The Secret of the Dark Forest ( (The Way of the Shaman: Book #3) (32 page)

This was a great relief. I didn't even have to summon Spirits – by the looks of it the design mode combined beautifully with the Spirit summoning mode, so the newly-summoned bodiless entities started to circle around the ring, returning it to its initial shape. That's it – it's as good as done now: Draco will finish frying the ring and the Patriarch will give me my reward. I even managed to sigh in relief until the next piece of news tore all my plans to shreds.

"Fourth!" shouted the Totem and the Spirits that I’d summoned evaporated as if they’d never been there. I summoned them a couple more times, but as soon as they flew to the ring, which started to melt again, the Spirits vanished. They weren’t the right level. ...

You have summoned the Spirit of Petrification.

+1 to Spirituality. Total: 25.

Now I could clearly feel an inferno raging around me, and periodically a message flashed before my eyes that I’d lost 1–2 Hit Points on account of the blowing hot air. A Totem's fire cannot harm its master, but the air that he heats up is oblivious to the fact that the Totem means me no harm. The summoning of the ordinary Petrification Spirits did not come easy to me; I felt my head growing heavy, some strange hum spreading through my ears (on second thoughts, it might have been the Dragon's fire) and there was an unpleasant metallic taste in my mouth: the ring became whole once again.

"Fifth!" If the hoarse voice that just sounded was any indication of his current state, Draco wasn't feeling too great right now. The worst part was that I could do nothing to help my 'brother', because the ordinary Petrification Spirits also began to disappear. The Dragon's fifth acceleration level took them out even before they reached the ring, which once again started to lose shape, so there was little I could do other than ...

You have summoned the Great Spirit of Petrification. ...

+2 to Spirituality. Total: 27.

I waved away the announcement that I would be losing 10% of my Hit Points every five seconds, because the summoned Spirit was beyond my rank, and tried not to breathe, because breathing fire was no picnic. The 'No Air' bar appeared before my eyes, helpfully telling me that I had 63 seconds before living would become difficult. The penalty for the summons only had the chance to appear three times (the second of which had me thinking that I was about to lose my concentration and scream), when Draco squealed more than howled: "Ss-s-s-i-i-i-x!"

I don't know what the Dragon had started to breathe at me, but the system told me that I was now in a lake of molten rock and losing 100 Hit Points a second. Obviously the initial figure was much higher, but I really liked the footnote: my Totem had made the lake, so I received only 0.1% of the damage. This brought little comfort, considering that even Great Spirits were unable to come near the ring, with the Dragon now breathing fire of sixth level of acceleration at its original physical form. Or not at the original – it mattered little: the Spirits couldn't manage it. As far as I understood there was no-one higher than the Great Spirits, apart from the pair who’d earlier told me how small and unready I was. The ring started to melt once again, the Dragon was growing hoarse, the fire was roaring, the Patriarch had probably left such a shocking scene (he may even hand us a bill later for destroying his hall), so I gritted my teeth and, disregarding all the warnings, both from the system as well as my own brain, started yet another summons. Supreme ones, I kinda need you right now. ...

You have summoned the Supreme Spirit of the Lower World. ...

+4 to Spirituality. Total: 31.

+ 1 Rank to Water Spirits. Total: 4.

Your Totem has gained a level.

Your Totem has gained a level…

"We have come, Great one. You have passed the trial. Henceforth you will be able to call us, but no more than once a week: you are not a High Shaman yet. A penalty is incurred by anyone who spends time in our world; you can find out about it from any Shaman trainer. And now, release your Totem, brother. It is time he had a rest."

Character class update: Class Elemental Shaman has been replaced by Great Shaman.

+10 to Reputation with the Supreme Spirits of the Higher and Lower Worlds. This Reputation cannot be increased on account of the 'First Kill' Achievement.

You have received the new rank of Blessed Artificer. Current rank: 3

Item acquired: Holy Ring of Driall.

Item class: Epic, Unique.

Minimum level: 320.

Stats: +12800 to Intellect; +5400 Stamina; +80 Energy; +1400 Agility; +1400 Strength; when casting a spell you have 30% chance of an instantaneous free repeat cast.

