Survival Quest (The Way of the Shaman: Book #1)

by Vasily Mahanenko

  “Today a committee was called together for examining the incident involving an intentional killing of a prisoner. A decision was taken that the sentient known to you as Bat was guilty of attempted murder. You were exonerated of any guilt and it was ruled that you had a right to revenge Kart. Your action and the attempt to sacrifice yourself for another merit a reward – here you go,” the orc handed something to me. I took some kind of a cloth and a message appeared before me:

  Quest “Revenge in the Mine!” completed.

  Reward: Miner’s cloak. +1 Strength. +1 Stamina. Item class: Uncommon. Level restrictions: none.

  Your reputation with the Pryke Mine Guards has increased by 1000 points. Current level: Friendly. You are 2801 points away from the status of Respect.

  Experience gained: +600 Experience

  Level gained!

  Level gained!

  Level gained!

  Points until the next level: 400

  Free stat points: 15

  Well, I’ll be… I wanted to jump for joy, but restrained myself. If the governor is a picture of calm, I should follow suit. But, dammit, this is great! Three levels, basically for nothing! And also a cloak that’s quite something for a low level player! But above all – 1000 reputation almost for free! This meant a radical change to my plans for leaving the mine, making them a lot more realistic! But three levels, it’s mind-boggling…

  “I’m done here. I can answer any questions you have. If I remember correctly, you love asking them,” said the orc, permitting himself a quick chuckle. Wow! We’re making progress!

  “I wouldn’t go as far as ‘love’, but I’ll ask all the same. Why is meanness flourishing at your mine? After all, this is a correctional facility. Here by default there should be no such thing as backstabbing and dirty tricks, but, in fact, if these aren’t exactly encouraged, nothing is being done to discourage them… And then you see some committees getting together and making some kind of decisions. What’s the sense in this?”

  "Good question. A person pays for their crime by being torn away from the world he is used to and forced to work. And work hard at that. As for how that person develops from then on, that is a personal matter for each particular individual, a decision he alone can make. Some choose the path of a profession, while others an easier way. For instance, my mine contains 185 convicts who chose the shady path of development. That’s from the total of 240 prisoners. This is entirely their choice and within the bounds of the mine they are free to do as they like. The only limitation is that with this skill it is impossible to leave the mine on parole and they know it. As far as the committee is concerned, although each death in the mine is investigated most thoroughly, if it is proven that it occurred as a result of an accident, even if an arranged one, the case is closed. The trio that wanted to crush you with the trolley were found guilty of attempted murder and removed from our mine to another location."

  “Is it true when they say that once the prisoners are no longer able to level up their skills they fall into apathy, lose interest in life and get removed from the mine?”

  "I can hear Kart’s voice in your words,” said the orc. "Apathy can at times arise if a sentient is weak and cannot get over such a big loss. Such a sentient is then sent away from our mine to another place, where he can begin his development anew.”

  “And where is this…” I began.

  “Enough! You are touching matters that do not concern you in any way. When a prisoner falls into apathy from losing all his skills, he disappears from the mine. It doesn’t matter where he goes. That’s all you need to know. And now – go.”

  “Another question, the very last one. You said that a committee was called together. When on earth did it have time to meet, if I died and respawned immediately after that? These two events just don’t fit in the same timeframe.”

  “The standard respawning time is set at twelve hours from the time of death. The committee was gathered ten minutes after Kart's death, five minutes after Bat’s death and three minutes after yours. The meeting where the decision on all three deaths was reached took forty minutes. So they had plenty of time.”

  Twelve hours? Yes, in Barliona that's the limitation set for respawning after death. But I simply didn’t remember this time, it flew past me in an instant. Nice one. I wonder if the whole of the prison term could fly by like that. Eight years – in the blink of an eye… Eh, dreams, dreams.

