The Secret of the Dark Forest ( (The Way of the Shaman: Book #3)

by Vasily Mahanenko

  As experience had shown, the trigger for the second phase ability did not depend on the number of Frankenstein's Hit Points, but on time. The red portals appeared every two minutes, taking Plinto, Barsina, Antsinthepantsa, Exodus, 'Killer, and myself completely out of action. Two were running around the labyrinth and four were dealing with the phantoms, which barely ceased to appear before a new wave hit us.

  "Forty-two percent!" came the voice of my deputy. "We're about to be hit with another ability."

  B E W A R E!

  "What the heck?" shouted Elenium almost at the same time as the system announcement came, "Resurrection isn't working!"

  "Maybe it hasn't recharged yet?" I asked, staring at the deserter in incomprehension, "What do you mean it's not working?"

  "Same here," added Leander, "We'll have to finish him off as we are."

  "Plinto, Barsa – off you go!" commanded Anastaria, as if nothing had happened. "There's no sense in holding off the damage anymore, hit him with all you've got!"

  Dammit! As soon as my fighters disappeared into the red portal, three more appeared nearby, but these were blue. And what were we supposed to do with them?

  "Twenty seconds until he finishes casting the spell!" Stacey informed everyone in a calm and somewhat resigned voice. "Mahan – what do we do? Stay put and dodge the puddles or jump into the portals?"

  "Stacey, I have no idea ..." I muttered, at a loss.

  "Me neither," smiled the girl, "but someone has to make the decision and be held responsible for its consequences. Ten seconds ..."

  "Everyone into the portals! Donotpunnik, you stay here." I had no idea why I issued that last order, but felt it was the right thing to do.

  "Hear that? Let's go!"

  I just managed to glimpse the surprised face of the Death Knight, who froze in his tracks, after which the blue of the portal surrounded my character. Not knowing what to expect, I closed my eyes and braced myself, but when I finally had the courage to open them and see where we’d ended up, I had to make an effort to prevent my jaw from hitting the floor. We came out into the same clearing where we’d just been fighting the boss, but now everything around us seemed faded and unnatural; even the air itself was saturated with a subtle feeling of grayness and emptiness.

  "The Inverse," said Anastaria in a high whisper. "Now I get it. Don, we'll be seeing ya. It's the Inverse."

  "Farewell, brother!" A message from the Elementals appeared before my eyes, "It is a pity that we did not see this Fallen one destroyed ... "

  "I'm the firs– ." By the looks of it Donotpunnik wanted to write what he was first of, but didn't quite make it. Both he and the Elementals vanished from the clearing as if they were never there.

  "Spread out and maintain a distance; step out of the puddles!" It seems that Anastaria never loses her nerve. "On my command we run together, Leander – put up a dome, same as before. Mahan, who's next?"

  "Next?"

  "This is the inverse of reality. Each of the three portals is for a particular type of player: one for tanks, one for healers and one for fighters. We can't make a mistake here – otherwise it's instant death when the boss completes the cast. Here come the phantoms – embody them! Usually it takes several deaths to discover which portal is meant for each player type, but there's an exception. If you leave ... Exodus, stop bashing the boss and hit those shadows! Anyway, if you leave at least one player outside the Inverse only he will die, irrespective of whether the others entered the right portal or not. I have no wish for any of us to die to figure out the portal’s designation, so we have to pick the next victim. I propose Eric."

  "Eric?"

  "You can stop looking at me like that! Everyone will be sacrificed, even you, if it gets us through! Forty percent for thirty people is really a lot, added to the fact that we are guaranteed to lose one person every two minutes. And then there's the fourth phase, whose properties are still completely hidden."

  "And the previous three were just an open book." I couldn't resist some sarcasm. "Brast from Phoenix will be next. Eric stays until the very end and try not to let him die."

  "Brast, you heard the order?" the girl turned to one of the Warriors. "Don’t lose any time: run straight to the boss and try to inflict at least a little damage on him."

  "Done! Will you throw a bubble? I will be able to hold out five seconds more if you do. Who knows, they might come in handy?"

  "All right. Attention everyone! As soon as we're back to the normal world, we hit the boss immediately. Use all you've got, all abilities: we have to get him down to 20% in the next 4 minutes!

