Shadow Seer (Rogue Merchant Book #3): LitRPG Series

by Roman Prokofiev

  Damian: I’m with you. But what will our allies say?

  Komtur: Unity’s with us, and so are Brethren. I’ve talked to Goodfellow; he’s even happy to get some action. Crow and Madman...well, they’ll come to it. We can also call our friends, the Phoenix, and others.

  Olaf: The Phoenix... Have you heard what’s going on in the east? It’s been all over the news!

  Komtur: I stopped following the reports after Black River grew quiet. What’s going on?

  Olaf: A real mess. It’s unprecedented. Ananizarte’s gone mad. She’s rallied the entire House of Darkness and started a faction war with everyone who didn’t take her side.

  Damian: Well, a faction war, even a big one, is a common event...

  Olaf: It’s anything but common! NPCs have never conquered player castles. Well, other than that one time... Anyway, there are two large coalitions. Sixteen clans, including PROJECT HELL, joined the House of Darkness.

  Balian the Raccoon: It figures.

  Olaf: Yes. Two castles are already down. Nobody’s counting the outposts—they’re burning down like matches. Chaos lost their stronghold the day before yesterday. It was a huge fight. There are videos and battle reports; look it up. Brutal.

  Komtur: Chaos, hmm. It’s a strong clan.

  Olaf: Yes. Things are moving fast. Cardeval’s occupied. The Lady’s hordes are turning around to Kidon and Cydwen, and then the Fairs and the lands of the Phoenix. My point is, the Reds won’t be able to help us. I think they’ll ask for our help, actually. It’s going to get rough.

  Komtur: All right. We’ll see. As for the Pandas, I never doubted you. Now listen up. We have plenty to do. We need to return from Helt Akor and stop farming, fortify our defenses, set timers to our prime time, upgrade the magic shields in all of our outposts to level four, deliver the ellurite, and buy weapons and ammunition. Where’s Cat?

  Olaf: I’m tracking him. He’s in the Hole doing his super quest.

  Komtur: It’s time to stop idling around. Get him back; we have our plate full. If he stirred the pot, let him clear it up!

  Komtur: Oh, and one more thing. Let’s keep it under wraps; this is a private conversation. Cat doesn’t need to know about it—knowing him, he’d leave the clan to avoid endangering us.

  Olaf: I think so too. It would have been best for everyone.

  Komtur: No, we won’t betray ourselves. If you yield once, next time, you’ll break. We’ll learn what our members and allies are worth. In the fire of this war, we’ll either harden or burn down.

  Chapter 12

  SO WHAT DID IT look like? A frozen castle? A glass crown with hundreds of rays? A cluster of giant crystals reaching out to the sky?

  Hundreds of sharp icy spires, as if sculpted out of frosted silver and crystal glass, soared above the waters of the underground ocean. They were shrouded in iridescent light that scintillated all the colors of the rainbow. All of that shone and sparkled like a star that had somehow ended up in the grim black sea.

  “The Snow Queen’s castle,” Fayana mumbled, fascinated.

  “Umm?”

  “A story from my childhood,” she explained, lowering her eyes in embarrassment.

  “It does seem more like a clan castle than a natural anomaly,” Bonus agreed. “The towers, the spires, the central building... They seem frozen, covered with a sheet of ice. You can even make out the main arch... What is this place?”

  “Nobody knows, but the Crown of Ice hasn’t been here forever—it appeared around a year ago. Just popped up overnight,” the captain explained.

  “Can we disembark there and explore it?”

  “It’s pointless. See that radiant glow? It’s similar to the domes around castles and outposts, but a hundred times as powerful. You can’t get in.”

  “Maybe you just need to try harder?” Fayana asked. “If this place is protected, it must have something really nice.”

  “Many thought so, too. They assembled raids and ships,” Thrainul said, nodding. “I wasn’t around then, but I’ve heard enough. You can find a video online. In short, four hundred players and ten ships couldn’t overcome the basic regeneration of the Crown’s shield. I’ve seen the stats somewhere...you’d need unreal damage.”

