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

by Vasily Mahanenko

  "The wings have given out”, she said sadly. "An epidemic arose near Priant and I couldn't leave the Orcs to battle it out by themselves. Leantariel warned me that the wings needed recharging, but ... I've grown tired, Shaman. I've spent such a long time flying around the world that I've forgotten where my home is. The whole of Barliona has become my home – I am welcome everywhere, everyone is glad to see me. ... But my strength is ebbing and each day it's more and more difficult even to get up on my feet, let alone go around saving others. Still, duty calls ... I decided to take a shortcut through the Shining Mountains when the wings failed. But tell me, what were you looking for amidst the mountains?"

  Fully aware that what I was doing was pretty daft, I told Yalininka everything – that I was from the distant future, that in my time a Shaman had appeared and destroyed two Emperors and that no-one knew the nature of his power. When I explained the aim of my quest, the Great One gave a barely perceptible start and asked me to continue.

  "The portal took me here and the rest you know," I finished my tale.

  "You had a perfectly good opportunity to complete your task by simply turning away," said the woman thoughtfully. "Why did you intervene?"

  "If I didn't do it, then ... I don't know how to explain this. Honor, the desire to help another human being, the feeling of self-respect ... I could use a lot of words here, but they wouldn't really get to the heart of it. I was just unable to do otherwise."

  "I heard you, Shaman, and now you listen to me," replied Yalininka after some thought. "My time is coming to an end. It is already finished and I am only keeping myself in this world by an unspeakable effort of will. I long for rest at long last. As far as I understood you, your task is to destroy me, so ... Let's not disappoint Geranika."

  "Great One ..."

  "My decision is final!" The Emperor himself would have envied the authority commanded by this frail old lady’s voice. "Shaman, your task is to save your own time! To save Barliona! If Geranika's armies attack, would the Free Citizens be able to stop them? Right now the secret of the phantoms remains unknown, so the answer to that is no, they would not! You have to walk this path to the end, ignoring any possible punishment! That's the only way to become one of the Great Ones! Here, you will pass this gift on to someone you believe worthy of following in my footsteps." With these words Yalininka handed me a thin blue ribbon. "And now come with me. If I understood you right, Geranika wants me to die before your eyes ..."

  Item acquired: The Farewell Ribbon of the Great Yalininka. The description can only be accessed by players that possess the Healing stat.

  Requirements: At least 100 levels in Healing.

  Item class: Unique.

  I never thought that tears could come to my eyes. The thirty seconds that it took Yalininka to reach the clouds below seemed an eternity to me: I don't think I've ever felt such hopelessness, helplessness and anger before. What kind of a quest would make you commit such a terrible deed? Where's the logic?

  A minute later the system informed me that Geranika's task had been completed and a portal opened next to me. The Great One was dead. ...

  Update to the 'The Making of a Dark Shaman' quest: Should you successfully complete the quest, your Reputation with all the factions of Malabar and Kartoss will change to Hatred.

  A flash of light!

  "I'm impressed with your actions, my future apprentice," uttered Geranika, as soon as I reappeared in the Castle of the Fallen. My brain had a solid grasp of what was happening, that it was only a game, but my feelings were telling me only one thing: Geranika had to be destroyed. "You made Yalininka kill herself ... I couldn’t have even hoped for something like that. You will become a worthy warrior of Shadow.”

  "Mahan ... your eyes are streaming mist now," Anastaria informed me. "The continent-wide quest has once again been renewed: 'Wait for the Shaman's trial.' What the heck are you doing?"

  "Saving Barliona and clocking up a ton of penalties," I growled in chat. "Stacey, I might be wrong (though that's unlikely), but very soon we'll see the emergence of a third Empire – the Shadow Empire. You won't be able to play for it, but it will feature the phantoms that we came across when fighting the Lieutenant. At the moment only Shamans have the ability to fight them – that is, only Shamans who've managed to unlock the 'Change of Essence' ability. That wasn't right, which is why Elenium's continent-wide quest has been launched. Right now I'm trying to find out the nature of these things and all your quests will eventually correct themselves into an ability of some kind, which will make it possible for every class to destroy the phantoms. This is why I started the trial and will see it through to the end, no matter the price I’ll have to pay in terms of Reputation. Can you tell me if you know how Yalininka died?"

