Sandrine took a deep breath and walked off the road, frowning as she felt the uneven pavement under her feet. Some old medieval streets were really narrow, the type where a car couldn't go through. She wasn't sure if Paquerette could turn around if she happened to venture inside.
She stopped the mare that was trying to follow her.
"Girl, you might not be able to come with me."
Paquerette snorted, looking at her as if she was crazy.
"No, wait, I'm not trying to exclude you, just hear me out."
Explaining to a horse the origins of a big city wasn't exactly on Sandrine's bucket list, and there was a fat chance that Paquerette couldn't understand any of it because she was, well, a horse, but Sandrine was surprisingly committed to her little history lesson.
"This was a small village long ago, and there was no need to make larger streets for horse carts since they stayed outside. But then more people came to live in this village, and there weren't enough houses so they built more around it. But since they were building houses anyway, they might as well make the streets a bit larger so that they could make a horse pass if needed. And then, later, other people came to settle down, so they built more houses, and made the streets wider so that carts could pass. And then other people came, and they made the streets wider because…"
It took half an hour, but Sandrine finally stopped after explaining from the construction of medieval cities to the appearance they had today.
"To sum up, the outer side is more recent than the center, and the more you walk towards the historic center, the smaller and more ancient the streets. Here, we must be in the very center of a city. Very narrow streets, a lot won't accommodate a horse."
It was unclear if Paquerette had understood or if she had been put off by Sandrine's long monologue, but the mare obeyed and stayed behind.
Now Sandrine was facing a dilemma. Should she make the little Gribouille stay safely with Paquerette on the road, or should she take him with her ? He was still very young and the exploration could be dangerous. However, because he was so fragile, Sandrine had the urgency to make him level up.
He was way too little, too weak, he could be affected by bad nutrition during his growth phase, or fall sick easily. Sandrine would feel better if he had a few more points of constitution and strength.
For now, Gribouille's panel looked like this :
[Name : Gribouille
Species : Earthen canidae
Lvl : 1
Favorability : 7
Health : 98
Fatigue : 8
Strength : 1
Constitution : 2
Agility : 3]
Those were absolute paper stats, so low it was shocking. Even Paquerette didn't have such low stats at level 1. It was probably because he was still a puppy, but Sandrine couldn't wait for him to grow up. This survival game would become more challenging as time passed, and she needed to make sure that her pets could stay safe.
As a result, she made the decision to bring Gribouille with her. She had tried with Paquerette, earning experience wasn't based on killing but on participating in a battle. If she could get Gribouille to scratch a few rats, he would level up quickly.
She took a few things out of her inventory and filled a few chests that she left with Paquerette. With more room to scavenge supplies and with the puppy in her kangaroo pouch, Sandrine finally walked on those narrow streets.
The city center was also in a ruined state, and there were times where she had to jump over a mountain of debris to continue.
"Agility is really great !"
She was brisk and quick when she had to jump from piece of concrete to steel pipe, and her higher strength stat helped her to pull on her arms when she had to scale a portion of wall.
It was still strenuous, she really didn't have much strength, but at least it was doable.
She jumped from a pile of rumbles into a broken window, entering a building. The historic city center was often filled with old houses and churches, very few business ventures. Sometimes there were a few shops who purchased the buildings, but it wasn't an easy place to access and there wasn't much traffic, leading to bad sales, so it was mostly homes.
Sandrine had entered from the second floor, ending up directly in a bedroom. The flooring was rotting, covered in animal feces.
"I think I've been in a place like this before… When I was a kid, we would try to find abandoned houses and we would play inside, daring each other to go further in, secretly breaking windows or old furniture and imagining we were in a zombie movie… But who was 'we' ? I don't remember…"
She didn't even remember what she looked like at the time, or how rotten the flooring was in this abandoned house, but it really felt familiar.
Sandrine slapped herself. She couldn't get distracted by sudden memory recollection, she needed to focus.
