I had never experienced such a revolting, mortifying smell in my life. Thanks to the fact that I was in my Dragon Form, the poisons didn’t affect me, but it wasn’t any easier to breathe for knowing this. Losing my balance due to the foul odor, I rolled along some strange corridor located along the squidolphin in the direction of the tail. It was looking like this was her gullet and I was on my way to her stomach where I would be digested…Ugh…
After about thirty meters, I managed to grab onto another pulsating thingy. It wasn’t as large as the one from before—only about a meter—and yet there was something inside this sphere. Knowing that I could always activate the Armageddon scroll, I began to hack at this sphere as well—again gnashing with my fangs and tearing with my teeth at this soft pulsating part of the squidolphin—and knowing that if it popped I would continue my fall.
When the sphere burst, I managed to do two things at once—avoid from falling further and catch the item that the sphere had released. This turned out to be a silvery cocoon about fifty centimeters in length, soft and springy like a ball.
Acquired item: Giant squidolphin embryo. Level: 0. Item class…
To activate, place the embryo in warm water…
I stared at the cocoon for about a minute, afraid to even breathe on it lest it vanished. So this means that my minor squidolphin would forever have remained a minor squidolphin, even if she had reached Level 20? The item I was holding in my hands made me, and I mean me, and not someone else, the foremost power of our continent’s southern seas. Well I’ll be…
In the position I was in, it was extremely difficult to activate my inventory bag, so I retrieved my Mailbox with my free paw, wrote myself a letter and attached the Embryo. When I return, I’ll show it to Stacey—and trigger another spasm of wanting to somehow get her hands on this thing. By the way, speaking of Stacey!
“Earth calling Mars, come in Mars, what’s the word?”
“You’re alive, Dan! What’s the Oceanic Abyss? What did you see there?”
“Stacey, we are surfacing, get ready to summon me over on my command. Okay?”
“I’m ready. I’m sending the summons. When you’re ready, just hit accept.”
The scroll was also in my personal bag, but I had sagely assigned it to a quick item slot, so after waiting long enough for the notification that my other half wished to summon me to appear, I opened the scroll’s properties and entered a single word into the special text field: ‘Die.’ A countdown immediately appeared, so I didn’t stick around to see the result. Releasing the scroll, I accepted the summons. I’m coming, Stacey…
Achievement acquired: Corsair of the Century. Damage done by all of your ships has increased by 30%.
Your reputation with all encountered maritime factions has increased by 5000.
Level gained!
The Legends of Barliona Clan has defeated a Giant squidolphin. Victory reward—250,000 gold.
As soon as I appeared beside Anastaria, seven Levels fell to me in a row. Judging by the happy faces around me, everyone received something from Barliona—some a Level, others an Achievement or Title.
“A DRAGON! WHAT A DOOZY! TO ARMS!” Grygz’s shout thundered across all four of the ships that had survived the battle, so I was forced to soar up into the air. Evasive maneuvers, so to speak…
“Stacey, tell them to chill out, please.”
“Come on down, my speckled dove,” the girl replied after a few seconds. “They’ve promised not to kill you right away.”
“Look!” came another yell, from a player pointing at the water. “The monster’s remains!”
Truly—from the depths of the ocean a huge, one-hundred-meter-long body floated up to the surface. According to the mechanics of Armageddon, it should have been torn to pieces, and yet the squidolphin’s remnants refused to bow to the laws of logic or physics. Until the players got a chance to collect their loot, it’s difficult for a mob to depart this world.