  "She was flying to someone's aid, but overestimated her strength and fell, perishing in the mountains. Judging by what Geranika just said, history has been somewhat economical with the truth. How did you convince her to jump?"

  "I'll tell you later."

  "It's a pity that you've decided to fight these guys," a message immediately came from Plinto. "I was already looking forward to becoming a warrior for Shadow ... but being the hero of Malabar isn't bad either. Will you kill us in the end? We've probably been kept alive for now only so they can use us for a sacrifice later on."

  "But this goes against the social aspect of the Game!" Barsina intervened. "Barliona is meant to embody what is good and eternal, not provoke a player into destroying everything that he values. ... That's just wrong!"

  "It's a scenario, Barsa. I agree with Mahan here," said Anastaria, “If Shadow really does emerge as a force, everyone, not just Shamans, will have to fight Geranika. Go for it, boss, we'll support you ..."

  Ding! You've received 163287 new messages. Do you wish to view them?

  "Now comes the second trial," continued Geranika, tearing me away from chat and the Mailbox. 163000 messages?! Why on earth?! The mailbox refreshed every two hours, so how was it even possible to write so many in such a short time?! It looks like I'll have to forget about hand-sorting the mail and cough up the cash for a mail-sorting Imitator – it could handle all the mail analysis for me.

  "You are to visit your first teacher in Farstead and destroy him. The link between a teacher and an apprentice is so strong that only a sufficiently prepared sentient is able to sever it. I managed it by myself and didn't need to kill Almis. But you do, otherwise you will never become my apprentice. Go!" Another red portal appeared next to Geranika.

  A flash of light!

  "I was expecting you, apprentice." The portal took me to a familiar room where I was once offered tea. To my surprise, the room was now empty: stripped of all furniture, with the High Shaman Almis in full battle attire standing at its center – staff, cloak, hat with deer antlers ... he was prepared. "If you think that I will allow myself to be destroyed so easily, you are very much mistaken. I was unable to lift my hand against Geranika, but I won't fail to act against a second traitor! Prepare to die!"

  "Almis, stop!" was all I had time to shout before a bird dove for my head: the High Shaman's Totem. A message immediately appeared telling me that I had been attacked by an NPC and thus had every right to defend myself. Too bad it was the last thing I felt like doing. "Stop it!" I shouted again, when a Supreme Spirit of Fire flew at me, leaving me with only 10% of Hit Points. Ah well, looks like I failed in my second task. I can't summon Spirits and wouldn't do that even if I could.

  "Fight, traitor!" growled Almis. "Or do you think that I lack the will to destroy an unarmed foe? You're wrong! Fight and die like a man!"

  "I have no intention of fighting you! If you want to kill me, go ahead and do it. I won't resist. Almis! We need to talk! I'm here to ..."

  "No!" I was interrupted by the Shaman's angry shout. "I have nothing to say to a traitor! If you don't wish to fight with Spirits, fine! I'll destroy you with my staff!" With these words Almis leapt over to me, raising his staff, ready to strike me down. All I could do wa
s push him away and jump aside. The reflexes that I honed as a Hunter kicked in fully. I tumbled a meter and a half away, dodging the staff, but Almis ... he froze where he stood and stared into the distance with a surprised expression. Several seconds went by and then the Life Bar of the High Shaman started to diminish.

  "How?" my teacher's voice was hoarse as he struggled to get the words out. "This is impossible!"

  To be honest, I was in as much shock as Almis. What was happening to him? How could my simple push do something so terrible? This simply couldn't be happening!

  "May you be ..." was all the master of the house managed to croak before his Life Bar flickered and disappeared, leaving only his elaborately carved staff, the tip cloaked in a strange mist, in place of the High Shaman.