  I looked at the pointed spires looming above. It really did look like a castle frozen centuries ago and covered with ice that hid all of the details, leaving only blurred outlines. It reminded me of the Crystal of Negation that had shrouded the Temple of Shadows but different. Unreal damage, you say? A vague thought stirred deep inside my mind, but I forced it back. I was only passing through; solving local riddles wasn’t my job.

  “I don’t believe that you can’t get inside,” Bonus kept on, stubborn. “Direct damage is one thing, but there must be ways of getting through the castle dome.”

  “They tried it,” Thrainul said with a reluctant nod. “People capable of that didn’t tell any details, but they failed, too. Something inside immediately one-shots you. The bottom line is, the Crown’s protected. Don’t touch it, just look.”

  I wondered if they tried approaching it from the Shadow Plane. Or were such experts a rarity? Just to be sure, I got a look at the frozen mass with my shadow sight...and immediately turned around, almost blinded by the dazzling light! In the Shadow Plane, the icy castle came across as a broken star radiating an unbearably bright glow. Staring at it was impossible, like a high sun, as crimson circles instantly appeared before my eyes. Whoever had created the mysterious structure did a great job protecting it—there was no getting inside through the Shadow Plane, as that place had no shadows to begin with!

  Slowly, we sailed around the Crown of Ice, studying it. Whatever it was, it was huge, as big as a real fortress. Its snowy crystalline facets surged from underwater; clean and impeccably smooth, they glittered in the sun. Even the gloom and grime of the Hole didn’t seem to tarnish it.

  “Local sea monsters steer clear of these parts,” Thrainul told us. “It’s calm here. You could even take a swim. Would you like to?”

  Was he joking? I felt shivers as soon as a looked at the black ever-still water. Seeing our faces, Thrainul burst out in laughter and took another sip from his large flask. He was a real booze-hound; I watched the last case of wine taken from the upper worlds become empty in real-time. It wasn’t a good sign—tickling your nerves with illusionary alcohol usually meant trying to escape problems in both real and virtual life. However, he seemed to be a competent captain, even if he was stubborn like a real zwerg.

  “From here, we’ll sail east, to the Sea of Terror,” he informed us. “We’ll get a peek, too. You wanted to see the local monsters, didn’t you? I promised you a hunt—we’ll have a small safari, ha-ha!”

  * * *

  The light of the Crown of Ice, meticulously documented by the Pioneers from all angles, slowly faded away. We were going east, to the core areas of the Hole and toward the enigmatic Sea of Terror marked as a blank spot on all maps. The Isle of Madness that I needed to reach hid somewhere in its depths. Despite my daily urging and fast-talking, Thrainul stubbornly refused to enter those waters. All I managed to do was to reaffirm his promise to drop me off at Scale, the island that was home to deepwater monster hunters. There, I planned on chartering a ship with a crew or, at least, obtaining more information. Scale was the closest inhabited island to the Sea of Terror, and I hoped that local sailors were better-informed than Thrainul. By his own admission, the zwerg didn’t like that region and only visited it in passing.

  The Hole bothered me more and more. Lack of light gave birth to depression. How could they live here, in constant darkness? The auction didn’t work, and neither did the remote contract system. The amenities offered by NPC settlements were limited to lodging at a local inn and a resp circle. There was no entertainment, either. I passed the time dueling with Rocky, who pushed me around the deck while teaching the basics of Esperanza. Gradually, I learned the ways of that fencing technique, as different from the material taught me at Liberty as a heavy two-
hander from a delicate rapier. Esperanza was a dance, and winning depended on controlling the distance and the opponent’s weapon, maneuvering, and the ability to choose the right position.

  You were the center of a circle, the tip of your blade marking its edge, and you always carried that center with you as you moved.

