The Way of the Shaman [06] Shaman's Revenge

by Vasily Mahanenko

  “Ladies, let’s figure out our relationships on our second date,” Donotpunnik intervened tersely. “Plinto’s right. We need to stick close together.”

  “Hear that, team? Huddle up,” Plinto echoed once again sweeping Marina and me into an embrace. “Hugsies!”

  “Shut up, Plinto,” said Donotpunnik. “Your job is to lead us through the throne room. Stop clowning around.”

  The Armard throne room was an awesome sight. What had happened to the Spartan furnishings of the rest of the place? A sumptuous, alabaster throne stood in the center of the chamber with Geranika looming upon it. The throne was surrounded by a crowd of subjects, humanoid sentients all wrapped in lengthy gray cloaks, standing ankle-deep in a plush carpet with an abstract ornament. I say humanoid because they generally seemed to have two legs and two arms. Yet the color and shape of their wrists, peeking from their cloaks, bore no resemblance to human hands—even if from a distance the overall shapes of their bodies were human enough. But only in part. Some of them had so many appendages that my eyes couldn’t keep up with all their myriad, tireless contortions and begged to look away. Others were simply a roiling morass of tentacles. Ten, twenty, thirty—the exact number of appendages was impossible to count, since they’d appear and vanish beneath the cloaks. These Level 450 fellows were called ‘Hadjeis’ and I made a mental note to look up some information about them. It’s worth knowing who would be Geranika’s Advisors and Heralds, after all.

  “Your Lordship has summoned me and I have obeyed.” The Hadjei’s voice sounded like Styrofoam being rubbed across clean glass. Just as revolting and irritating, it caused a shiver in my body and made me want only one thing—to run away from its owner. And to add injury to insult, it immediately cast debuffs on anyone within hearing range, which slowed movement, increased weariness, accelerated Energy expenditure, and decreased main stats. Reflexively, I reached for my staff so I could summon a Curing Spirit, but Plinto pressed me to himself tighter, keeping me from moving. The look that the Rogue gave me was so expressive that I decided my afflicted status could wait.

  “Geranika’s aggro radius is twenty meters, so he won’t notice us if we stick to the wall,” Plinto wrote in the raid chat.

  “What news of my Dragon?” Geranika asked majestically, almost imperially. A single glance at the Shaman was enough to tell me that James Boaster hadn’t lied to me. Geranika really had become a new Emperor. From now on the players would have a different enemy—the Dragon of Shadow. Geranika had played his role to a T.

  “He is still being nursed back to full health,” squealed the Hadjei, “only slower than we had planned. He spent too long in the Dragon’s flame. We have restored forty percent of his scales, but we lack the resources to continue.”

  “WHAT?!” Geranika hadn’t raised his voice, and yet his silent roar made us freeze like statues—a minute-long ‘Stop’ debuff waved at us cheerfully. “You dare tell me that I haven’t the resources to restore my Dragon?!”

  “Yes, your Lordship, I do,” the Hadjei replied unfazed. “We have exhausted our reserves of Imperial Steel—one of the main ingredients for forging dragon scales. We need too much of it to make a single scale. Both of our mines are working around the clock, but the resource is simply too scarce. At this rate it will take us seven years to restore the Dragon.”

  “What do you propose?” asked Geranika, narrowing his eyes. “You wouldn’t dare appear before me without having a plan.”

  “Your Lordship, I propose we purchase the Imperial Steel from the Free Citizens. There are plenty of Free Citizens in Malabar and Kartoss who couldn’t care less about their Reputations with their Empires.”

  “And what will we offer in return?”

  “Gold. The Free Citizens love gold. We need three hundred thousand stacks of steel.”

  “But that’s…Do we have that much?”

  “Yes, your Lordship!”

  “Send out the messengers and spies. Ensure that the Free Citizens hear our offer this very day,” Geranika decided. “Gold is useless to us. When I have my Dragon, both Empires shall fall on their knees and beg me to take their treasures. What about the prisoners?”

  “Nothing. They refuse to talk. I request your permission to torture them.”