  "Bravo, very nearly, my apprentice – bravo!" The air in one of the corners suddenly thickened and turned into Geranika. "Leave that stick, it's of no use to you," he added when he saw me lean over the staff. "I must admit, I first thought that you’d decided to betray me, but such a cunning move with a single strike was very much to my liking. To make the opponent doubt himself and then deal him a devastating blow when he was least expecting it ... I am pleased with you, my almost-apprentice, but come now, two more trials still await you. After these you will truly become my apprentice. Though, why waste time? Will you drop that oversized twig already?"

  "If my future teacher would permit me, I would like to keep it in memory of my first victim," I said respectfully. "It isn't every day that a Great Shaman defeats a High one, so I'd like to remember this moment."

  "Good point," agreed Geranika. "I’ll allow you to keep the staff, you can hang it in my castle. But to avoid wasting time (there's never enough of it), I will start your training now. I don't believe that after turning your back on your race and your class you would not reject everything else. Remember this, my future apprentice: the Spirits of both worlds require a sacrifice for the summoning of their progeny. The higher the rank of the Spirit that you summon, the higher the sacrifice you have to pay. If you’d remained an ordinary Shaman, summoning a Supreme Spirit of the thirtieth rank would have cost you all your Life Force. Yes, you could have summoned the Spirit, but that would've sent you to the Grey Lands. This is why Shamans came up with altars in an attempt to placate the Spirits before they are summoned. Fools! Weaklings! How could they fail to understand that we are the ones that should command the Spirits, stripping them of part of their power? For a long time I could not come to terms with such a state of affairs, until I was struck by a revelation: where there is light, there must also be darkness! If there are Spirits, there must also be those that oppose them! But who could this be? I spent a long time studying this matter, until I came upon the source of the power. A power that is the complete opposite of the Spirits! So let's not linger here, it is time we got back. Another trial awaits and I am eager to begin your training. You will greatly outshine Midial."

  Update to the 'The Making of a Dark Shaman' quest. Should you successfully complete the quest, your reputation with the Supreme Spirits of the Higher and the Lower Worlds will change to Hatred.

  A flash of light!

  "Now the dark mist is coming off your hair too," Anastaria immediately reported as soon as we reappeared in the Castle of the Fallen. "While you've been running around bumping off NPCs, Ehkiller sent me a message. The United forces of Malabar – around forty thousand fighters – have been transported by our Mages to the Dark Forest. According to 'Killer they'll arrive in the vicinity of the Castle in about ten minutes, so get ready for things to get rough. 'Killer took a scroll of Armageddon with him, so very soon this place will get a visit from the fluffy northern beastie, as Clutzer would put it. They have only one aim – to destroy the player called Mahan and prevent him from completing the trial. It looks like they didn't get the quest update like we did."

  "The next task, my future apprentice," continued Geranika, "is to have you completely sever any ties with your Shamanistic past. When I found my new source of power, I had to destroy my Totem, which was the essence of the Spirits of both worlds. You cannot keep your Totem! Prove that you are fully ready to become one of us! Destroy your Dragon!"

  Supreme Spirits of both worlds! If I remain a Shaman after all this madness, I'll be sure to give you some proper gift! If not for the penalties that you’d slapped on me for the explosion in the Astral Plane, I would have failed Geranika's trial for sure. I wouldn't let anyone destroy Draco!

  "I can't …" I started to say, but was immediately interrupted by Geranika:

  "Are you again refusing to take your place by my side?"

  "No, I do want to be your apprentice, but destroying my Totem is beyond my power right now. It needs to be summoned, but the Supreme Spirits placed a penalty on me. For the next week and a half I will be as powerless as the Shaman of the old school. I'm sorry I've let you down, future teacher, but destroying the Totem is impossible right now ..."

  "Old school ... an excellent expression – worth remembering! But how could you … Who on earth is that?"

  A battle horn seemed to sound right outside the gates. Such sounds put a series of beneficial buffs on a group or a raid and served as the signal for attack.

  "'Killer's here." Anastaria played the part of Captain Obvious.

  "Phoenix will break through the gates!" came Hellfire's shout. "Legion," – they’d brought the Dark Legion with them too! – "lay siege to the towers! Azures and Heirs – the support is on you. As soon as we break through, everyone must try to destroy Mahan! He's the main target, not the Dark Ones! Battering rams and ballistae to the front! Attack when ready!"