  We managed it in five minutes forty, after losing Brast, Crisp from the Heirs of the Titans and, most unfortunately, Leander, who was taken down by the phantoms. Azure Dragons had a top class healer – it was a surprise he wasn't in Phoenix. I was of little use in the battle with the boss – the level difference was just too huge, after all, so I used the time to take stock of the damage being dealt by the players. It was just as well that the special raid leader features allowed you to do that. What can I say ...? It was too bad I sent Donotpunnik for respawn first. The deputy head of Azure Dragons held a solid second place in damage after Plinto. What my Rogue was doing could only be described as a miracle: he was responsible for almost 40% of all the damage done to the boss.

  "I GROW TIRED OF PLAYING AROUND! TIME TO DIE!"

  "The last phase!" shouted Anastaria for anyone still wondering. "Stay focused on bringing down the boss!"

  "Bubble on Plinto!" Antsinthepantsa suddenly shouted. "There'll be a – "

  Boom! A giant staff appeared in the Lieutenant's hands, which he lowered right on top of the Rogue.

  "He's switching to the rest of the raid now!" Hellfire spoke up for the first time during the battle. "I'm no longer controlling him!"

  "Now we really are done," Stacey said in a somewhat tired voice, her hands dropping, "We'll never get through that last 20%, especially if you keep in mind that he has to make only thirty blows now. Damn! And I'd started to believe that we could nail this on our first attempt!"

  Boom!

  Surrounded by the dome, Plinto was 'hammered' about chest-deep into the ground. The bubble lasted ten seconds, five of which were already gone. Another two or three hits and we'd lose Plinto and it would be the turn of Exodus, 'Killer and so on, according to the amount of damage they were dealing. I had some cause to celebrate – I would be the one before last to be sent for respawn, right before Eric. ...

  Boom!

  "Maybe we can freeze him?" I said the first thing that came into my head. You had keep trying, instead of simply waiting your turn to be eliminated.

  "It's not working," Ehkiller said straight away, "We tried throwing 'freeze' and 'ice trap' on him ... . Nothing works. Seems to be some sort of a non-standard boss ..."

  Non-standard? Stop! There's something in this ... a non-standard boss who likes non-standard honey ... what nonsense! Although ...

  "Stop hitting the boss! At all!" I screamed across the entire clearing. "Hellfire, even you – stop doing anything! No damage to the boss!"

  "In five seconds the raid will start randomly sustaining massive damage," it was Anastaria's turn to respond.

  "Stacey, please, this is important! Remember! When the fight began, what was the number of the boss's Hit Points? Was anyone recording the fight? I need the boss's exact level of Health!"

  "99.9%!" said Plinto, whose head was the only part of him sticking out of the ground after another strike from the staff. The next hit would be the last for the Rogue, so I had to enact my plan fast.

  "Stacey, select the boss and hit him with a healing! Everyone stop hitting the boss already! If anyone else hits him, you’ll be excluded from the loot share!" Leading by example, I selected the Frankenstein and sent a Water Healing Spirit to him. Let it work, pretty please. The very fact that an aggressive boss could be healed made my mind boggle, but I’d completely turned off my brain and had decided to rely on my intuition alone. Am I a
Shaman or what? Speaking of which, I should find time to reshuffle my abilities, because although I was already 'Great' in rank, I was still only using ordinary Spirits. That needed fixing. ...

  Booo–.

  The staff froze right above Plinto's head as my healing entity entered the Lieutenant. Did it work? Looks like it did, but there was no stopping now. ...

  "Stacey, healers, get going! Everyone with any healing ability – use it!"

  "You're nuts for sure," said the girl, but started healing all the same, from what I could see. Good.

  The boss soon had 25% Hit Points ... 30 ... 50 ... .

  "Resurrection's unlocked!" Elenium shared the happy news.

  "Get Leander up!" came my immediate order. "Healers, keep getting the boss's health up until you reach 90%."

  "And then?" Anastaria immediately asked.

  "Then? Then everyone attacks the boss and brings him back down to 70, after which the healers again bring him up to 90. Then rinse and repeat until the entire raid is brought back to life. There are only 2 Priests for 34 corpses, so in total we need ... damn, I need a minute to count."

