Well, good luck to them both!
I backed up slowly, watching our opponents approach. Plinto retreated alongside me. At Level 30 he didn’t even have Stealth. The good thing was that the Harbingers weren’t blinking. Either the arena’s coordinate grid was unavailable to them or the penalty for using Blink was too great. Or perhaps they wanted us to savor our helplessness before landing the killing blow.
Suddenly, the Shamans’ Totems appeared beside them. Bussy, a panther as black as tar and — I even shook my head from shock — a Tarantula! Kalatea’s Totem was a Tarantula! A huge spider, one-and-a-half meters tall!
“I bet that monster can spit some kind of web thing,” muttered Plinto. “They might paralyze your Draco and kill him.”
“They might,” I agreed, still backing up to the wall.
“Boys, where are you going?” Before I could blink, the Harbingers vanished from sight and their voices sounded behind us. I spun around to find Kalatea’s green mug scowling in my face. Two steps in front of me. “It’s pretty fun fighting without the powers we’re all used to, isn’t it? You know what’s really odd is that my premonition is telling me to finish this fight as quickly as I can. It’s as if you have even the slightest chance of winning! I like the mere idea of it, so I’ll give you a chance. Just one. You get the first attack, Shaman! You have five seconds!”
“You know, Mahan, I like the way this orc broad thinks,” smiled Plinto, unsheathing his knives. “If you have something up your sleeve, now’s the time. As I understand it, we won’t get a second chance, so uh, I’ll leave you two be and go for a nice stroll I think.”
Oh how I adore the overconfident! Were our places reversed, Plinto and I would have already been in the nearest tavern having a drink in mourning of all the items we’d missed out on. But as it stood we were facing your ordinary, overconfident, high-level player who had no actual experience with PvP. This couple thought they had our number.
Silly of them.
Plinto turned and broke into a sprint, putting distance between us as if he were on fire. Kalatea frowned with consternation, unable to understand exactly what was happening. She exchanged glances with Antsinthepantsa, began to raise her arm in order to point at the Rogue…and that was when design mode yanked me out of the surrounding world. Darkness enveloped me — darkness and two hundred Pendants just waiting for their moment to shine. And I do mean shine. My earlier trials with the Pendants had taken me to Erebus, but they had also taught me a very important lesson: If you want to blow something up, you have to create a masterpiece first! In my case, a hundred masterpieces. In Altameda I had picked up all the ingredients I needed to craft the items, and the only thing left now was to combine them with their projections.
There followed an immense explosion.
And yet there was no notification about our victory. As soon as all the motes of light had danced their scripted dance and their timer had expired, dispelling the Blindness debuff, I grabbed my staff and rushed in the direction of where Kalatea and Antsinthepantsa were supposed to be. I couldn’t allow them to recover.
When my perception of the surrounding world had passed from two dimensions to three, and I began not only to see the objects around me but perceive my own position relative to them, a wave of surprise washed over me. The explosion had not killed Kalatea — the Shaman was still alive. In any case, that part of her that peeked out of the black crater in the wall was still alive. Screams, curses, groans and calls for help sounded all around me, but I didn’t pay the collateral casualties any attention — instead, I was fixated on a strange quirk of the arena that my explosion had revealed: The explosion had destroyed a part of the wall, scattering stone blocks all over the arena, destroyed a part of the player spectators who had found themselves in its blast radius and — what surprised me most of all — hurled Kalatea into the opening that had been behind the wall. There wasn’t anything there and now Kalatea’s leg and arm were helplessly jerking side to side against an absolutely black background. It was these movements that made me conclude that the Shaman was alive and not dead. She’d merely gotten a little stuck in that place, which physically didn’t exist in the game. She’d effectively clipped through the arena.
The system spent a long time thinking about the situation, about a minute. During this interval, the Stun that Plinto had managed to cast on the still-surviving Antsinthepantsa managed to expire as well. The explosion had thrown her not into the wall, but into the center of the arena, so if the Shaman had been killed it wasn’t too violently. The good news was as follows: Bussy had been buried by rocks, completely freeing us from the threat of her claws and fangs. The panther was whimpering, trying to climb out of the pile, but it was beyond her.