  "I've thought of a different trial for you," Geranika turned to me with a playfully malicious smirk. "We can leave the Totem for later – it isn't going anywhere.” With these words my potential teacher disappeared and the entire forest descended into a frightening silence. Even the sounds of the battle horn had died down, not daring to disturb the stillness of the forest.

  "Daft hero wannabes," summed up Plinto: "Geranika froze two hundred players near Beatwick – did these morons think it would be any different here?"

  "YOU DARED TO ATTACK MY CASTLE WHILE I'M TRAINING MY APPRENTICE?!" The Lord of Shadow was up in the air, towering a few meters above the wall. Judging by the total lack of lightning strikes, arrows or curses flying towards him, the players were affected by the 'Stun' debuff and were lying scattered around the ground in quiet bundles. Forty thousand bodies ... how on earth did they all fit in the small glade in front of the castle? Or were most of them still in the forest?

  "I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO INTERFERE WITH MY PLANS! APPRENTICE!" Geranika turned around and some unknown force lifted me off the ground. Smoothly, with impressive precision, I flew to the gates and beheld an epic spectacle: a field strewn with high-level players. They were covering everything – the small glade before the gates, the forest and the tree tops were decorated with the heroic hulks of the frozen saviors of Barliona – from poor old me. "NOW I SHALL TEACH YOU A LESSON! WATCH!"

  Several dozen players flew up in the air, like weightless feathers picked up by a gust of wind, and floated over to us. Hmmm ... Rick from Phoenix, Etamzilat from Heirs of the Titans, and many more players I didn't know ... all of them had turned up here, hell bent on sending me for respawn. Maybe I really should just ditch the lot of them and start playing for Shadow? However today's meeting would go, forty thousand players – if Anastaria wasn't embellishing the truth – would become very hostile towards me.

  "The first thing you should remember," continued Geranika in a normal voice, "is that a Shaman's chief aim is not to be paying tribute, but making full use of his opponent's Life Force. Spirits cannot be summoned without receiving a sacrifice first, which is why it is a given that they are weak. Now watch my actions and then tell me that you’ve understood."

  Dark phantoms flew out of Geranika's hands, surrounded the floating players and in a few moments vanished. The players vanished with them, while a handfu
l of gold (it turned out that not everyone goes for the upgraded purse option) and several items dropped to the ground: a jacket, a belt and boots of some kind. All legendary items that have a 10% drop chance. ... No, the players won't just rail at me, no ... I'm a goner, plain and simple.

  "What do you make of it?" Geranika asked me.

  "These dark entities, which I call phantoms, were summoned and have seized their victims," I hazarded a guess. "At the same time they exact a payment, but they take it from the victim ..."

  "Don't repeat my words," interrupted Geranika. "I want to hear your thoughts. Do not disappoint me, apprentice!"

  Apprentice? No longer 'future apprentice'? Right, it seems that I've reached my aim, now I just need to make good use of it.

  Ding! You've received 3844521 new messages. Do you wish to view them?

  Will they quit with the 'fan mail' already? Where did all these letters come from?? Bah! Never mind, I'll sort through them later. ...

  "The phantoms came out of your hands, teacher," I started saying the first thing that came into my head. Like an ancient tribesman, who makes a song out of what he’s looking at: “ They don't appear in the victims, like Spirits, they ... they live in you. So it appears that in order to learn how to summon them, you have to go through an initiation, invite the phantoms within. ... You spoke of a source, so there must be some object, a shard of which will be implanted, inlaid, engrafted – I don't know which word is appropriate here – into me. Why a shard? Because you're taking on an apprentice, which means that the object has not been absorbed by you completely. I'm certain that a similar shard is inside Midial. (Where is he, by the way? I haven't seen him around the Castle yet.) The phantoms do not return, which means that they die ... but then, if I'm right, one would no longer be able to summon them after a certain point. So this means that the phantoms do not die. They ... I don't know, teacher."