RPG World | village of Tikhoe

Kostya Doshkin is 27 years old, he has shaved temples and the back of his head, his hair is beautifully arranged on top of his head, mustache and beard. He also got tattoos between the ages of 22 and 25, including The Simpsons, Futurama, and Rick and Morty. Кostik Doshkin grew up in a family with painfully difficult relationships with his mother, Anna Borisovna. She was an alcoholic, constantly causing scandals, badmouthing her son, and blaming him for her misfortunes. The mother dreamed of his death, while the son endured humiliation and even calls for an ambulance during her tantrums. Despite this, Kostik felt a heavy burden of responsibility and inner conflict, especially when he started dating a girl who showed negative feelings towards his mother.

Kostik moves to a village called Tikhoe in the Chelyabinsk region, surrounded by forests, mountains with frozen snowy peaks, and a local lake. Although the village had changed over 20 years, people still lived there. Kostik meets his childhood friend Ira, whom he doesn’t recognize after 20 years apart. She works at a grocery store; her brother drowned—his body was never found—and her parents have died.

Scientists come to the village, claiming it's an anomalous territory — Ira tells him this. She gives Kostik the keys to his grandfather’s house, which he inherited.

Strange things start happening around the well in the yard. Kostik goes to the entryway, where his grandfather used to keep a bucket of water and a large galvanized tank for household needs. The big tank was still in its usual place. Opening the lid, Kostik discovers the water has "turned," the tank’s edges covered with green slime, and floating on the surface are small, round, silver flakes — neither scales nor flower petals exactly — that move as if alive, gathering right in the middle of the tank.

Then, from the well's depths, a child’s singing begins. A high, plaintive child's voice softly sings:

"I'll send you to sleep, bye-bye Come closer, boy. I'll soothe you And shut your mouth Lullaby, lullaby."

A child stuck in the well singing? Impossible. Kostik tells Ira about it when he runs to her house.

Ira explains that since his grandfather, Pyotr Vasilyich, died, strange things have happened more often in the village because he was like a protector. But Kostik thinks it’s nonsense, scared by a neighbor woman.

At night, Kostik wakes from rustling behind the stove, thinking it’s mice. Then someone grabs his wrist and murmurs, "Grandson, grandson. Come with me, grandson."

Kostik doesn't know any prayers, remembering only the beginning of "Our Father." But he recalls a line from a song and starts humming it like a prayer. After a while, he feels his lips move and his body relax. The creature on the floor snaps its jaws and lets go of his hand, showing a face mixed with surprise and fear and curling its heel in a disgusting grimace. After the creature disappears, Kostik thinks about leaving the village the very next morning. But still, Doshkin didn't leave. He got used to the village in a week. He was cleaning his yard from overgrown wormwood bushes with an old rusty sickle. Then he met his grandfather's best friend, Ivan Semenovich. Doshkin told him that everything valuable his grandfather had was stored in the cellar. After cleaning up, Kostik looked into the cellar. Turning on the light, he realized it was a treasure trove. Shelves lined with jars and bags, a huge workbench with an old laptop, two cases with hunting knives, a bunch of keys, and more. Each jar and bag had a handwritten label: "From drunkenness," "From male weakness," "Ginseng root," "Baba's joy." But on a three-liter jar filled with a brown powder, there was a label that read: "Scales," "From a drowning man," "When they surface." And it’s clear that something surfaces often, since the jar is so large. But who is surfacing? But then Kostya finds a letter addressed to him "Konstantin! If you're reading this letter and have decided to stay here, know that, besides the house, some of my responsibilities also pass to you. Specifically, watching over the cleanliness of the local water. Wells, Lake Tikhoye, even the local water supply — now it's your concern. I already feel like I’m leaving, I have no strength left. It's a shame your mother didn’t bring you here when you grew older; I would have explained everything to you and taught you. But I can't blame her for that. Now you'll have to figure things out on your own. Just remember one thing: our family has a gift — we can find water anywhere, keep it clean, and protect it from dirt and filth. We can perform any rituals on water to make it healing, using it for good or for harm. I don’t know how strong your gift is, but it’s there. I noticed even in your childhood that you quickly find keys and water in the forest. People will come to you; don’t chase them away. You’ll get used to it over time. And you’ll earn from it.

I’ve left you all my notes and books that our ancestors wrote. If something isn’t clear — Zayka will read it to you. Don’t be afraid of him, but take an oath to serve. He’s quite the fool, that one.