  I wondered what archetype Rocky, clearly a master of that art, had. Fencer? Duelist? I could use it myself, as my third slot after Free Merchant and Proxy was still filled with basic Swordsman—that archetype’s abilities were all but useless to me. Unfortunately, the requirements for the majority of rare and especially epic archetypes were unknown or secret.

  We had to interrupt our training, as Olaf suddenly appeared in my private messages, mad as a hornet. I had no idea what had caused his discontent, but he decided to pour it all out on me. Almost as an ultimatum, he demanded that I cancel my operation and return to Dorsa. The clan urgently needed to buy weapons for outposts and materials to upgrade fortifications. As usual, they wanted it yesterday.

  I wasn’t soulbound to the Hole, and teleporting via a Soul Stone or the clan portal meant leaving it for a while. How would I come back? Experience has shown me that even getting there was a problem. Yes, my voyage with Thrainul had run overtime, but I wasn’t going to abandon the Magister’s mission just one step away from my goal.

  In short, we agreed that as soon as I reached the closest port, I would bind my Soul Stone there and return to Condor via the clan portal. I didn’t really like that option. First, each player could only be bound to one point, and mine had always been in Eyre at Karn’s tavern; I didn’t want to change it. The Pandas were on my heels; in the Kingdom, I could count on my friends and the NPCs, but this world was different. If they pressed me down here, all I could hope was the admins’ help. Second, clan portals were limited by the number of travelers and cooldowns and belonged to the clan in any case. I couldn’t really count on them. What would happen if I lost access? I didn’t like that plan, but Olaf gave me no choice.

  Acquisitions couldn’t wait. I had to chase my own tail. I re-logged in as my twink, first transferring some money to that account, and used a Teleportation Scroll to travel to the Bazaar. There, I spent a few hours to find and “anchor” certain articles needed by the clan and prepare delivery contracts for Borland. I didn’t have enough skill points in Trade and had to re-login again and ask one of my clanmates to buy out the list of required items—for a fee, of course. All of this cost me more money than it would otherwise, inflicting almost literal pain, but there was no escaping it. Time cost even more, and I wanted to see my mission in the Hole to the end.

  When I returned, the Abyssal was sailing the glowing sea past giant stone pillars rising all the way to the unapproachable roof. Each of them was the size of a small island and was inhabited by colonies of bats. Thousands of them swarmed in the air, and the crew was seemingly exhausted with having to shoot down winged monsters circling above the ship.

  “We’re passing the Pillars,” Rocky informed me. “Soon, we’ll enter the uncharted territories. There, you’ll realize why the sea got this name....”

  In the meantime, the ship’s seeker climbed up on deck, pointing somewhere in the distance. Thrainul gave out orders I couldn’t make out, and the crew took their positions on the spinning platforms of the harpoon guns, at the cannons, and by the engine.

  Thrainul: We’ve found a target. I hereby request our tourists to get to the deck!

  I had already noticed that the Abyssal had quite a bit of firepower: three universal cannons mounted on moving platforms, several light bombards on supports, and two harpoon guns. The first, located at the front of the ship, was small but long-range—weapons like this were usually installed on astral ships. The second was a monstrous barrel in a separate cradle. It was loaded with a curved four-bladed hook resembling a large anchor. Back in Atrocity, the Pandas had used a missile like that to catch hold of my skiff. Its chain was similar, too—a heavy one with links big enough to fit a hand.

  In short, Thrainul’s weird ship was armed like an astral frigate—pretty good by Sphere’s standards. I had no idea why he’d need such firepower, especially a siege chain cannon usually mounted on top of an outpost tower.

  “Who’s there?” Bonus asked anxiously, looking forward. “What did you find?”

  “An Overgrowth and a Singer,” Thrainul replied, still glued to the eyepiece of a long spyglass. What could he see in that impenetrable darkness? Or did he have Darkvision? It was possible.

  “Going by the signal, it’s a Singer...”

  The Abyssal put on speed. Confidently, it dissected the unmoving water, leaving two foamy waves in its wake. The behavior of the captain and the crew told me that we weren’t going to submerge; the hunt would happen above water.