  When I came out of the administration building, something struck my eyes. There was a sense that something was missing from the surrounding world or, on the contrary, there was something extra or out of place, but I simply couldn't put my finger on it. Everything seemed to be there: the barracks, the smithy, the mine and the prisoners working in it, the ever-present heat and dust. Stop! Can someone tell me what happened to the ever-present heat and dust? Now I saw no such effects: the whole valley was clear and fresh. A small cloud shielded the setting sun, its burning rays softened to become pleasant and calming, and a refreshing slight breeze blew around me. Where would a breeze come from in a valley? It’s surrounded by cliffs! I saw no such change when I entered the administration building, but it wasn’t hard to admit that I liked the current environment a lot more. If that’s the bonus for my reputation increasing to ‘Friendly’, I should double my efforts to get to ‘Respect’. I wondered how the mine would change when that happened.

  At the place of my death I found a whole silver coin: exactly half of what I had left after buying the pick. The orc probably said that he would be very upset if anyone touched my money. Although there wasn’t much to take, since I put everything I had into Rine’s pick with the attached obligation.

  I decided that before heading out to work I would look into allocating the stat points I had gained. I had 15 free points. This was good. Adding 3 points to Stamina, taking it up to 7, I decided not to spend the remaining 12 points yet. If it took me a week to level up my skills this far, in the next few weeks I should be able to get them to an even higher level. But when the skills either stop increasing or begin to increase very slowly — or even after I leave the mine — these free points would be simply priceless.

  I was quite happy with the result of the day’s work: I broke apart 4 veins (22 pieces of ore, +4 Experience, +2 Mining, 40% Strength, +20% Stamina), killed five Rats (+50% Intellect, +20 Experience, +5 Rat skins, meat and tails). Now killing Rats was much easier – the status of Friendly permitted me to summon the Lesser Lightning Spirit, so before the Rats could get to me, I managed to knock some Hit Points off them. In addition, each strike of the Lightning Spirit made the Rat freeze for a few seconds, which enabled me to finish it off with the pick.

  After waiting for the evening and handing in my daily quota, I started to look for Kart. There was no sign of him at the evening meal and he wasn’t in the smithy. Where on earth did he wander off to?

  I found him in the barracks. He lay still on the bed, curled up and howling quietly in a strange voice.

  “Kart, are you all right?” I couldn’t ask him anything more stupid, but I had to start somewhere.

  “Me?” replied Kart and lifted his head. Judging by the redness of his eyes, he must have got a fair bit of sand in them and had been rubbing them hard. I did not want to think about the alternative. “Of course I’m all right, what else can I be? For eight years I managed to avoid dying, survived where others bit the dust, but then you appeared and everything went to the dogs! Why the hell did I try to save you? Can you explain that one to me?” Suddenly Kart tensed up with pain, groaned and then curled up and started to howl quietly again.

  “Kart, did you eat today?” I asked seeing that Kart was going into convulsions.

  “No,” rasped Kart. "What’s the point? I didn't go to the mine today, so I have no ore to give to Rine. What difference does it make when I peg out: now or in a couple of months, when I’m kicked out of the mine?”

  “You missed the mark, hot-shot. Get up and let’s go for a walk,” I summoned a Healing Spiri
t on Kart, grabbed him by the arm and dragged him away. “Walk with me and I’ll tell you an interesting tale on the way. Afterwards you can tell it to someone else – after all, you are the Master Gossip!”

  Kart looked at me with incomprehension, but got up and followed.

  “So, here goes. The story runs like this. In a Kingdom Far Far Away there lived an handsome lad… Or was he just good-looking? It doesn’t really matter. And so this lad got into an unpleasant situation – villains decided to do him in and run him over with a mining trolley. But the lad had a faithful Friend, who saved him, but at the cost of losing all his heroic might, which took him ten years to gain. And then the lad, that’d be the good-looking one, decided to help his Friend regain his heroic might, which the evil Dragon stole from him. But because he could not return the mythical strength to his friend, he decided to make his friend a renowned artisan, so that buyers would come to him from around the world and buy his wondrous wares, made with Smithing and Leatherworking crafts. You’re getting the gist of this, right? As far as I can see we have no smiths here at the mine and your Smithing profession was only at level four, so we’ll quickly re-level you in this. And your Leatherworking level was non-existent, so we'll be levelling that up too. I realize that a profession is one thing and a stat is another, but we’ll break through all the same!”