Unwilling to allow himself the luxury of a revived opponent, Plinto turned into his Vampire Form and froze the girl just in case. Even if this was only for a minute, it would afford enough time to put the daggers to use and send the Shaman to respawn. When it became clear that we would be victorious, the system decided to have mercy on our opponents:
One of the combatants has left the arena and her team has been disqualified! Mahan and Plinto are victorious!
New challenge received…
Antsinthepantsa managed to give me a shocked-stunned look before my surroundings began to shimmer. Plinto and I found ourselves at a renewed, empty arena which bore no trace of the cataclysm that had just occurred. The system had generously granted us fifteen minutes to recover our powers and come to our senses.
“How many more of those do you have?” Plinto collapsed to the sand wearily. As brief as the first battle had been, its pressure was evident not in Plinto alone. I was shaking and shivering inside, as if I’d just overdosed on adrenaline. I wanted to jump and skip, even though there wasn’t any buff on me.
“If we’re talking about explosions of similar magnitude then enough for another 5–6 bouts. There’re lots of Pendant orders.”
“Beg your pardon,” the arena announcer appeared beside us. “I must adjust the arena rules. You can’t use…”
“You can’t prohibit powers in the arena!” I interrupted the goblin. “Facing professional killers without a single means of defending ourselves — is that within the rules too?”
“You didn’t let me finish,” the announcer whimpered. “From now on, there shall be no bouts below Level 50 and your powers will be available to you. But we must limit your use of your creative ecstasy in battle. There is no defense against it, so it would be unfair to permit it. It’s enough if you sign an agreement about non-use and…”
“Is this the Corporation’s official position?” Something odd struck me about the announcer’s speech. “I am officially forbidden from using anything permitted under the rules?”
“No, not at all!” The goblin even started back. “This is merely a recommendation, not a position. The arena is place where the Free Citizens can demonstrate their mastery of their weapons. Who would agree to a battle knowing ahead of time that he would lose? It’s unprofessional. For that reason…”
“Rivarda ageloris! ” Plinto suddenly barked some incomprehensible gibberish and glared inquisitively at the goblin. The goblin faded from dark-green to a very light green bordering on white — paling from fear. The announcer’s arms and legs began to tremble in fear and he whispered in a weak, terrified voice:
“Rivarda riko! ”
“What were the odds?” Plinto continued to surprise me.
“T-twenty-seven to one,” the goblin replied with a stutter.
“Who hired you?”
“…?”
“I repeat — who hired you?” Plinto produced some kind of round object and demonstrated it to the goblin. Now the announcer became entirely white, like an albino. A very scary sight — an albino goblin — let me assure you. This terrifying creature collapsed on his knees and howled:
“Please, I beg you, don’t kill me! They forced me! Too many terrifying individuals have bet on you losing in the fourth round! Plea
se do not kill me!”
“Your life is in my hands!” Plinto growled bloodthirstily, the way only he could. “I. Need. A. Name!”
“Sig Crook Nose,” the announcer collapsed entirely and froze, as if Plinto was the great god of Death. Although…I suppose there’s much I still don’t know about Plinto, so he could well be.
“Get out of here!” the Rogue barked and the goblin vanished like the wind.
“So…?” I hiked my eyebrow so high that Plinto was caught off guard:
“Have you considered a career on the stage? What mimicry, what emotion! Damn it all! The shadowy clans are playing against us. I noticed last time that there was something off about that goblin — so that’s what it was. Once upon a time, during my youth, I tried to set myself up in the Barliona underworld. That’s where this code phrase came from: ‘Rivarda ageloris .’ The Corporation ripped it off from an ancient bestseller. When a player earns the right to speak this phrase, an NPC that he addresses must answer him. That’s how you can identify the thieves’ guilds. Now it turns out that someone really wants us to lose the fourth bout. I can even guess who has enough money to pique Sig’s curiosity.”
“Who’s that?”