2 Gem Stone sockets. Upgradable (the cost and level of upgrade can be confirmed with an Advisor/Master).

Holy Ring special properties: +200 to Faith; +200 to Reputation with Goddess Eluna (these effects are applied to the first player to wear the ring, after which this property of the ring will disappear).

Restriction: Only usable by Priests and Paladins.

Quest 'The Path of the Shaman, Step 3.'

The trial to become a Great Shaman is completed. Seek out a Shaman Trainer to be given the next step.

As soon as the messages stopped flashing past me, I dismissed Draco and opened my eyes, finding myself in a two-meter-wide melted crater. Its entire perimeter was crowded with Vampires, their weapons pointed in my direction: bows, spears, swords. ... Around ten level-200 bloodsuckers stood around me and it was clear that only an enormous feat of willpower stopped them from attacking me.

Your Reputation with the Patriarch of the Vampires has fallen by 24000 points. Current level: Hatred.

"The Master of the Enemy," said the Patriarch from his throne in a heavy, terrible voice, full of hatred. "Only because you have fulfilled my conditions will I forego sending you to the Grey Lands. You will be taken back to the Guardian's glade after which I, the Patriarch of Vampires, head of the Reardalox clan, shall declare you the enemy of all the Vampires in Barliona. You may take the ring with you and I shall also give you a certain scroll, because that was the will of the victors. You shall not receive the ten cursed objects for which you asked earlier, let Tartarus be my judge. Leave us," the Patriarch told his Fighters, "the Master of the Enemy will not do me any harm."

This NPC sure came with a strange script: he's prepared to incur the wrath of the dark god just not to hand over ten cursed items to me. And there's my new title as well: 'Master of the Enemy'. Did he mean Draco? By the looks of it, the encounter between the head Vampire and the flying lizard didn't leave the best of memories behind if it had dropped my Reputation all the way to Hatred. Now Anastaria won't just lynch me, but will make sure my next hundred million years are filled with pain and suffering. Destroying her chance of meeting such an NPC is an achievement in itself. Although, on second thoughts, the Patriarch only spoke of me, so maybe his wrath would not extend to those accompanying me. ...

"I care little for the enmity between you and the Dragons," I replied to him, "they have left Barliona long ago and will never return. My Totem is not a Dragon, but an incarnation. I realize that it’s useless to try to explain this after my Totem’s destroyed part of your hall, so I'll skip any explanations. You can take me back now."

"For two thousand years Vampires were at war with the Dragons. For two thousand years they destroyed, burned and persecuted us ... we managed to bring down only three Lords of the Air, but afterwards each death was revenged. Their vengeance was meted out furiously and mercilessly; entire clans were eliminated. When, of all the Vampires, only my clan remained, the head of the Dragons came to me and demanded that I yield. Either I bowed my head and accepted his power or all the remaining Vampires would be destroyed. I subdued my pride with fetters of steel, and bowed before the victor, because I had to think of my people. I was handed a scroll that I had to give either to a Dragon or to his Master. Then the Dragons departed ... departed forever from our world. Some Vampires never accepted our submission before the flying serpents and left my clan, founding their own clans throughout Barliona. And I remained here, to remember forever the lesson that we were taught by the Dragons. When you summoned your Totem, which turned out to be a Dragon ... for the first time in ten thousand years I remembered what fear was. Fear before the inevitable. ... I did not enjoy this long forgotten feeling, so I will do all I can never to feel it again. This is for you." A scroll appeared in the Patriarch's hands, which then floated towards me through the air. Well, well! Even personally handing over an item to me was no longer possible for this red-eyed NPC. He was prepared to use a crazy amount of Mana for levitation so as not to approach me. ... Maybe he should see a shrink or something? It's as clear as day this Imitator is beset by a whole bunch of complexes.

As soon as I took the scroll one of the Vampires appeared next to me, his face full of revulsion, offered me a hand and I found myself in the Guardian's glade. The Vampire disappeared, the guys were nowhere to be seen – having probably gone into the tent to sleep – so I sat under the Oak and began to examine the Patriarch's present. I removed the wrapping and stared at the paper scroll:

Item acquired: The Treatise on a healthy diet for Dragons.