  At this point we came up to Rine. Kart started to double up again, so I poured another healing over him. Blast! My mana was at zero and we urgently had to sort out the food. It’s just as well that there was still some time left.

  “Ah, the die-hards have turned up. Mahan, you already handed in your quota for the day. And don’t forget that tomorrow it’s 30 pieces of ore that you owe me. And you Kart… Seems you’ve decided to play ‘Who wants to be a lunatic?’ game. Why didn’t you go to the mine and work to get your quota today?”

  Kart stood there sullenly and looked at his feet. I could see that he had no intention of answering. All right, let’s play a trick and answer for him.

  “Kart, your Mining is at 1 now, right? This means that today you had to bring in just 10 pieces of ore, if I’m not mistaken. Here you go, take it,” I said and handed Kart my surplus. “I think this will just cover your daily quota.”

  Reluctantly Kart took the ore and, after thinking a moment, passed it to Rine.

  “Oh, no. You can’t do that. The prisoner must gather the ore himself and then hand in the daily quota to me,” Rine began to argue, but I interrupted him:

  “Rine, I remember our governor’s words very well – the daily task of each prisoner is to bring in a certain amount of ore, determined by his Mining level. The boss did not once say that this ore could not be bought or obtained from other prisoners. Nor was it ever said that you have to work your hands raw in the mine: we were simply allocated a place for obtaining the ore to meet the quota, but whether it is mined or bought is up to us. For example, the governor personally promised me that if I find a Precious Stone, he would strike off my quota for that day. Consequently this proves that our main task is to hand in the daily quota. Kart’s quota is 10 pieces of ore, and it is lying before you now. What’s the problem?”

  “But this isn’t right…” said the dwarf, now sounding less sure. “If everyone starts to do this, then…”

  “Then soon there won’t be anyone to buy ore from in this mine and everyone will be sent for a respawn,” the governor’s voice suddenly sounded behind us. “What Mahan is proposing is not forbidden. Prisoners have a right to work together. If Mahan wishes to hand in Kart’s daily quota for him, it's between Mahan and Kart.”

  Attention, a new stat has become available to your character: Charisma. Charisma determines the strength of the character’s personality, his appeal, his ability to convince and to lead, and also his physical attractiveness. There is a chance that NPCs will offer the player unique quests.

  Do you accept? Attention, you will not be able to remove an accepted stat!

  Why not? In this gameworld only NPCs hand out quests and hold all the key positions. Even our governor is an NPC. So, I think that such a stat would come in handy and I’ll still have three free stat slots.

  A new stat has been unlocked for the character: Charisma. Total: 1

  “If you take off right now, you’ll still manage to get your portion of the evening rations,” said Rine, after thinking a moment and taking Kart’s ore. “The things convicts come up with – anything to avoid working,” he mumbled to himself as he headed for the smithy.

  We had won! Now my plans for pulling Kart out of the hole began to look more realistic.

  "Allow me to go on with my tale, Kart," I said, when Kart returned from supper, somewhat cheered up. "As I said, our handsome lad could not return the heroic might, taken by the Green Dragon, to his Friend, but he could hunt foul beasts called Rats. And the earth was strewn with the prized skins of the Rats. And so instead of going to the mines and hacking at the accursed ore veins the lad’s Friend will be working Rat skins in the coming week and making all kinds of wondrous things out of them and so gain great happiness and esteem. And the meat of those enemy Rats can probably be cooked in a deep black pot or fried over a roaring fire, to make the Friend's life even more wondrous, because he'll become a renowned Cook, respected by all."

  I paused and looked at Kart. Now I liked his look much better: gone were the pair of stupefied cattle-like eyes, where it was a struggle to find even a spark of intelligence. No, the eyes looking at me now were full of renewed hope and I could see that Kart's brain was fitfully going through different possibilities for levelling up. That's right Kart: unless you want to help yourself, I won’t be able to pull you out.

  "Kart, before I continue with my tale, I need to know how much money you have. Much depends on this. I only have 2 silver coins, which won't go very far."