“Well…If you want the short version — one of the wealthiest people of our continent. His clan is among the top ten, several castles, a well-developed infrastructure, lots of fighters. In general — he’s an ordinary citizen. If it weren’t for one ‘but.’ His entire business is focused on thievery, fraud, killing NPCs and keeping players locked in respawn areas. They say that in the real world he does pretty much the same thing. No one knows anything for certain, however.”
“I don’t really understand — what kind of threat does he pose to us?”
“The threat that the fourth bout, if you checked our schedule, is scheduled for 3 p.m., two hours after the third bout. We won’t be able to spend that entire time in the arena and we’ll have to step out to the city — where someone will be waiting for us. Some kind of kerfuffle will occur, enraging the local Guardian, the guards, whoever. And if we’re in jail and can’t show up to the fourth bout, we’ll be disqualified and that will be that. Be sure to write, and sweet dreams.”
“So why should we go out?” I asked baffled.
“Well, now it’s clear that we shouldn’t. But this very moment, that goblin is rushing to his boss to notify him of what happened. They’ll cook up some other ruse. You think this is their first time? So don’t relax and go set up your Shadows. We have a date with a new set of victims in five minutes. These guys’ll be at Level 200. I mean, kids these days! Like that’ll help them…”
We dealt with our second and third duo of opponents without any problems. The battle would start, I’d cast shields on Plinto and myself and turn into a Dragon, while my partner cast ‘Blindness’ on one of the enemies. Then I’d flit over to the other and Thunderclap him into paralysis, and then use four Battle Shadows to blow everyone out of the arena. I’m still not sure what the duos of Druids and Death Knights were trying to prove…or what they had hoped would happen. Did they think we wouldn’t use our entire arsenal? Silly rabbits…
Everyone was waiting for the fourth bout. That would decide the fate of Bihan’s castle and Lait’s Stinger. In fact, it’d decide the fate of the entire arena! My premonition told me that if we won this one, no one else would even bother. We were about to fight the best of the best.
“Welcome to battle! May the strongest among you triumph!”
Plinto and Kei-Ten vanished into Stealth at the same time, darting off to take up their positions as per the plans. The audience hollered — the Rogues hadn’t vanished for the spectators, merely become semi-transparent. Due to the restrictions, any contact with the outside world in the arena was limited, and exiting the game even for a moment was deemed a defeat, so the Corporation didn’t risk anything, allowing the spectators to enjoy the beauty and horror of the tactics used in battle. As Plinto pointed out, the players would study the combat footage exhaustively and there were even specialized simulators which allowed them to face any opponent in the database. The players approached the task of killing each other extremely diligently, and the Corporation did its utmost to help them by offering any service it could. For money, naturally.
Our opponents had once again chosen to fight us without limitations. On the one hand this was bad due to the 70 level gap between me and the duo. On the other hand, thanks to the momentary pause between the third and fourth bouts, I had finally found the time to study the Shadows available at Level 333. And I had used this time to my utmost.
The Shadow Shaman class turned out to be a lot of fun. Figuring that only experienced players would play this class, the devs didn’t bother assigning level caps to the Shadows. As soon as a Shaman reaches Level 50, every possible Shadow becomes available to him, with the strength of the summon determined entirely by the character’s Intellect. If memory serves, Stacey mentioned that most players limited themselves to eight abilities, assigning them to the quick spell slots. I wouldn’t argue — I did the same thing back in my Hunter days. And yet, reality was utterly different at the moment and using Shadows would lead to immediate defeat as there was nothing scaling down the level difference between us. So before the bout I sat down right in the center of the arena and began to craft.
And not Jewelry which would have been logical.
I began to craft Shadows!
Once upon a time the system had generously granted me the opportunity to craft hybrid Spirits. They turned out weaker than the originals, and yet they were also more versatile. For example, when healing an ally I could also cast a shield on him which could protect him from a subsequent attack…which formally speaking meant that I could choose between one large dose of healing and a smaller one with a shield. This seemed all the same at best, but there were nuances involved to…or, as I like to say, undocumented features.