  “If it’s a Singer, we need to buff everyone with Mind Shield!” Stormbreaker yelled from the aft.

  “No need; it’s money down the drain!” Thrainul brushed him off. “She can’t charm all of us, anyway...”

  The ray of light beaming from the Abyssal, previously wandering across the black water, suddenly illuminated something alien and pale that flickered just above sea level and immediately returned to the depths. The ship’s searchlight paired with the front harpoon gun locked onto the odd creature sliding just above the surface.

  I stared at it, blinked, clutching the railing, and suddenly saw a slender girl effortlessly running across the waves. Smiling and playfully tossing her flowing hair, she beckoned to me and pulled away from the ship, translucent and laughing. A ghost? An unspeakably sad tune began playing in my ears—the girl was singing in an unknown language.

  You reflect Song of the Sea with Ascetic!

  As I looked around, I saw almost everyone drinking in her song, drawn toward its source, their expressions strange. Bonus was almost about to climb over the railing. I grabbed him by the belt, holding him back, and Thrainul yelled, breaking the Singer’s enchantment, “Fire! Attack her, wake up!”

  The chain gun on the bow fired a sharpened harpoon missile, the thin metal chain uncoiling in its wake. The shot hit the water, and the spear fully submerged, only to slowly reappear a second later. The singing girl vanished, her song stopping with a dissonant howl of pain. The protruding shaft twitched, straining the chain to the limit with enough force to shake the Abyssal’s hull.

  “Finish it! Finish it, or it will escape!” Thrainul shouted.

  Stormbreaker, Rocky, and someone else grabbed the bows and the bombards and started firing at the pale smudge hit by the harpoon. The creature hiding underwater twitched a few more times and finally resurfaced in a deformed white blob that resembled a clump of sticking hair. She uttered a sorrowful, almost human-like, moan and stopped dead, expiring.

  The spool of the harpoon wound up, dragging the prey back to the ship, and several hooks raised the body aboard. I stepped back, recoiling in disgust. A Medusa-like creature the size of a human was lying on the deck, spilling sickening-looking ectoplasm across the floor. Hundreds of pale “braids,” a translucent, gelatinous body barely masking the dark shapes of the internal organs...

  “Meet the Singer,” Thrainul introduced the dead monster. “You can add it to your bestiary. A ghostly monster with hypnosis and illusion skills. Inhabits the outskirts of the Sea of Terror. On a one to five danger scale, it’s about a two.”

  “What does it drop?”

  “We’ll show you!” Thrainul chuckled. One of his assistants stepped forward and stood above the body, and the curved blade of a skinning knife flashed in his hands. I looked the other way—sometimes, Sphere was a little bit too realistic, especially when it came to gutting various freaks.

  “Ectoplasm, rare ingredients...and that’s it? Eww.” I heard Fayana’s voice.

  “Sometimes, we get a Minor Stone of Distortion. Two hundred coins. But only from adult specimens; this one is too small.”

  “What’s the use for these ingredients? Alchemy?”

  “Mostly, yes, but
we usually use them in a different way. You’ll see.”

  “It was all too simple and fast,” I told the approaching Gravekeeper. “Over before I knew it. I was promised terrifying underwater monsters, and this is just an overgrown medusa.”

  After hearing me out, Rocky burst out laughing.

  “Did you think it was a hunt?” he asked me amidst his laughter. “Seriously?”

  “Yes, so?”

  “Oh, no, man. We’ve just caught live bait.”

  Thrainul and his assistant were deftly packing whatever had been inside the Singer into a black, red, and purple orb, holding it down with a net and a few metal chains.

  “See that? It’s our bait,” the Gravekeeper said with a smirk. “We’re going to attach it to a hook, and that’s when the real hunt will begin.”

  The bait turned out to be three feet in diameter, probably designed for one hell of a mouth. The hook was the four-bladed harpoon from the rear chain gun. What kind of prey were they going to catch? An elephant?