Underneath her feet, the floor was covered in glass shards from the broken window. Around her, the walls had lost their color and flakes of what seemed like an old wallpaper had fallen along the edges. The roof had darkened in some places, and there were molded traces of where water had infiltrated underneath the tiles. There wasn't much furniture left, a disgusting mattress and the rests of what could have been a desk. There was also a wardrobe but Sandrine wouldn't dare open it, the smell that came out of it indicated that something was dead inside.
Sandrine carefully tried to go towards the door to continue exploring the building, but she had to walk along the edges of the walls. The wooden beams holding the floor must have rotted too, and the ground was slightly sinking in the middle of the room. If she walked here, she was sure to fall through and end up on the lower floor.
It was a bit annoying, but she successfully reached the second floor's corridor. Most doors were broken, and she could easily check what was inside.
The furniture was in a horrific state, she didn't know if she could salvage anything. There were a few things that were dirty but still in one piece, but those weren't what Sandrine wanted. What could she do with Murano glass figurines or with collectible coins ? In this survival game, those might be as valuable as pebbles, nobody would trade anything valuable for them.
In the bathroom, she found a few perfume and eau de toilette flasks, but the contents weren't usable anymore. However, the bottles might be interesting for someone, so she took them.
It wasn't until she climbed down the stairs that she finally found some valuables to take away.
In a big buffet with glass doors, she could see all the beautiful porcelain plates and cups, as well as artisanal glasses and impressive dishes. She was sure that if she opened the cupboard, she would find a whole set of exquisite cutlery. All of those were a bit dusty but in a relatively good state.
It was a bit dark in here because the rumble outside was covering the windows, that was why she had to enter from the second floor. Sandrine turned the lever of her lamp and lit it up. At this instant, she felt Gribouille whimper and shake in her kangaroo pouch, which was pressed against her torso. She could feel tightly how scared he was.
And if Sandrine had learned something from Paquerette, it was 'Trust an animal's instincts'.
The light from her lamp shone on something just beside the buffet. It was a familiar wooden chest. And if there was a wooden chest…
"Shit !"
Sandrine took out her machete just in time to slice something that had rushed at her. Doing so made her let go of her lamp, which fell on the floor.
Now it was even harder to see, but Sandrine could trust her instincts, as well as Gribouille. The puppy was still shaking against her, but his small dangling ears always seemed to turn towards where the enemies were.
Following this, Sandrine could slice again and again. One of the things passed through the light of the lamp, and she could finally see what it was.
A pigeon.
Abandoned houses with broken windows were the perfect places for pigeons to make their nests, and it was true that there had been bird droppings on the ground of the second floor, but Sandrine would have never guessed that they would have taken residence here, on the first floor. It defies logic.
But then again, what was logic about this death game ?
The sound of wings fluttering and feathers rubbing was incredibly loud and unnerving. A flurry of birds was flocking towards her, and Sandrine could only kick and swing her machete while protecting her face and hands. The rest was covered, and thankfully the pigeons didn't seem to have a sharp enough beak to puncture her clothes, however they could still pinch really hard and try to scratch her.
If she had been in her underwear like everytime she was riding Paquerette, her legs would have been covered in dirty wounds, but thankfully she had put on her jeans to explore the outside of the road. She couldn't imagine what would have happened to people wearing shorts and t-shirts.
Sandrine was nimble thanks to her high agility, and successfully evaded every threatening blow, managing to counter attack. She could have put some distance between them with her pitchfork, but the space was cramped and she was afraid of knocking over the buffet and breaking all the beautiful plates. After being sliced a few times and seeing some of them dying, the rest of the birds flew away. Anyway, pigeons weren't very aggressive, they had been surprised into attacking but wouldn't pursue the intruder if it meant risking their lives.
Once they were gone, she could finally take a breather. Amidst the chaos, she only noticed now that Gribouille had taken its head out of the pouch, and there were a few feathers in his mouth.
"That's dirty, spit it out !"
She couldn't have her delicate baby put that thing in her mouth ! Birds were full of diseases !
In a panic, she opened the game screen. She hadn't paid attention during the battle, but Gribouille had leveled up !