  “I need them alive,” Geranika shook his head. “It’s much nicer to negotiate with the Dark Lord when I hold all his aces in my hand.”

  “You never negotiated before.”

  “Before, I wasn’t…”

  “Brother!” another sentient burst into the throne room, scattering the guards like bowling pins. We had only snuck halfway through and so pressed ourselves to the wall again, freezing for the moment. Shiam! “The Foe is in the palace!”

  “You’re a bit late, Shiam,” Geranika smirked. “The fool had the temerity to hide himself in the throne room. I have destroyed him already. Myself!”

  “No, brother! I’m not talking about some stray Rogue or even a crowd of Rogues—if there are even any in the palace. In fact, I couldn’t care less about anyone—except for the Foe!”

  “The Foe?” Geranika frowned. “You mean the Foe?”

  “Oh yes!” Shiam replied sadistically. “I mean the Foe. You know who I mean. The shades have told me that he is hiding in the palace.”

  “Sounds like there’s a fluffy teddy waiting for you, Mahan!” smirked Clutzer. “They’re about to start hunting the Dragon!”

  “Then the prophecy is coming true,” Geranika remarked, rising from his throne. “The Vampire is in the palace. Lock the gates! I will personally scour the palace from top to bottom! Thank you for the news, brother!”

  “Plinto?!” We all turned to look at the astonished Rogue, who was still pressing Marina to himself and hadn’t yet shut his mouth from shock. A moment passed as Geranika and his people filed out of the throne room and shut the doors noisily behind them. We were left alone.

  “I have an idea—let’s send our Mages further away from here,” I offered, drawing everyone’s attention away from Plinto. “If Geranika finds them, we won’t be able to teleport to this palace anymore. They’ll place guards in every room and then we can forget about sneaking in here again. Would we really want that?”

  “What’s the difference?” Clutzer asked. “If they find the portal, they’ll alert the guards anyway.”

  “Only players can see that portal,” Donnotpunnik explained, agreeing with my idea. “All right. I’ve told them to leave. We’ll leave the battle for the palace till tomorrow.”

  “All right, there’s nothing for you all to fear anymore,” said Plinto, pensively glancing at the closed doors. “You can make it the rest of the way with Clutzer’s shroud. Damn it! There’s no way that there’s only one exit here!”

  The Rogue cloaked and began to scurry from wall to wall. I could be mistaken, but I was sensing a bit of anxiety coming from Plinto—it’s not every day that the Lord of Shadow decides to hunt you personally. According to Plinto, there were Level 400 guards below us, who should have run off to look for the Vampire in the palace, thereby clearing our way. Good luck to them all! Even Geranika’s advanced Imitator hadn’t guessed that the Vampire was a mere arm’s length away in his own throne room.

  “Check it out, Mahan,” Clutzer whispered, pointing at Geranika’s empty throne. “Do you think Geranika will be miffed if we carefully expropriate that scepter?”

  “What a roundabout way to put it,” I replied in the same whisper, approaching the alabaster throne. “Just say what you mean: ‘Let’s gank that there stick.’”

  “This way, Mahan,” Donotpunnik gestured at a concealed passage beside the far wall, but I didn’t hurry to follow the Death Knight. Clutzer’s right—it’s unforgivable to visit Armard palace and not pick up a souvenir. Geranika’s scepter was little more than a small iron crop with a bulb for a pommel. It looked very out of place in this sumptuous throne room. There were no gems or ornaments or inscriptions on it. A simple rod that could come in handy if you wanted to whip someone. Sur
ely Geranika wouldn’t miss it!

  Item acquired: Scepter of Power. Description: Hidden. Properties. Hidden. Item class: Relic. Restrictions: Level 500+. To read the properties, please speak to the Creator.

  “Mahan, I think you need to get out of here quick,” Clutzer scratched his head when the entire palace resounded with an enormous:

  DONG!

  The Relic has been stolen!

  “Why me?” I managed to inquire to no one in particular, as Clutzer pushed me to the door leading to the dungeon.

  “Plinto, shroud him!” he yelled. “Geranika’s about to show up! I’ll lead him out of the hall!”

  Not thinking too long, Clutzer turned on his acceleration and rushed to the door.