  "Eighty-five minutes," the girl immediately volunteered. "All right, we get the raid up, then what?"

  "Then nothing," I smiled, "The boss is unkillable. He is physically unkillable, no matter how much damage we deal to him. This is a wrong type of forest, which has a wrong type of boss. Who doesn't have to be killed, but has to be ..."

  "Healed," Anastaria understood my idea, "And what if it doesn't work?"

  "Then our 63-player crowd (except for Leite and Clutzer since they'll go down from the blast) will once again lay into the boss. We'll down him by brute force. Although something tells me that there's a reason for that question mark in the boss's properties. He'll be the one bringing us down. While now … can you see how long we've been trying to heal him? Five minutes? And he still hasn't used a single ability. We're on the right path, guys!"

  It turned out that this boss was perfect for leveling up your skills. Unlike the battle Spirits, the healing ones popped out without any level restrictions, so when the raid was fully back on its feet, the level of my Intellect increased by an entire seven points.

  "FREEDOM! IT IS SO CLOSE!" uttered the boss, when the level of his Hit Points reached 100%. "BUT THEY ARE STRONGER THAN I! MY LORD ORDERED YOU TO BE DESTROYED – I CANNOT DISOBEY HIS ORDER. DIE!"

  "Right," said Anastaria slowly, "He’s gone down to 99.9% again. Seems like we've missed something. Mahan?"

  "Ants!" – it seemed like I was just full of original ideas today – "I urgently need to get to the Astral Plane!"

  "The lesser penalty not enough for you?" asked the girl, surprised. "If you go there now, the Spirits will stop listening to you completely for a week!"

  "Ants! Take me to the Astral Plane, quick!" I barked at the girl, "We'll have time to be sorry for this later!"

  "No-one lets the boss drop below 95% Hit Points!" I heard Anastaria's orders. "Healers recharge their Mana, as soon as the boss reaches 95. We want to get him up to 100!"

  "Close your eyes," Antsinthepantsa sat me on the ground next to her. "What are we going to do there?"

  "You'll see in a minute." I had time to wink at the girl, though I realized she was unlikely to see it at this point. After closing her eyes, Antsinthepantsa started to sway from side to side, as if entering a trance. Is this how she always enters the Astral Plane? Cool. ...

  "You can open them now, we're here. Whoa, that's nuts!" exhaled the girl.

  I opened my eyes and saw pretty much what I expected: there was a cluster of white light, in places wreathed in red, gray and even green tones, and surrounded by the same phantoms who were making life difficult for the Elementals.

  "Draco, can you come?"

  "Ten minutes, no more."

  "That would be enough."

  "Them again?" exclaimed my Totem after he saw the Astral image of the Lieutenant.

  "Mahan, they can't be changed," whispered Antsinthepantsa, "I tried, but nothing happ–"

  "We don't need to change anything, Natalie." I smiled once again. "What I'm most curious about is why this boss was made impossible to complete without Shamans. You know, I think I finally understand what continent-wide scenario Elenium got from the High Priestess."

  "You know, you're really beginning to lose me." The girl looked at me, perplexed, "What are you on about?"

  "Doesn't matter now. It's just we're on the verge of a very big update in Barliona and a big part of it is a new dark power: the Lord of Shadow, Geranika."

  "I know this. How can it help us now?"

  "Tell me, what will happen if I start a Duel with my Totem here?"

  "I have no idea, but the Supreme Spirits aren't going to like it – they'll probably expel you. And me too."

  "How will this expulsion take place?"

  "How on earth should I know?! What are you thinking?"

  "Natalie, think. This is very important!"

  "They'll turn you into a shining or completely dark sphere, depending on which of the Spirits will be doing it, impose a penalty and kick you out of the Astral Plane."

  "Is there a way to make sure that it's the Light Supreme one that does it?"

  "There isn't. It's a fifty-fifty chance."

  "All right, thanks, and, if I turn into the Dark one, I’ll repeat my actions, all right?"

  "What's on your mind?"

  "Later, no time now! Stacey, get the boss up to 100% and keep him there for about half a minute."

  "Roger that!"

  "Draco, let's train for a bit. Attack me!"