Be careful of things surfacing on the lake; don’t go there unprepared. Listen to Ivan Semenovich Gorkin, my neighbor — he knows a lot about my affairs and will give you good advice.

It's a pity we didn’t meet, grandson, but oh well. Be honest and don’t be afraid of anything. The place is harsh; don’t go into the caves — it’s dangerous.

Your grandfather, Petro Vasilevich Doshkin"

The boy was bewildered reading the letter. Who was Zayka? What kind of gift? And how was he supposed to keep the water free from filth??? But then he found a notebook, where the notes were handwritten by his great-grandfather: "If there are disturbances on the lake, and white bodies resembling drowned women surface, take with you a mixture of dried crushed wormwood — 1 glass of weeping herb, 1 glass of St. John's wort, half a glass plus a bunch of chervil." And all of it needed to be mixed and a huge spell recited. But then he saw a warning: "Sprinkle it into the water and run away. Beware of scales in the water; they bring death." Kostik remembered that yesterday he saw scales in the water in the sink. Approaching the kitchen sink, he heard a rustling sound and, with a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, saw a creature frozen on the edge of the log. It looked around, its eyes shining with a green glow. It slipped like a shadow onto the ground, dragging a long, pale tail over the edge, and disappeared into the darkness. And then Kostik saw it crossing the illuminated path leading to the house — a grotesque head with long, tangled hair hanging from the crown, white oily skin, a body stretched tight, human hands slapping the ground, and a pair of small, quickly moving, stiff legs, plus a long, dirty, flat tail. It was sniffing and muttering to itself: "Looking... Looking... knocking on the little house... Tuki-tuki... Looking... Knocking on the little house... Bloody... Bone... Baa-baa..." It was the creature from the well, the one that was singing in a childish voice yesterday. He managed to get rid of the creature by grabbing a handful of powder and throwing it in its face. The creature literally dissolved from the powder, as if snow melting in the heat. Entering the house, Kostik was in shock and sat at the table, looking out the window. He thoughtfully muttered, "And here’s a cat... And here you go, cat..." Suddenly, behind him, a voice shouted: "what the fuck makes you think that?" A cold sweat ran down Kostik’s back, and slowly, clutching his bayonet in his palms, he spun around in his chair. “it also says — if something’s unclear, I’ll read it myself,” he muttered. On the floor, in the middle of the room, sat a hairy body. It wasn’t afraid of the light at all. It was what had been pulling the boy from his bed at night. Those pointed ears and the runny nose — Kostik had seen that before. “Well, well, grandson! What are you so scared of?” It turned out that this hairy creature was the very Zayka his grandfather had mentioned in the letter. In Kostik’s opinion, the runny-nosed creature was no Zayka at all, but a real pig. Not only had it scared the boy to death on his first night in the house, but it also then started calling him names, lounging comfortably on the floor. Lying on its side, propping its head with a fist, it looked at Kostik with contempt and superiority. “And I thought you’d run away from your silly stories about the cross and the praying dog?” Zayka snorted, sneering. “You’re completely clueless, or what, grandson?” When Kostik pointed out that Doshkin wasn’t his grandson, the creature poked around in its backside, covered by old gray pants, and, raising a bushy eyebrow, said: “Well, you wouldn’t know about that, would you?” It turned out that Zayka had a real name — Zaynabar. The name thundered through the house like a clap of thunder, making everything shake. That’s why it was better not to call this hairy creature by its real name. Zaynabar, or Zayka, is a strange person or creature from the otherworldly realm, which has served his family for many years and now is Kostik’s partner and helper. Zayka possesses knowledge accumulated over centuries of life. His power can either intensify or be spent: when his strength is exhausted, all that can be drawn from him is a tiny flame in the palm of your hand. Zayka’s character is cynically mischievous. He’s quite jealous and doesn’t like it if his owner has a “friend.” He will always try to destroy the friendship between his master and the master's friend, as he did with Kostya's Grandfather and with Ivan Semenovich, Grandfather's best friend.

