The Phantom Castle (The Way of the Shaman: Book #4) LitRPG series

by Vasily Mahanenko

  The Phantom Castle

  a novel

  by Vasily Mahanenko

  The Way of the Shaman

  Book#4

  Magic Dome Books

  The Phantom Castle

  The Way of the Shaman, Book # 4

  Copyright © V. Mahanenko 2016

  Cover Art © V. Manyukhin 2016

  English translation copyright © Boris Smirnov 2016

  Published by Magic Dome Books, 2016

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is entirely a work of fiction. Any correlation with real people or events is coincidental.

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  Table of Contents:

  Chapter 1. The Bloody Tears of Tavia

  Chapter 2. Shamanic Dances to a Tambourine

  Chapter 3. The Riddle of the Castle

  Chapter 4. Preparations for the Journey

  Chapter 5. The First Dragon Dungeon

  Chapter 6. The Blood Ritual

  Chapter 7. Narlak

  Chapter 8. Meeting Altameda

  Chapter 9. Clan Maneuvers

  Chapter 10. Storming the Castle

  Chapter 11. The Thricinian Secret

  Chapter 12. The Labyrinth of Desires

  Chapter 13. A Random Encounter

  Chapter 14. Urusai — or, The Secret of Altameda

  Chapter 1. The Bloody Tears of Tavia

  “Enough lounging around!” Anastaria’s mocking voice pierced the fog in my head, forcing me back to reality. For several moments, my brain refused to work as though it mistrusted its own senses, but at last this levee of mistrust gave way and my thoughts rushed burbling back into my mind. Let’s see…I am lying on the ground, so my latest attempt at flying must have failed. And everything hurts as though all my insides have been broken, so my landing must have been a hard one. The one small comfort is that, judging by the system time, only ten minutes have elapsed since my fateful crash and I won’t have to respawn after all.

  “Should we poke him with a stick?” Plinto’s voice joined Anastaria’s. “Maybe he’ll get a move on?” What’s he doing here? He’s not figured out his own abilities yet, but here he is butting in. If I’m a Dragon, I have to learn how to fly somehow, don’t I?

  “Oh, someone’s going to get poked all right!” I grumbled. I gathered my strength and sat up, leaning against the tree which, memory served to remind me, I had just crashed into a few minutes ago. “How’s Clutzer?”

  “Still alive, it seems. Story of my life,” came Clutzer’s hoarse voice from the other side of the tree, indicating that he had suffered no less than me, yet at the same time bringing me some more relief. So my crash landing into the tree had not sent my rider to respawn either. A little consolation, that!

  “Are you going to stay there for long? You have another forty minutes of training ahead of you. Be so kind as to get on with it!” said Anastaria, seemingly unconcerned with my health. I don’t feel well, I’m hurt and I’m upset, and here she is thinking only about how to extend our stay with our tormentor. This girl is heartless. What idiot decided that she was perfect anyway?

  The first month of our stay with the Vampire Patriarch was coming to a close, and I can attest with full confidence that this was the darkest period of my gaming career, as Hunter or Shaman!

  The first two days had passed in pleasant ease. The Patriarch treated us to various edifying delights, regaled us with engaging tales and in the company of Ishni the Unicorn, showed us the wonders of the Dark Forest. The Green Waterfall alone was worth it! From an immense boulder, fifty meters high and surrounded by enormous and (thanks to Ishni) living trees, a small stream set out on an epic journey. Three hundred kilometers later this stream turned into one of the many tributaries of the Nelda River, the second largest in Malabar. And yet even this much tinier headwater stunned us with its beauty. The limpid and delicious water, which instantly restored Energy and Hit Points, fell from a boulder whose very presence in the Dark Forest gave rise to numerous questions, such as for instance, how it even got there. It’s precisely this kind of careful attention to detail on the part of the location designers that causes certain players to dedicate their entire gaming lives to traveling Barliona. To them, a few days’ flight on a griffin is nothing for a chance to see a marvel like these! The Green Waterfall, the perfectly circular lake into which it tumbled and around which grew rows of green, white and red flowers, the renewed glade of the Guardian of the Dark Forest…In two days we saw so many astounding and lovely sights that we were entirely unprepared for what was to follow. On our return to the Patriarch’s castle, we were all a little overwhelmed by our contradictory feelings. The Patriarch’s face expressed pride in his warriors’ impeccable performance of their duties. Ishni seemed preoccupied with something. The vampires were clearly happy that they had pleased their ruler. As for me and the other players, we were slowly coming to terms with the melancholy realization of what awaited us. The mighty citadel that had for twenty years resisted the assault of the Fallen had become a giant training ground. Obstacle courses, swinging pendulums, training dummies, imitation bosses and then further pendulums and further obstacle courses—I didn’t even know the proper names for most of these devices, yet I could tell by the satisfied look on the face of
Barliona’s bloodsucker-in-chief that this period of training would bring dividends in short order. The one upshot was that, as a Shaman, I figured that the running paths and obstacle courses did not concern me. Let the Rogues and Warriors have their fun with them—Anastaria, Barsina and I would spend the time studying our magical abilities.