  "HOW DARE YOU DEFILE OUR WORLD?" Just seconds later the terrifying voice of a Supreme Spirit sounded. "YOU WILL BE PUNISHED! A MONTH WITHOUT ACCESS TO THE ASTRAL PLANE! TWO WEEKS WITHOUT SPIRITS! A WEEK WITHOUT YOUR TOTEM! NOW BEGONE!"

  I got lucky ... it was the Supreme Spirit of the Higher World, the one that formed a shining sphere. ...

  "FREEDOM!" came the voice of the Lieutenant, as soon as I was thrown out of the Astral Plane. Although ... the Lieutenant was no more. We were facing a sentient that was maimed in some incomprehensible fashion. "THANK YOU HEROES FOR GIVING ME A CHANCE TO LEAVE THIS WORLD ALIVE. THANK YOU! RHEA, I’M COMING!" With these words the boss hit the ground and broke into all his constituent parts, which were almost immediately absorbed into the ground. All that was left for us was a small pile of loot – that for which we’d come here in the first place.

  Level gained! (8 times)

  Loot allocation has been completed (list), please confirm.

  After looking through the fifteen level-260 items left after the disappearance of the Lieutenant and finding nothing useful either for myself or for any of my clan members, including the high-level players, I decided not to use my right of veto on the loot and agreed with the allocation proposed by the Imitator. It did know best, after all, who should be getting what. For example, Antsinthepantsa, who had gained three levels in one go, got two items, which left her overjoyed. You don't need all that much to make some people happy, it seems.

  "That's it, enough fighting for today." I don't know about the rest of them, but I had lost any desire to go on with our journey right this minute. "Those who want to can get back to reality; we'll continue tomorrow. We still have the General and Midial himself ahead of us. So we’ll have our work cut out for us." I pulled out the tent, so that others had a chance to set it up, lay down in the mist and immediately dropped into sleep.

  Now I finally knew the nature of the phantoms commanded by Geranika.

  Chapter Ten. Unauthorized Actions

  Heroes of Malabar!

  The Empire is facing a calamity: Geranika's Cursed Dagger has been plunged deep into the heart of the Throne. If it is not destroyed within four months, the Emperor will perish. The Dagger can be destroyed with the help of a holy item that was lost in the Free Lands near Rastrum. The group (not larger than 20 people) that brings the required object is guaranteed to receive an exceptional reward and th
e personal regard of the Emperor. Be vigilant: starting from today the holy item may be stolen, there is a 100% probability that it will drop from the inventory during respawn while the 'Saviors of the Throne' symbol will appear above the group (safe zones will no longer function for players with such a symbol).

  Reward: Exalted Reputation with the Emperor, +15 Levels, +50000 Gold coins, a Scaling item from the Emperor's stores.

  Penalty for failing the quest: None.

  Quest type: Scenario.

  Level restrictions: None.

  Time limit for completing the quest: 120 days from the moment of this announcement.

  How time flies. It seemed like we were killing the Lieutenant just a couple of hours ago, although in fact so much time had already gone by. ... The General stubbornly refused to appear and there was still plenty of ground to cover before we would reach the designated spot.

  I waved away the message that the Emperor's quest had been renewed and continued to focus on ring crafting: time was running out and my Jewelcraft had barely passed level 82. Thankfully I had stocked up on the materials I needed beforehand; the Copper Ore that had come in the mail came in really handy. And it was just as well it arrived before we destroyed the Lieutenant. After his death, our raid was subjected to such severe restrictions that even Anastaria was scratching her head in confusion and periodically hopping out to reality to check things with the Corporation. Nothing like this had ever happened in all her gaming experience: the Dark Forest was blocked. ...

  "Stacey, I have a question," I started pestering the girl as soon as I awoke the morning after the battle with the Lieutenant, "What logic did you follow when gathering the raid?"

  "You spotted the mistake too, eh? Yes, I have to admit that we were altogether too hasty when deciding who should be gaining extra levels. Phoenix's two main Priests – a husband and wife – are on holiday now, so thinking that a location aimed at level 100 players wouldn't contain anything too important, we decided that one priest would be enough. It's the same story with the tanks ... we also decided not to include the spoilt brats."