Description: Dragons kept a close watch on their figures: if they were to eat one too many cows or sheep, indigestion was guaranteed. For this reason the High Dragon developed a diet that would allow Dragons to enjoy their life to the full.

On use: you will learn a unique cooking recipe 'Dragon Porridge' (required Cooking profession level +1), which will increase the growth of all Dragon stats by 100% for 24 hours.

Restriction: only for Dragons.

'Dragon Porridge'?! They’ve got to be kidding me!

D
ing!

The sound of a letter arriving in the Mailbox cut through my sleep, and returned me to Barliona. I'd have to dig around in the settings and switch off these annoying sound effects. I could easily ignore it when awake, but when asleep it sounded like a loud gong hitting me on the head. Who the heck is after me?

With sleep-ridden, and thus totally clueless, eyes I selected my mail and opened the first letter that popped into sight.

"Hi! I'm a 219-level Warlock. I'm prepared to discuss conditions under which I would enter your clan. I require ...

The sheer impudence of it shook me completely awake. What the heck was ‘conditions’ for entering your clan supposed to mean? Wasn't he getting something mixed up here? I read over the message one more time, and raised my eyebrows in surprise. I just wasn't getting the meaning of this text. What did he want? As soon as I deleted that letter, another popped up in front of me:

HI! HI!! ! MY NAEM IS DROOLF THE HANDMAN!!!!!1 I WANT TO JOYN YOUR CLAN!!!! I'M ALREDY 17, CAN DO PVP SOON!!!!! LWTS MEET AT THE ANHURS SQUERE TOMORROW!!!!

Full of mistakes and all in caps – probably trying to create a bigger impression or something. What's happening? After deleting this nonsense and putting the sender on the blacklist, I skipped reading the third letter and went straight to the root folder of the mailbox. Once there, I ended up staring in incomprehension at the happily glowing '847' – the number of unread messages.

"Awake now?" The painfully familiar voice made me glance over my gaming avatar to check that my lower half was still under the blanket. Anastaria. ... "Good! I asked Plinto not to let anyone into the tent and sent Slate out for a walk. Everyone is gathering in thirty minutes; here's some food, eat it and don't let anything disturb you," the girl handed me an appetizing piece of meat. "Tasty?" asked Stacey once I’d finished and then sat right next to me. "Cooked it myself, especially for you."

"Thank you, of course, but why are you suddenly taking the trouble?" I probably still hadn't quite woken up, since I didn't understand what was going on in the slightest.

"Did you receive the letter with the Copper Ore?" asked Anastaria, ignoring my question.

"I have no idea! I have eight hundred unread messages, so if there's one with the Copper Ore, I'll need to dig for it."

"Just eight hundred?" Anastaria's eyebrows flew up. "My admirers are a shadow of their former selves, by the looks of it ..."

."..?"

"Yesterday there was only one topic of discussion on the forums – my jumping ship to some unknown Seathistles clan headed by a certain Mahan. At the same time many took note of the fact that the player's name is short – just a couple of syllables long – and that his level is under a 100. Everyone thinks that you mothballed this character a long time ago and finally decided to return to playing him. If you think of how many declarations of eternal love, oaths of loyalty and other rubbish I get every day, it would've been foolish to think that some of those players wouldn't try to join our clan. After all, it's not that easy to get into Phoenix, while here you are, some unknown low-level Seathistles – sorry to be blunt about it. But eight hundred in one night ... not all that much, really. ... In any case, your next two or three days are going to be pretty lively. I advise you to configure your mail and turn off the sound. Trust me, those pings could easily drive you nuts."

Ding! You've received 14 new messages. Do you wish to view them?