  How mistaken I was…

  Initially we were all assigned a single quest called simply ‘Training.’ This was a rare, almost unique quest that suggested that for four weeks we would undergo training under a special methodology which had been developed by arcane monks and which in the end would enable our consciousness to transfer a portion of the skills obtained in the game back into reality. While doing this quest, players could leave the game three times a day for a duration of two hours—we would fail the quest if we left more than thrice or for longer than two hours at a time. Since the quest reward was a one-time bonus of +15 to all main stats, no one wanted to risk failing it. Accordingly, having hopped out into reality once, all three of the Free Players were back an hour later, ready like a band of noble guerrillas to easily and painlessly begin working for their destined reward. Ah, the naiveté of children!

  Twenty-eight game days under the leadership of the Patriarch fused together into a single grueling day filled with exhaustion, pain, suffering and then more exhaustion. Morning training was followed by training and then a short break of training. After that came lunch in the form of training and only then a full-scale, in earnest training, after which we finally received a short rest in the form of training, right before getting down to the evening’s training. Before we turned in for the night, we had to do a warming-down training and during the night we were awoken three times for some more, brief, hour-long trainings. Even that first month at the Pryke Mine had not exhausted me as much as the Patriarch’s minions managed this time around.

  Only a few days after training began, Draco, whom I’d summoned as soon as I got the chance, began to turn up among the bushes, wondering whether any of the ‘tormentors’ were around. The Patriarch had explained right away that it was vital that the Totem’s skills were improved and that as a result he would personally allot two-and-a-half hours each day to working with the Dragon. He put him through all the paces—forced him to breathe fire, pushed him up to Acceleration level 4, developed his coordination, hit accuracy, and taught him low-level flight. Two weeks of this madness brought my Totem up to Level 48­—and the verge of a nervous breakdown, when, popping up in the bushes yet again, he flat out refused to continue if he was forced to go to that ‘damn fang-face, who sucks both blood and spirit.’ To my astonishment, when I relayed this message to him, the Patriarch merely hummed with satisfaction and informed me that one Dragon’s training had finally reached its conclusion.

  “On the other hand,” he added after a bit of thought, “now we can begin to train the other Dragon! In two hours, I expect to see you at the pendulums in your Dragon Form. Until then, it’s time to do some running. Chop, chop!”

  I spent the rest of the time learning how to fly. In other words, in addition to my regular training, I started flight training. It’s worth mentioning that the ‘blessing’ of additional training did not alight on me exclusively—the Patriarch found time for Anastaria the Siren and Plinto the Vampire as well. While one of us was in class, the others were running the obstacle courses or grinding their main stats—Barsina, Anastaria and I worked on our Intellect, the rest on Rage and Agility.

  “Mahan, put on the diadem,” said the Patriarch sanguinely during yet another training session. “Clutzer! Stop jogging and get over here! You’re going to be the lab rat!”

  After two weeks of training in Dragon Form, I was quite adequate at keeping myself up in the air for the entire twenty-five minutes. This was the maximum that my fifth Dragon rank allowed me. According to the Patriarch, I would have to speak with Renox if I wished to reach past the rank milestones (that is, Ranks 5, 10, and so on in intervals of five). Only the head of the Dragons could decide whether someone was worthy of promotion or whether it was still too early. And yet, the Patriarch also flat out refused to teach us how to open a portal to the land of the Dragons. As he explained—when the time comes, I’d find my way there on my own.

  “Do you understand your mistake now?” asked the Patriarch, approaching me.