[Name : Gribouille
Species : Earthen canidae
Lvl : 2
Favorability : 7
Health : 97
Fatigue : 10
Strength : 2
Constitution : 5
Agility : 4]
Like Paquerette, he gained 1 point in two of his stats, and 3 for the last one, being the constitution. Sandrine should be happy, she had gotten exactly what she wanted, but instead she felt really mad.
"So you think you're so strong, huh ? Trying to fight with this weak body ? Try to grow up without getting sick, and we'll talk again !"
She was completely forgetting that she was the one who took him with her to level up, but this was irrelevant.
After a good round of nagging, she finally focused her attention to the floor. It was covered in dead or dying pigeons. They had surprisingly a lot of blood for such small creatures, the blood was soaked in red, same for her shoes. She also had stains on her clothes and hands. Curiously, however, Gribouille was spotless.
"Anyway, what should I do with them ? I don't know if pigeons are safe to eat… When in doubt, send them to AlphaWolf !"
Her worries solved, she sent all the corpses to her friend and focused back on the chest. Opening it, it revealed a water collector, a pot, some fertilizer, and a bag of seeds.
"You have to be kidding me…"
This was an excellent chest, impressive rewards considering the difficulty of finding it, scaling rumble, avoiding a sinking floor, fighting a flock of birds… It was really not bad !
But what was she supposed to do with this ?
She didn't have a car, didn't have a trunk to put those things in, what was even the point ?
If at least she had a cart to attach to Paquerette… But even then, this would slow them down and they were already slower than other players !
To sum up, those things were wasted on her.
It wasn't hard to know what to do about it. Keeping those in her inventory was uselessly wasting space. The most efficient way to use those was to trade them. However, if she put them on the public trade tab, this would cause a commotion. This wasn't a few dusty pots, we were talking about an actual water collector and everything needed to grow fresh vegetables ! If someone traded those freely, how rich must they be ?
She was guaranteed to become a preferred target for future criminals. For now, she was well known, yes, but people thought she was a tough armed man, and she had shown nothing to truly pick their interest. But if she showed those now, people would go crazy and would want to take the risk.
Sandrine had to take care of things privately. She had two trading partners for now, both were more or less easy to deal with. She could send the water collector to AlphaWolf, he needed it more than the other, and she knew that this cute guy would absolutely want to repay her by sending her better things. He was Gribouille's food provider, he needed to be treated well.
But he was also way too crude to take care of a plant.
MomImThristy seemed more like the type to grow things. More serious, less frivolous, focused on work, but secretly with a tender heart and a love for animals. He would know how to use the pot and seeds.
She could also use them as payment for three days worth of water, she was sure it was worth at least that much.
After making her mind, she sent the stuff to her friends and carefully opened the buffet, stripping it clean. She finally had proper plating for her food, and cutlery other than spoons ! This was a happy day for French cuisine.
She carefully looked around but there was nothing else she could salvage. The kitchen had a bunch of stuff, but what she got when looting the cooking store was better, so she didn't bother taking anything.
She did find pigeon nests full of eggs, and Sandrine knew a few very good recipes including pigeon eggs, but that was only in the event where you knew where the pigeons were from. Here, in this old, ruined, polluted city, trying to eat those wasn't safe. They weren't corpses either, so she doubted AlphaWolf could help.
Sandrine climbed back on the second floor and jumped out the window, landing on a piece of stone wall, and sliding to the pavement.
"That's one building done ! Let's at least finish this street before taking off !"
She took a step forward and suddenly froze.
She should have thought about it for a bit. This was a really good reward for a chest ! Not only was there a water collector, but there was also everything necessary to grow vegetables. In a sense, those rewards were twice as good as yesterday.
This game never gave anything freely. If the rewards were twice as high, what else could be ?
Answer : The difficulty.
"Why is it always me ? It's not fair !"
Sandrine cursed between her teeth and slowly started to retreat. In front of her, foaming at the mouth, was a huge, distorted, affected by the black fog… Llama.