"All right, you can sort out the letters as we travel. Now let's decide on the best way for me to help the clan. Plinto had taken the stat training upon himself (and the spaztard is quite welcome to it) so I propose that Clutzer is trained in analyzing situations and Leite, if I'm not mistaken about his disposition, in drafting various agreements. After all, real life agreements and game agreements are totally different things. I'm sorry, but our Clan Agreement has so many holes in it that you may, for instance, freely get into the clan treasury and not worry too much about the consequences. No need to look at me like that, I remember the phrase 'operations with the clan treasury require the approval of the Head or the Treasurer' well enough. It's just that you probably don't know that operations worth one copper coin aren't subject to clan registration, but are written off as minor errors. In the course of a day any player can carry out over ten thousand transactions and if he sets an Imitator to withdraw just one copper coin per transaction, he could end up siphoning four gold off the clan's account each day. It may seem like pennies, but think what would happen if you had a thousand players like that. Neither you nor the Treasurer would have any idea where the money was going. We pointed out such a loophole to the Corporation at one time, but they suggested that we clearly set out the permitted transaction amount for the clan treasury and use that to close the loophole. By the looks of it, this oversight has a prominent role in the operations of the rogue clans, which specialize in theft. There's a ton of details like this in the Game. Like Elenium's defection to Phoenix and his taking that quest with him, for example. I can help Leite keep the clan safe from such things."

"That'd be a great idea!" Once again Anastaria had managed to surprise me. And here was me naively thinking that I had an ideal Clan Agreement, which even Barsina praised – you'd think she would have a good grasp of these things being a mercenary. But that wasn't the case at all. ...

"There is one 'but', however." Anastaria immediately brought me back to earth. "If I will be acting as your real deputy for the entire three months I'm with you, I would like to be treated as your deputy and not as a spy and an enemy."

"What do you mean? Who's treating you like that?"

"You, who else? Last night both quests got updated and if we decide to stay true to our roles of Head and the Deputy, it would make sense for you to tell me what happened."

"Stacey ..." I started, but immediately checked myself. She really has set it up rather beautifully – she was prepared to invest real effort into developing the clan, help with closing the loopholes and with training, and then completely push me into a corner. If you want help, hand over the information. And what was I supposed to do now? Tell her to take a long hike? That's probably what ninety-nine percent of men with, erm ... avatar dolls of steel would have done. But I must swallow my pride: I'm not a lone hero, but someone with a clan, albeit a small one, behind me. So, I'd have to share the information. But how much of it I should share was something I'll have to think over carefully.

"You haven't fallen asleep, have you?"

"No, I'm not asleep, I'm thinking."

"What about?"

"Where I should begin my tale. So much happened yesterday that I don't know where to start ..."

"Start with Beatwick and the Dragon's words that you are his son."

"What's that got to do with anything? We're talking about the Dark Forest now."

"Something tells me that it all began there," smiled the girl.

"Not exactly, but fine! He's what all the fuss is about." I paused and summoned Draco. The time has come to show him off: he's big enough now and in need of constant levelling up, but I keep hiding him like some poor relative.

"Hello everyone," said Draco happily, but with one look at Anastaria, he did the last thing I’d have expected: he entered fighting mode. "Brother! A Siren is here! I'll hold her off, run!"

"No!” I shouted when the first ball of flame flew towards Anastaria. You had to give it to the girl – she managed to put a bubble on herself just in time, so the Totem didn't do her any damage. ... "You can't attack her!"

"She's a Siren! An Enemy!" shouted the Totem, flashing his eyes at the girl, but stopped his attack. I’d never seen Draco so agitated; I must find the time to read up on why Dragons were at war with Vampires and Sirens.

"Right! Back you go," I dismissed the Totem, "I'll summon you later and we'll have a chat. And remember, no attacking anyone until I tell you to. The war is over!"

"But you’ll be careful, right?" Draco warned me as he began to fade. "Sirens are treacherous ..."

"A Siren?" I looked at my Deputy with some interest after my Totem disappeared. If the word 'shock' could be applied to this girl, Anastaria was definitely in such a state as she stared at the place that had been occupied by my Dragon just a moment ago. "So it's not that you've learned to control the poison, you simply changed your race? A Siren-paladin. Sounds nuts ..."

"A Dragon ... son and brother of a Dragon," uttered Stacey slowly, staring into space. "Did you go through modification too?"