  “I didn’t make any mistakes,” I replied, rubbing my sore feet with my sore hands. “Is it my fault that Clutzer is fat and keeps trying his best to fall? I didn’t even have time to get off the ground properly before he started panicking and begging me to let him down. Though, wait, my mistake is that I even allowed a Free Citizen to take a ride on my back in the first place! That’s what pets are for!”

  “Strength, Mahan,” the Patriarch launched into his lecture completely ignoring me. “Your Strength is too low. And we need to do something about that. You’re not simply a Shaman—you’re also a Dragon, and a Dragon must have strength! Even though we have only a day or two of training remaining, you and I will use it to our utmost. Reandr!” The Patriarch called over one of his aides. “Mahan can rest for another two minutes and then he’s off to intensive Strength training! We’re going to turn this little gecko into a true Dragon!”

  Having made a dramatic pause and looked over the players’ smiling faces, the vampire went on:

  “Anastaria, I’ll be expecting you in two minutes in your Siren Form. Everyone else—head on over to obstacle course number two. Clutzer, stop trying to hide behind that tree! You’re not Mahan’s Totem! Stop pretending you’re sick and weak! Go on now—the obstacle course awaits you.”

  ‘Training’ Quest has been completed. All main stats have increased by 15. Energy increased by 10.

  I never imagined that completing a quest in a video game could make me so happy! Grinning like a madman, I allowed a pendulum to knock me out of the obstacle course, fell to the earth, closed my eyes and didn’t even entertain the idea of getting back up.

  “Move over,” wheezed Anastaria and collapsed beside me. I hadn’t even the strength to protest. What kind of “move over” can there be, when you have an entire forest to collapse in? But no—you just have to lie down in the same spot I’m resting in.

  “Mahan!” If I wasn’t mistaken, Plinto had collapsed somewhere nearby as well. “Don’t you have several quests like these? I’ve acquired some enemies in these twelve years playing this game—I’d love it if you shared some of these quests with them. Let them sweat a bit too!”

  He was probably expecting some reply from me, but I didn’t even have the strength to move my tongue. Actually, forget strength—I hadn’t the desire. Rolling over on my back with a groan and staring at the blue sky through the crown of trees, I opened my stats and began to study the results of all that training. Had all this suffering been justified or not?

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  Well, well.

  Maybe it was worth asking the Patriarch for another round of four weeks? But hardly had the thought occurred to me, when a convulsion gripped my entire body—my body simply refused to suffer a trial like this again. Turning my head, I saw the Siren lying beside me—Anastaria hadn’t even had the strength to leave her form once training had ended.

  “Stacey, what are we going to do about the barbarians? We have to summon the Herald in a few days and we haven’t even discussed how we’re going to get that castle.”

  “Why, we don’t have to do much as it stands.” The girl’s answer stunned me. “The Emperor cou
ld not simply give you the castle—it’s too great a present. At the same time, he was compelled to give it to you somehow in return for all we had done for Barliona. Geranika is mortal now and I’m certain that soon enough there will be a new update that will create a third Empire. It’s silly to assume that the dwarves can’t do anything about some raids. All we need is to gather our strength, get on the warpath and go get our castle. Or did you think that I would refuse my title? I figured all of this out a long time ago but haven’t had a chance to tell you, what with this training and all. I haven’t been this exhausted in a long time. Did you know that they turned off our sensory filters? That was the only way to ensure that our skills would transfer to reality.”

  “I couldn’t give a damn for such skills!” muttered Plinto. “Why do I—an overweight, old and ailing man—need to know how to climb trees? What am I going to do with such a useless talent? Spook random passersby in the street?”

  “You’ve got a point,” Stacey smiled. “Tarzan will have to have a nervous smoke and re-examine his life when he sees you climb up a tree and have it sink beneath your weight! This training…”

  “Was merely beginners’ difficulty,” interrupted the Patriarch. “Everyone should rest and gather their strength, so we can continue. A couple of months will suffice, I think. The next stage should be much more interesting!”

  Quest available: ‘Training: Level 2’

  A stillness descended upon the training area. Lying on the ground, I opened and closed my eyes several times, as if trying to dismiss the notification floating before them, informing me about the upcoming dose of pain and horror. In the second level, which would last six weeks, all main stats would be increased by 60 points. It would begin two months from the present day. The quest even came with fine print that explained that the Patriarch would come get each of us individually regardless of where in Barliona we were at the time. Even if we were on a different continent!