  “WHO DARES?!” This time Geranika did raise his voice and I was immediately bolted to the floor, frozen like a granite statue. Out of the corner of my eyes, I noticed Clutzer darting for the door. Had he managed to escape or not? “STOP HIM!”

  “Mahan, didn’t your parents teach you not to take other people’s stuff?” Plinto’s mocking voice sounded right in my ear. Geranika’s special spell was ‘Stop.’ An ancient RPG spell that simply paralyzed everyone and everything. I’m afraid someone forgot to tell Plinto, however. In any event, the Rogue didn’t care that he was the only player, aside from Clutzer who had slipped out, who could still move. Grabbing me like a doll, Plinto began to carefully retreat in the direction of the treasure vault, still maintaining his shroud of stealth over us.

  “Do you know what you and I are about to do?” he went on whispering, risking detection by Geranika. “We’re about to betray that trio back there,” the Rogue nodded in the direction of the three frozen statues—Hellfire, Donotpunnik and Mirida.

  “Why?” Since I couldn’t even speak, I had to type my question into the clan chat.

  “Because otherwise, we’re all goners,” Plinto replied. “You shouldn’t’ve taken Geranika’s scepter. Oh, no. That was like a really, really bad idea.”

  “Your Lordship!” One of the Hadjeis circled the hall and stopped beside the frozen players. “There are more intruders here!”

  “And now we will descend,” Plinto decided, when Geranika looked over at the trio.

  “What the hell, Mahan?!” The raid chat was filling with not very positive messages, so I dragged it further away from my immediate vision and relaxed. Plinto was calmly carrying me down the stairs and Geranika’s debuff looked like it would expire in a few minutes, so I had plenty of time to think things over. I wonder what Donotpunnik is freaking out about. Did he say I couldn’t steal anything? No? Well then he can go take a walk.

  Donotpunnik’s, Mirida’s and Hellfire’s frames went gray, showing that Geranika didn’t waste too much time on them. The only question that remained was how he’d dealt with them—whether they’d respawn with some debuff or without it? If the trio still had some malus on them when they came back, they’d eat me alive. Little toe and all.

  “Clutzer survived!” Plinto grinned when Geranika’s Stop expired and I regained the ability to walk. “Three minutes forty seconds and he’s still kicking. That a boy! I’ll need to work with him a little more—he’s going to be Rogue rookie of the year at this rate. Say, Mahan, what’d you need that iron rod for anyway?”

  “It’s a trophy,” I grumbled. I didn’t feel like admitting to Plinto that our plan was cracking at the seams. In fact, he wasn’t supposed to know about the plan at all, lest he tell Anastaria everything…Oh to hell with all of them!

  “Plinto, I have a question. But could you promise to answer it honestly and completely?”

  “Unless you’re planning on asking my account number and PIN—shoot. When you start a conversation, you always ask some dumb question. If you want to ask me how I can move despite Geranika’s Stop spell—I have the Patriarch’s tooth. I can’t be stopped.”

  “What’s the difference how you avoided the Stop? I want to know something else. I’ve heard that you are Anastaria’s man. That she’s your son’s godmother. That you worked in the Dark Legion entirely on her orders. That you joined my clan because Anastaria asked you to. That you reported daily to Phoenix about my clan. That you…”

  “I see. That I am Anastaria’s lapdog. Is that what you wanted to say?” Plinto smirked, and yet there wasn’t the slightest note of laughter in his tone. I had never seen the Rogue so serious since…well, I’d never seen him so serious and composed at all.

  “That’s it. That’s exactly what they said you were.”

  “And by ‘they’ you mean Hellfire and Donotpunnik. The two people that Anastaria has relied on the most over the past five years. Doesn’t that seem strange to you?”

  “…?”

  “I won’t beat around the bush. Everything you just said is the truth. Stacey really is my son’s godmother. I really was, am and will be her person, since it was Stacey who brought me into this game. I really did join your clan at her request…”

  “I was the one who let you in,” I objected, but Plinto was quick to parry:

  “You were played like child. Anastaria arranged a small scene with the phoenix reins—which were supposedly owed to me. You showed up and simply bought it. Do you really think that I didn’t have five million gold? Mahan, I never thought you were so naïve. Stacey asked me to look after you and protect you from any danger, so that you could craft in peace.”

