck with sons...”

For some time, the conversation in the dining room ceased. They were both contemplating.

Roy was first to break the silence:

“Say... We’ve still got half a day’s work here, and the time passes quicker when we talk...”

“Yeah there’s not really much to tell,” Tox answered in strain, clearly moving something heavy. “As you can see, the family had means. A two story house. The farm is doing pretty well. Horses, cows, pigs.”

“That’s for sure,” notes of envy slipped through in Roy’s voice.

“The Bergmans are a family of miners,” Tox continued. “His father had the strongest crew. And that whole crew just died in a cave-in.”

“Yi-iikes...”

“Bergman’s wife and another couple ladies were bringing their husbands lunch in the mine, too... And basically they all passed on as well....”

Based on Tox’s vocal timbre, he was truly bothered by the death of my parents and their friends.

“And what about the sons?” Roy asked.

“He had bad luck with sons. Well, it all started well. Really well, actually! When his first was born, he got a good set of characteristics. He was the strongest of his age group. By age fourteen, he was working in the mine with his father. And in the winter of that same year, he also won the tournament. And that was when the Baron hired him to serve in his retinue as a novice.”

“Woah! What’s so unlucky about that?!” Roy exclaimed, baffled.

“Well, one month later, the Bergmans received news that their son died...”

“Ah, there it is...”

“Yep, so...”

The movers fell silent again, digesting the information. But not for long. This time Tox was first to speak up:

“The years of grief passed and Aren’s wife got pregnant again. And you’d think that might be cause for joy, but here’s the thing... The baby was born with a slight flaw. Actually, a bit worse... At first they thought he was just dead. No crying, no movement, eyes closed. But they hired a very capable medicine woman as midwife and she noticed he was breathing. Barely, but breathing.”

“Yi-iikes...” Roy drew out.

“Ha!” Tox exclaimed. “You haven’t even heard the most important part yet. Aren paid out the butt for a healer from the capital.”

“I bet!”

“Anyway, she saw that the kid was born nulled, level zero!” Tox said triumphantly.

It sounded like Roy’s jaw fell down to the floor with a thundering crash. But then I realized the movers had just gotten to father’s tools.

“Well, you don’t see that every day!” I heard Roy say, amazed.

To be frank, I was surprised. He got my story almost exactly right... A few of the details were off, but the gist was overall accurate... My father had told me the story of my birth many times.

“Hey, you two chumps!” the sudden roar from Dreher made me shudder. “Move your butts! I’m not paying you idiots to talk!”

The giant lead mover suddenly appeared in the front doorway and shot a glare at the workmen as they scurried over to the door.

“Lazy bastards,” he growled under his breath. “Don’t you worry, we’ll have plenty of time to talk when you come around asking for your money...”

He spent a bit longer watching the yard then turned toward me. His gaze had warmed slightly.

“Get ready, kid,” he said sadly, nodding at the exit. “Your ride is here.”

Weirdly, I catch myself on the thought that I’ve been impatiently waiting for this since morning. If anyone could know what I’m thinking right now, they’d say I lost my mind.

Ugh... At a certain level, they’d be close to the truth.

Two days ago my world, never the most wonderful to begin with, approximately what a cripple like me could expect, just ceased to exist. Watching distantly as our home was plundered, I suddenly realized that I was all alone. Just me and the world, one on one. My big strong father would not be coming to help me again. My talkative and tender mom would never again be drying my tears of despair and anger.

I felt a lump coming up my throat. My eyes started stinging, betraying my feelings. No! I will not burst into tears. At least not here, not now — that would just amuse the marauders looting my family home. After this is all over, I can find some hole to cower in. There I’ll let my feelings run wild. But not here and not now. Otherwise I’ll betray my father’s memory. He taught me to be strong.

I watched them moving out my parents’ favorite things. Demolishing the history of our family. And I understood that this place ceased to be my home the moment they died... I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had penetrated one of life’s greatest truths — home is where the people who love you live.

I slowly crawled off the stool. That was all the speed I was capable of with my two points of agility. But I was happy to have even that.

I was two years old when I took my first step. That was also when I said my first word. Luck finally shined on father that year, and he was able to buy me my first artifact of the Ancients on the black market in the capital of our Barony. Out of old habit, my arm reached for my chest.

- Rock Monitor Bone Button.

- Category: Simple.

- Agility +2.

- Strength +1.

- Mind +3.

- Restrictions — None.

- Durability — 25/25.

Some probably think it funny how happy those pitiful six characteristic points made me... But for me, after two long years confined to a bed like a plank of wood, unfeeling and unable to speak, my father’s gift was and still is the best thing that ever happened...

I was holding a small knapsack in my hands. In it, I had a small portrait of my parents, two boiled eggs and a crust of bread. Madam Horst, a neighbor, brought me some food for the road. I always used to think she was evil and quarrelsome, but in the end she managed to surprise me. She was the only one who came around to ask what would become of me.

My normal belt, level zero like all my clothing, had a small compartment where I kept a small pocketknife.

- Dragonfly Pocketknife.

- Category: Simple.

- Damage +2.

- Restrictions — None.

- Durability — 55/55.

It was the last artifact father obtained. My parents gave it to me as a birthday present. Just a few hours before they died...

Somehow, my pitiful three strength points were able to handle both my own body and the little knapsack. And that was all thanks to a meagre little ring.

- Steel Ring.

- Category: Simple.

- Strength +2.

- Restrictions — None.

- Durability — 30/30.

I once asked father why these simple items were so valuable. As it turned out, the reasons were fairly significant.

First of all, artifacts of the Ancients have no restrictions. That means anyone can wear them regardless of level or characteristics.

Second, despite the low bonuses, I could improve them in the future. For now, I just don’t know how.

Third, though this is just rumored, improving them would not only raise my already existing characteristics but add new ones.

And the last reason is that these objects, these sca...scalaaa... scal-ab-les... They mean my level will be added to all the item’s characteristics. If I were level one now, all the characteristics of my artifacts would be improved by one. Ah... dreams... dreams...

Also... Dalia told me this. Handiwork of the Ancients can only be recognized by those with high Mind. For normal folks, they look like normal items, totally unremarkable.

And as for their appearance... Well, expensive jewelry like a gold ring is sure to attract the wrong kind of attention on the finger of a miner’s son. So it’s perfect that they appear plain and inconspicuous. After all, all things crafted by the Departed are one of a kind, expensive. There’s no reason to draw unneeded attention. That’s one of the first rules father taught me.

That was exactly why every time a new artifact came to our house, Dalia the healer, first just my mother’s midwife, came as well. And she soon became a friend of the family. Thanks to that little trick, no one ever asked questions. Like for example, when I started to walk after spending more than two years motionless on my back.

It also created a logical explanation for why the foreman of a miner crew was always going to the bank for more loans. Healers are expensive. Especially healers like Dalia. By the way, mom once spilled that it was none other than the old healer woman who tracked down the handicrafts of the Ancients for me. Father paid her a small finder’s fee for the trouble.

I’d always suspected my parents were spending lots of money so their son could live like a normal child. But when I actually saw how much debt they’d accrued with all the runaway interest, it made an impression. Enough that the bank took our house, land and whole farm. And I was still in debt to the bank for almost a hundred gold. But the bank sold that debt... So now I’d have to pay back some guy named Bardan...

Walking out the door of my parents’ house for the very last time, I turned to the lead mover:

“Mr. Dreher, would you mind telling me who this Bardan is?”

The giant took a heavy sigh and, hiding a gloomy look, answered:

“Bardan is a lanista. He owns gladiator pits.”