The next day, on his way to the store, Kostik noticed a strange house — a low white fence, like those in American homes, two stories tall, with climbing roses. In the yard, there was a blonde woman wearing a shiny beige blouse and jeans. She loudly called out to a girl named Valkyriuch, who seemed to be her daughter. The girl came out of the house with a bucket full of apples, and they had a brief conversation. The woman noticed Kostik and asked who he was. She introduced herself as Tatyana Zhvanaya, approached him, carefully examined him, and grabbed his hand. She whispered a spell, trying to cast a curse on him: he felt black worms crawling out from her fingers. But it didn’t work, and Tatyana realized he was Petro’s grandson and decided to introduce herself properly. She started filling his head with stories, saying she was struggling here and that it had become difficult without her grandfather. She told him he should clean the river of evil spirits, explaining that a nest of these creatures was hidden in caves deep beneath the river. She also said that before doing so, he needed to gather earth from a cemetery under a full moon. In the end, Kostik almost died on the cemetery because of her advice, but some voice echoed over the crooked crosses, crashing like a wave. It pushed him out of the grave as if the earth itself rejected him. Of course, Zayka — who was not a rabbit, but a mischievous spirit or a trickster — mocked him, saying he was a fool for believing the witch. But a few days later, a woman, his neighbor, came running to him with tears and said that her grandson Misha and his friend had gone to the lake to swim, because it was hot, but you can't swim there! And they found the boy dead, all blue, and in a strange position. Kostya seemed to have withdrawn into himself after that, but after Zayka woke him up from this state with moonshine, he decided to purify the water from evil spirits. When everything was ready, Kostik took a deep breath and looked at the calm surface of the lake. Whatever happens, happens. He never would have thought he’d have to do something like this. As a true Russian, he crossed himself mentally, unfolded the paper on the powder bags, knelt down, and began to whisper:

— Morning dawn, evening dawn, fresh water flows from the spring with song...

Something splashed in the lake. Without stopping his speech, Kostik looked up. Near the piers, a head was sticking out of the water. It was the boy he saw today in the bushes, or rather, the creature pretending to be Misha. The boy’s black mouth opened wide, and he let out a sound resembling a siren’s wail. His ears felt blocked. Doshkin sneered maliciously. If he doesn’t like it, then so be it. While Doshkin was finishing the spell, the creature howled again and dove underwater, splashing with its legs. It was wearing small brown sandals. Now, he needed to sprinkle the powder into the water and run. That’s what the book said. Kostik started scattering crushed herbs from the bags, but the gusty wind was blowing almost all of it away onto the shore. Zayka was sneezing behind him. Only a little of the powder got into the water. But what happened next, despite Kostik’s wild imagination, he did not expect.

From the depths of the lake, large white cocoons began to surface. Some had faces resembling human ones — closed eyes, wrinkled eyelids, a flat nose with two nostrils, and a mouth with lips stretched into a tube. They swayed on the water, like swaddled infants, prepared for adult bodies. Under the evening sun, their shells shimmered with a pearly sheen, sparkling on their scales. The one closest to the piers suddenly turned its cocoon around, spreading its arms, from which a dense membrane stretched to the sides of its body. Its pale face opened its eyes, completely black. The creature slightly sank underwater, opened its mouth, and released a brownish liquid along with bubbles of air. Kostik screamed in terror and started to back away. He had to run. Suddenly, Zayka slipped past him. He grabbed one of the paper bags, crumpled it, and, fitting it into his slingshot, shot it into the middle of the lake. As it flew, the paper unfurled, and the powder was generously scattered over the water. A moan echoed across the surface. The hairy one was shooting in all directions until the ammunition ran out. The creatures were covered with the enchanted herb, and they began to unfold their cocoons, dive underwater, and surface again, screaming. Their cries made everything inside twist, and a headache set in. Near the reeds, a child's body in sandals was bobbing on the water, transforming before their eyes. The arms retracted, the legs shortened, the shoes fell off, and two brown little boats rocked on the waves before sinking. Kostik didn’t bother to see what would happen next; he tugged Zayka by the shoulder and ran toward the motorcycle. The hairy one dashed after him, clutching the precious grandfather’s book to his chest. When September began, Kostik unexpectedly noticed that Zayka, who wandered around the house, was wearing very old pants — so old that even homeless people would refuse to wear them. In the end, he sewed a pair of pants from his own clothes for Zayka. He gave the pants to Zayka, who was very shocked and happy. It turned out that if a person gives them something, it means they are taking that person as their helper, now and forever. Accepting such a gift is a sign of happiness for them; they cannot refuse it, but they also cannot ask for it. In the end, Zayka hugged Kostik for a long time and joyfully expressed his gratitude. They behaved like brothers, caring for each other, laughing at one another, teasing, and sometimes getting on each other's nerves.

But Kostya still has a lot to learn about this village of Tikhoe.

Zayka is very rarely seen by people, even by people living in villages. He only pretends to be a woman by putting on a headscarf and when he and Kostya go somewhere on a motorcycle trip.

After their first meeting, Zayka does not call Kostya "grandson", only by name or by nicknames invented from him.