“Mahan, fly over there please and take a look at what we earned,” Anastaria said in such a soothing and pleasant voice that I couldn’t help but grin—were it up to her, she’d kill all the players right now, kick them from her group, drown the pirates and, for safety’s sake, wipe out the maritime fauna in the vicinity just to take a look at the loot she’d gotten from this unique ship. Effectively, what had just happened was a First Kill—it was quite ominous that we hadn’t officially received an Achievement. Could the players of some other continent have defeated a similar creature? Although, I think we have different Achievements…But all right, let Stacey worry her head about that—it’s not like she has it just to look pretty. And I have to admit that sometimes she does have some good ideas…
“Loot will be distributed by an Imitator,” Anastaria instantly announced in the raid party chat. I hovered over to the squidolphin’s floating cadaver and carefully landed on it, hoping that I wouldn’t weigh it down too much. Then in my properties, I opened the loot bookmark and without looking at what was in it and what wasn’t, dumped it all for common access. Imitators are a cruel race—if they notice you staring at something too long, they’ll never let you have it. What pleased me most was that the embryo that I had found inside the monster was formally mine—I had acquired it in battle, not in its aftermath. So anyone who wanted to lay a claim to it could take a walk. It was mine according to all the rules and regulations of Barliona…
Money acquired: 334,558 gold, 34 silver, 18 coppers.
Acquired item: Piece of squidolphin heart. Attributes hidden.
Acquired item: Squidolphin scales. Used in Smithing. Attributes hidden.
“Hmm…You can come back. I’ve explained to them that the Dragon is you…”
Stacey’s face suggested that this was not the result she had expected from the loot. I landed on the deck, returned to my human form and was immediately embraced by Grygz—who began to clamor about how now he would be remembered for centuries! The pirate leader was swearing he’d put a fleet at my disposal as early as tomorrow and that we’d sail to Armard, yet I didn’t pay him much attention—instead, I kept my eyes focused on Anastaria. The girl’s glassy eyes and twitching head told me that she was carefully studying the list of loot that I had published for all the players to see. The list included the Imitator’s distribution of items—who’d get what and how much of it—as well as various information about each item and why it was allocated to the player in question. I never imagined that Anastaria would be that interested in such information. It was evident that there weren’t any global item drops…neither Legendaries, nor Uniques…It’s odd, by the way. Why is this?
“Daaaan?” a minute later, the girl’s unsettled, drawn out voice appeared in my head. “Were the pieces of the heart really the only thing that you got down there? How’s that possible?”
The emergency siren instantly went off in my head, indicating that she had just riffled through my bag to see what I had acquired, realized that there wasn’t anything valuable there and began to complain.
“Stacey, it wasn’t really a situation that gave me time to think about loot,” I shrugged, dodging the question.
“But you did take the pieces of the heart.”
“It was a trade, and not even a fair one,” I objected. “That monster took my pickaxe!”
“Grygz, we’ve done as we promised,” said Evolett when he had finished going through his loot. “What do you say now? Are we setting out against Geranika?”
Quest completed: ‘Pirate fraternity. Step 2: Thar she blows!’ +4000 Reputation with the Pirates of the Southern Seas.
Quest available: ‘Pirate fraternity. Step 3: Armard weeps for us…’
“In that case, we will set out in a week. Any objections?” Evolett said, looking around at everyone present, and then turned to me: “Armard will take up a lot of time. I’ll need to sign out to reality. We still have about a month to recapture the Heart of Chaos, so we should have enough time.”
“Agreed, let’s meet in Cadis in a we
ek,” I nodded to the Priest and addressed the pirate leader: “Grygz, do you know a suitable place to celebrate our triumph? It wouldn’t do to not have a drink!”
“Ahoy, friend Mahan!” Grygz clapped me on the shoulder so hard that my jaw almost dropped to the deck. Taking into account the recent hike in Reputation, I’m one of the boys now for the pirates, and my 74 points of Attractiveness with the leader makes me something like his brother. “Only a true pirate thinks of loot after a battle and only then about drinks and only after all that about women! A toast to our new brother! From now on he is a captain without a ship! Such is my word!”
New status acquired—Pirate Captain. This status does not depend on having a ship.
A ‘hip-hip-hooray’ sounded three times from the ships around us and the pirates began to celebrate, while the players began to cast portals and head back to their customary haunts. I walked over to Stacey who was staring out at the sea sadly and embraced her shoulders.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
“I lost my bet…Let’s summon Plinto, what do you say? I’d rather deal with this right away.”