And these were what I wanted to find…
The Shaman has three hands…
A wave of Shadows emanated from my hands and sank into the arena’s sand. The first thing I needed to do was to protect myself from Kei-Ten and his tiger. Traps wouldn’t help here — given the level difference, they wouldn’t even notice them. I had to find a more elaborate solution, even if it happened to be dangerous to me as well.
Quicksand!
The principles behind this terrifying phenomenon were well known to me, all I had to do was to make sure that the developers had translated the same physical laws wholly and entirely into the game. It didn’t turn out too difficult to create a loose area of sand saturated with air. All I needed was the sand and several free Shadows of water and air. The water one would create a surface barrier that would keep the air in. My opponent wouldn’t actually drown in this trap, but that’s not what I needed anyway. I had to delay him. Plinto would do the rest followed by a Minor Battle Shadow. The Heavy one didn’t work for some reason.
“Meth, we can leave the Shaman,” Kei-Ten appeared out of Stealth, touched the quicksand I’d created with the tip of his tail and, even though his HP dropped by several points, began to chortle happily. “The idiot has cornered himself with his dumb sand trap. Let’s go get Plinto!”
“Let’s! This one’s not going anywhere!” The Hunter replied with evident blood thirst; he stepped back several paces and suddenly fired into the air. Damn it all! I don’t expect much of myself, but how did Plinto forget about this ability that Hunters had! Flare Shot was an ability that revealed all hidden creatures in a radius of forty meters.
“Plinto! Come on out!” Kei-Ten didn’t bother going into stealth again, strolling demonstratively at the edge of the quicksand. It didn’t cost that much Mana to maintain it, so I didn’t pass up on the opportunity to send a Battle Shadow into the Rogue, keeping him on his toes…OH COME ON NOW!
As soon as the first Shadow reached Kei-Ten, his chortle broke into full on laughter, while Methodious’s tiger licked its lips satiated — in some utterly baffling manner for a
n ordinary player (that is, me), the magical damage was channeled through the Rogue to the Hunter’s pet, which in in turn, consumed this damage happily. He even licked his fangs and looked in my direction as if wondering whether there’d be more! The tiger was entirely immune to magic!
How am I supposed to play this game?!
“What, my darling, is this battle not working out for you?” Kei-Ten managed to contain his laughter and, without waiting for Plinto to appear, began to make fun of me. “You should try using that staff of yours! Go ahead! I won’t even defend myself. Come on over and kill me! Oh, I’m begging you, oh great Shaman! Have your way with us!”
“It looks like they’ve wagered that they’ll kill us during the last minute,” Plinto whispered in my ear. I had to force myself to keep from starting back in shock — the Rogue’s appearance was entirely unexpected.
“We can use that to our advantage,” he went on. “How quickly can you dispel that quicksand?”
“Instantly,” I replied without turning. Methodious went on shooting into the air, trying to illuminate Plinto, so I couldn’t let on that the Rogue was beside me.
“There’s ten minutes left in the bout. Act like you’re shocked and don’t know what to do. You can feed the tiger — it seems to like your Shadows! But meanwhile fill all your slots with shields. They’ll come in handy.”
It was incredibly easy to do as Plinto had told me. I really was shocked and had no idea what to do, so I didn’t even have to pretend really. I’d periodically cast Shadows at Kei-Ten who went on pacing at the edge of my quicksand, but every time the result was the same — Methodious’s cat ate them up with pleasure. At some point, I realized that they were playing with us like a cat with a ball of yarn. Our opponents were waiting for the last moments of the fifteen-minute-long bout to prove their might to the entire world. A kill in the last seconds of the bout wasn’t just highly-esteemed, but pretty lucrative too if you made a bet on it ahead of time.
“When we reach the last minute,” Plinto whispered, “you’ll cancel the quicksand and cast the shields. But only on my command! I’ll be in Stealth so you will take all the dps those two can dish out. We need to survive one minute. Don’t let them do any damage! Here, take this. It’ll come in handy.”
Clans War (The Way of the Shaman: Book #7) LitRPG Series Page 32