"What do you mean?"

"You speak of a change of race so calmly you'd think you've come across this phenomenon before. Let me give you the good news: your case is the second in the entire incomplete eleven years of my playing the Game. Only the re-creation of a character allows you to change your race – at least that's what players are supposed to think. Six years ago I became a Siren and have now met my bitter enemy ... you are aware that our races were at war?"

"What's the difference what out races were to each other? I became a son and brother of a Dragon when I incarnated my Totem, in Beatwick I came across a scenario that ..."

"No need to continue," Anastaria interrupted me, "I get it already. In Beatwick you stumbled across one of the launch points of the scenario, made good use of it, became acquainted with the local copies of the High Priestess and the Princess, managed to befriend them, then the battle ... . In Anhurs the Princess gave you the quest with Slate (you still haven't shared it with me, by the way) and the High Priestess gave you the quest for the search of the Stone of Light. And here the legend about the Patriarch and the Dark Forest pops up. They've probably been wanting to launch it for some time, but no occasion presented itself. ... This is why the Guardian turned up, who gave you the quest and then you invited us. ... That's clear enough. But what happened yesterday remains a mystery to me. The present quests have been updated, but no new ones appeared, a possibility clearly mentioned in the Agreement. So it looks like you didn't get anything ... how could such an NPC fail to give a quest? He's not been put into circulation for nothing ... . So it looks like you messed up ... a Dragon-Shaman ... the Patriarch of Vampires and a Dragon!" Anastaria nearly screamed the last words, "You summoned your Totem in the presence of the Patriarch? Please don't tell me you've gone and done that!"

I didn't even know what to say to the girl's onslaught. It'd been a while since I've seen Anastaria this worked up. Truth be told, I'd never seen her like this.

"Arrrgggghhh! How?! Didn't you know that Vampires and Dragons are enemies? What kind of a Dragon are you if you don't even know the history of your race? Right, hang on a moment! I'm dawdling! Why the heck did you even need to summon your Totem in Patriarch's presence? Mahan?!"

"What?!" Anastaria's agitation transferred to me now. "Don't you think you're going a bit OTT with all this? Yes, I have Hatred with the Patriarch, but this concerns me alone as the owner of the Dragon. It doesn’t affect other people. What else do you want? Did the quests get updated? Yes they did! It's easy enough to find the location of the Lord of the Fallen's base and as for the Stone of Light – you have the High Priestess's quest: it's marked by a dot on the map. I'll bet you any money that this is where we need to go. That's it! We're as good as done, everyone gets bonuses and there's general jubilation! Stop jumping down my throat already! If you hadn’t logged out yesterday you could've gone to the Patriarch yourself! You would've managed to get at least a hundred quests out of him, sure as day. So the entire raid – because, as you said under the agreement the quests spread to everyone else – would've been sitting and scratching their heads at what 'Bring ten pine cones of doom to the Patriarch of the Vampires' was supposed to mean."

"Well, you've got me there," said the girl, who had immediately calmed down, "And there was me thinking you wouldn't figure it all out, but I just get worked up and you spill the beans. I guess it didn't work. Fine, tell me what happened next."

"Tell you what? Are you sure you haven't gotten confused, pretty lady?" I asked angrily. I'm just no good at switching so fast between emotions and I have a habit of finishing what I started. "What do you mean 'tell me'?"

"Exactly that: I'm all ears," the girl's smile grew even wider. "Mahan in the last few weeks you've demonstrated such unique survival abilities in the world of big money, that you've attracted attention. And not only that of clan heads, but a multitude of scam artists, for whom swindling a successful player is their main purpose in the Game. The avalanche of the letters you received is a drop in the ocean of what's in store for you. You have to learn how to communicate with players of every level and here we have two possibilities: either I help you, or you'll be learning from your own mistakes. It is, of course, your choice, but if you choose the former, we have to agree from the start that you share any information (and it is information I need) with me immediately and in full. I can't give you sound advice based on fragments of sentences."

"Judging by the way you're offering your help, you're not even considering the possibility that I'll choose my own mistakes, are you?"