“What did you bet anyway?” I asked, still embracing the girl. “What’s the Tear?”
“An access key to a unique location that was designed for Rogues. It’s the only item after the Phoenix Bridle for which Plinto is ready to do anything—even sing a song and dance a jig. And in reality too. Can you imagine? An enormous, clumsy, bald guy dancing a jig in front of you so that he can get a series of bytes in Barliona…You should have seen the look on his wife’s face—I shudder to recall it.”
“Forget it. Maybe the Imitator will decide the bet in your favor. You don’t know what Plinto wrote after all.”
“That’s why I want to summon him now. If I lost, I want to pay immediately…”
“Hello everyone! Oh look at that—you’ve killed the fishy! Excellent. Without even knowing what happened, I’ll venture a guess—Mahan rescued everyone while busting his butt once again!” Plinto’s mocking tone and sarcastic demeanor was a good match for Anastaria’s downcast look. “Well, shall we open it?”
“Okay,” said the girl, sighing like someone consigned to defeat, and glanced over at me: “Get the betting contract and summon the Imitator. Let him make the comparison…”
Plinto’s note: “What I think: Mahan will encounter the squidolphin, most likely on a pirate vessel, something will go wrong, most likely everyone will die or almost die. Anyway, Mahan will turn into a Dragon, since he’s not much of a Shaman at the moment, and he’ll fly over to the fishy and kill it. Specifically, from within. I have no idea how he’ll get inside it, but that is the most unrealistic option.” Accuracy percentage—98%.
Anastaria’s note: “A pirate fleet will set out to seek the squidolphin, led by me and not Mahan. There will be no fewer than 20–25 ships. The squidolphin will destroy most of the fleet, at which point the scenario will permit Mahan to use his Dragon’s breath. Mahan will kill the squidolphin in his Dragon Form and receive a unique or legendary item that has something to do with the sea.” Accuracy percentage—91%.
Anastaria’s eyes became two narrow slits and fixed on me like two laser beams. Without saying a word, she retrieved the Mailbox and put it on the floor, looked at it, at me, again at the box, and now understanding where the unique item was, got out the silver tear and handed it to Plinto. And she did all this in silence, moving abruptly and basically without looking away from me. Damn it all!
“How did you say you killed the monster?” the girl asked once she was sick of playing the guessing game.
“Forgive me for interrupting your conversation,” Ehkiller wedged himself between us. “I have to run. But I cannot leave without discussing the cost of the scroll. In view of our partnership, I’m ready to give it to you almost for free—a mere ten million gold.”
This bit of news almost knocked the breath out of me. What ten million? From where? What was this?
“Evolett asked for seven,” coming to my senses, I tried to bargain, while Stacey stepped right up to me, utterly ignoring her father and distracting me from my negotiations.
“Let’s not bring that up. Evolett had his own interest at stake, wishing to gain access to the pirate quest. I on the other hand, don’t really profit from this. I’m basically selling you this scroll at cost as it is.”
“Nine,” I made a last ditch attempt to save a little money. The clan currently had sixteen million in its treasury and losing ten of them would severely curtail our budget. It’s very difficult to haggle when your wife is staring right at you waiting for an explanation.
“My condolences, but I want either ten million or some equivalent. For instance, the Eye of the Dark Widow is an option, or give me another scroll of Armageddon if you can find it for cheaper. That’s my final word. I request that the Imitator record it and I request that you pay me the indicated amount. Mahan, there’s no point in ruining our relationship over some business—if the scroll belonged to me, Ehkiller the player, personally, I’d give it to you without even thinking about it. But as the head of Phoenix, I don’t have the right to spend clan resources as I wish. You have two days to give me the money, the scroll or the Eye. All the best!”
Ehkiller teleported out, leaving me effectively one on one with Anastaria—who went on staring at me.