  "I have 104 gold, 25 silver and 45 copper coins," said Kart, looking in his bag. "No-one touched my money after my death, so I didn't lose anything."

  "Great, then I can continue the story. And so the young lad advised his Friend not to mine veins in the near future, but to stand by the greedy Dwarf and buy surplus ore from other fellows working in the area for 11 copper coins. It shouldn't be hard to find such fellows, who'd be eager to gain some extra ever-coveted profit, since the miserly dwarf buys the ore for only 10 coins a piece. And thus, the young hero's friend will have another joy - a daily tribute and good skimmings, which he will use to develop his Smithing profession. By this time the handsome lad will have learned Jewelcraft and will take heavy Copper Ingots from his Friend in order to level up his own skills. This way they will live happily and level up ever after. And that's the end of the tale, and anyone who failed to listen well is likely to be done for pretty soon."

  Attention! A new stat has become available to your character: Chattiness. Chattiness determines your attractiveness to NPCs, ability to gain trust and also allows you to be popular with crowds. There is a chance that you will talk your opponent to sleep for a set amount of time.

  Do you accept? Attention, you will not be able to remove an accepted stat!

  No thanks. It's quite enough to have Kart running around with this stat.

  "Well, aren’t you just the handsome lad," Kart said suddenly, giving me a sly look. "That's it! The patient will live! But do tell me, the hero's good friend, what the heck do you need me for?"

  "Well, you see, Kart, my life is just so boring, so I just have to give myself something to do. After all, there is absolutely nothing else to do here. It's not like I should get back to work now. Instead let's go and find Rine. I have around 60 Rat pelts in my bag and we can start training you up in Leatherworking."

  We found Rine in the Smithy. He muttered something under his breath when he saw us, but still came out to greet us, wiping his hands on the apron.

  "What, just can't sleep? It's late and it's an early rise for a day of heavy work tomorrow. Or you've already got the quota for the rest of the week on your hands? Or maybe the rest o
f the month?"

  "Lay off the sarcasm, Rine. We're here on business. We want to be trained. Kart here needs to learn Leatherworking and I need to learn Jewelcraft. We also both need to be taught Cooking."

  "So, they decided to get an education," muttered the dwarf, annoyed. "You just won’t behave like all the normal prisoners — go to the mine, gather all the ore that you can, hand it over to me and be happy. Oh no — you've found yourselves some loopholes to get out of doing work. I don't like slackers, they're just..."

  "Rine!" Kart and I shouted at once.

  "What? ‘Rine!-Rine!’ I don't want to teach you anything until you start working properly. I don't want to and I won't."

  Way to hit a roadblock. The stubborn dwarf got it into his head that we have to be put back on the righteous path. Well then - two can play at this game.

  "Fine, Rine, have it your way: if you don't want to teach us, don't," I said and looked in the direction of the administration office. "Kart, what do you think? Has the governor already gone to sleep or not?"

  "Who knows? What do you need him for?" asked Kart in surprise.

  "What do you mean, what for? If I am not mistaken, at the mine we have, or rather had, the opportunity to learn any profession. At any time. Rine doesn't want to or simply can't teach anyone right now, so I'll go and ask the governor to teach me," I said, starting to head for the administration. Well, Rine. Your move!

  "Ehh... Mahan!" shouted Rine, after I was already halfway there. "Stop! Sod you..."

  I turned around and looked at the dwarf.

  "What's with the shouting, Rine? It's late already, you'll wake people up," I was the very picture of surprise, but inside as pleased as the cat who got the cream.

  "How can I not shout, when I have to chase those looking to be taught all around the mine? Who needs this, in the end, me or you? Come here, both of you, and I'll do some teaching. Have a look at things first. Now, let's think. The unlocking of one profession costs 20 silver coins, tools for the professions — Jeweler, Leatherworker and Cook — cost one gold each. And then there's the 10 silver for each recipe. I have 3 recipes for Jewelcraft, 4 for Leatherworking and only 2 for Cooking. This means that in total" — Rine paused to think — "I need 7 gold and 40 silver from both of you. So hand over the money and let's get to the teaching."