  “Craft?!”

  “Quiet! Don’t forget where we are. You were issued a simple objective—craft the Chess Set and thereby the entrance to the Tomb. That’s why I was asked to join your clan. In effect, that’s why I didn’t go to Kartoss.”

  “In other words, you’re like them,” I said in a mournful voice, striking Plinto from my list of trusted people. Lately this list had really grown sparse—currently, there were only three names on it: Draco, Fleita and myself. If my student betrays me too, then…

  “Let me repeat my question—two people that Anastaria has relied on the past five years, betray me to you. As Anastaria’s spy, if I understood correctly. You don’t find anything strange about this? And this is all done in such a particular way, that I can’t do anything but admit that they’re right. Donnotpunnik has always articulated his thoughts in a way that makes it difficult to get at the truth. Anastaria considers you to be a smart person—so, think, why would they need this?”

  “To protect me from knowing too much,” I forced out, glancing into the first room: mountains of gold, gems and chests. If the Tears are in here, I’ll spend a long time looking for them.

  “What caring little mommies. They think of nothing but how to take care of their little darling.”

  “Plinto, you…” I stuttered because it was very difficult to speak. I had believed up until the last moment that he was with me simply because he was with me—like Portos who fought simply because he fought. The truth had turned out much more banal and unpleasant, so now I didn’t know what to say. The most repulsive thing was that my mind had grasped that Plinto was a traitor, while my premonition went on screaming that I could trust the Rogue. That he’d never betray me. A repulsive feeling indeed.

  “One more time. Try to use your head, Mahan. Just consider why Donotpunnik and Hellfire would want this. What difference does it make how I ended up in your clan? Think about why the others told you about it.”

  “Why did you stay in the clan after the scene in front of the Tomb?” I asked Plinto, finding the strength to push past my emotions. Barliona is a game with real money and therefore betrayal is about as natural here as the sun’s progress across the heavens. You can’t make a lot of money without either. Everyone betrays, the only question is what triggers the betrayal. For some, it’s titles, love, the desire to stand out, money, items…Whatever. And every traitor accepts his own criteria for betrayal. The criteria that he’s willing to come to terms with. I need to come to terms with Plinto and my feelings about him. I’ll think about the others later.

  “Why’d I stay?” Plinto smirked. For a moment he
remained staring at the wall, as if looking for an answer there, and finally he went on: “Because that was the right thing to do. Because both you and Anastaria need to be saved. That very evening I went to see Anastaria and I asked her a simple question: ‘Why?’ Do you know what her answer was? Keep in mind, if Anastaria finds out about this, I’m done for. Her answer was a fit, a tantrum, a freak out—from which I could make out only several coherent phrases: ‘I’m a bitch,’ ‘I betrayed him,’ ‘I don’t feel good,’ and ‘I love him.’ Was she acting? Possibly. But it was then that I decided to help you remain in the game and force you to consider the situation. It’s not up to me to tell you about how contrived and inauthentic the events in front of the Tomb were—you have to see them for yourself. You asked yourself why Stacey acted the way she did. Could she not have warned you? She could have. But for some reason she didn’t. What’s the next logical question? That’s right—‘Why?’ And then you return to your first question: Why did Hellfire and Donnotpunnik tell you about me now?”

  “Was it you who leaked Altameda’s coordinates to Phoenix?”

  “No, Mahan. You’re sick and need help.”

  “Yes or no?!”

  “No, it wasn’t me. You might as well know, oh great conspiracy theorist, that the coordinates of the main clan castles are public information. Not for the entire public, of course, but certainly a portion of it. That’s precisely why main castles are generally used as a base or headquarters but never as the storage facilities. When you gain the access, stop by the Imperial library and glance in the ‘Castles’ book, one of its last pages. I think you’ll be very surprised to read about your Altameda in there. And the castle’s coordinates are automatically updated after every jump you make. In any case, that’s how I found your castle after you ran off.”