“I propose we go somewhere else,” Anastaria said, casting a portal and gesturing at it. “After you…”
Shaking my head in puzzlement and still not fully understanding what the girl had in mind, I nodded at Grygz, assured him that I would make sure to stop by for the feast later, asked Draco to be careful and not get into any fights, and finally dived into the portal.
A frigid, Alpine wind enveloped me from every direction, forcing me to shiver. It took one glance at the stone wall several steps away to realize that Anastaria had brought me to the entrance to the Tomb of the Creator that she had found. I wonder why?
“Anything you want to tell me?” the girl started up again, appearing beside me.
“Nope. I do have a question though—where are we going to get ten million?”
“Forget it. I request the Imitator to formally record my words—the question of the Armageddon scroll does not concern the Legends of Barliona. I will take care of it myself,” a glowing aura of confirmation appeared around Stacey.
“Hang on, what do you mean you’ll take care of it yourself? I needed the scroll!”
“I told you—forget it! So you don’t want to tell me anything?”
“Okay, I will. Stacey, I found something down there,” I had to surrender since I didn’t feel like arguing. But Stacey was also the one who taught me the value of revealing information slowly and bit by bit, so I went on: “It’s dumb to hide it now. But, before I showed it to you, I wanted to arrange everything so that it would be a surprise. Damn! I still want to make it a surprise, so I will dig in until the end. Stacey, I promise you’ll like what I got down there. But give me time to arrange everything the way I want to…”
“I’ll kill you! Do you hear me? If I learn you lied to me one more time, you can forget I exist! I can live with everything except lies! When?”
“When what?” I was taken aback at seeing Stacey like this. The woman standing before me right now wasn’t the Anastaria that all of Barliona loved, but nothing short of an exact copy of Nashlazar in her worst mood. You could love and cuddle the Stacey I loved, but the woman before me now was better feared and avoided.
“When am I going to see my present?”
“It’s a surprise,” I corrected the girl.
“When am I going to see the surprise you’ve prepared for me?”
“If you go on in that tone of voice, then never,” I struck a pose. “What’s with the aggression, Stacey? If I acquired something illegally, the Imitator would send me straight to the mine, since other players would have been involved. Therefore, this conversation ends here. Whatever I found is mine legally. I decided to make it a surprise for
you, and here you are pressuring me—what, where, when…Doesn’t it seem a little strange to you?”
“So it’s like that? Pressuring…”
“That’s right! You’re the best damn analyst in this game—try and look at your actions objectively! I get the impression that all you care about is items, while people and feelings are merely the tools by which you can obtain them…”
“So that’s how it is! I guess then you think I’m using you? That I’m only interested in Shaman Mahan because he has a heap of unique toys? Is that right? Here,” Anastaria offered me several documents. “I also had a surprise for you…”
Emphasizing the word ‘surprise’ like it had once been truly epic but had now become distasteful to her, the girl fell silent, giving me the chance to study the contents.
“What is this?” I asked stunned, glancing through the document but not reading closely. It looked like Anastaria had brought me some kind of contract and called it a surprise. How odd…
“It’s a contract for a loan. It states that a certain Anastaria, aged 28, shall borrow a sum of 94 million and change from the central bank of our sector and uses it to extinguish the debt of one Daniel Mahan, aged 33. Taking into account my social status, my recommendations and the cosigners—my father and uncle—I will be issued this amount for five years with an APR of 2%. As my family lawyer informed me, you would never get a loan of this size, even if you put up your castle as collateral. So this is my surprise…I also prepared it in secret, hoping to make my beloved husband happy, and then it turned out that I was lied to. I hate people who lie to me. And you know what, knowing full well ahead of time that you’d never just let me gift you the money, I prepared a second contract which stipulates how you’re going to pay me back. Later…Sometime…There’s no deadline, but just in case, it begins with the same five years. This is what I’ve been busy with for the past couple months—and that’s why I was signing out to reality so frequently.”
The Karmadont Chess Set (The Way of the Shaman: Book #5) LitRPG series Page 36
