The Secret of the Dark Forest ( (The Way of the Shaman: Book #3) (38 page)

"I'm against it," I interrupted Anastaria. "Our aim is to cleanse the forest. If we take out the Tear, that NPC will stick something else in its place. We'll fight. I'll handle the strategy; you work out the tactics. Can you think of a way to take care of this local mob in the most painless manner possible? Ants and myself will get the Elementals ... damn! Ants will get them, I'm still under a penalty ..."

"A fight, then," said the girl thoughtfully, looking through the recording one more time. "There's only one gate, through which no more than five mobs at a time may pass ... . If we block them, then ... no that won't work. There’re the watchtowers and the mages ... they'll down the tanks in no time. ... So we can only lure them out into the forest ... . What do you say, Don?"

"That all depends on how long it takes Antsinthepantsa to free the Elementals. Last time it took around a minute to free one. But that was with two Shamans at it. Right now, from what I understand, Mahan is as much use as a chocolate teapot. ... Two minutes for each and there are twenty of them. ... We only have three tanks. No, we won't hold out. That's five complete sets, which is too much even for Hellfire ..."

"Yeah...," said Anastaria slowly, "there is of course the option of breaking into the castle, killing as many mobs as possible, getting sent for respawn, returning, and repeating until we clear them all ... . The time it takes for mobs to respawn is three months, so we should have enough time."

"Yeah, right, and get our experience gain bar knocked all the way back to zero," chuckled Donotpunnik. "The entire raid will be falling over to thank you for that one."

"Then I'm out of ideas for now. The only sensible course of action is to send Plinto out and then have the entire raid running for the Guardian's glade. Everything else is pure suicide."

"Right, it's getting late already, so I propose we continue this tomorrow morning," I decided, "and all the same, try to think of how we could destroy that base."

Painful as it was to admit, the idea voiced by Donotpunnik made perfect sense. We are too few for such a big crowd of mobs, so either we have to resort to trickery or look for a workaround. The 'trickery' part was easy: Plinto would sneak in, snatch the Tear and the Stone – good thing he's got that quest already – and leg it out of there. Then he’d mount his Phoenix and speed towards the Guardian's glade. Then there'd be general happiness, celebration and rejoicing. And yet I could feel it in my bones that in if this were to occur, I could kiss good-bye to the second earring of the Guardian. My conclusion: we had to look for a workaround. And here Anastaria should be able to help me. ...

"Natalie, do you have a minute?" I managed to shout just in time as I noticed that the lady Shaman was about to log back to reality. "A word before you go, or rather a task for you. Do you remember the strange dark phantoms that surrounded the Elementals? Can you dig around Shaman history? That's the only place it could be. Please look for information or articles mentioning the words 'mist', 'phantom' or 'shadow'. These entities didn't just turn up by accident, they are certain to be recorded in history in some way."

"As you remember, the Supreme Spirits know nothing about the nature of these phantoms, despite being the custodians of Shamanistic knowledge in the Game. So there would be little use in doing this."

"You have a look and then we'll see, all right? First thing tomorrow tell me all about it. Stacey!" after leaving the Shaman I called Anastaria over, "I have a question."

"I can't tell you this," came the girl's immediate answer, "I signed an NDA."

"You don't even know what I want to ask you ..."

"I heard your conversation with Ants. You want to ask about the nature of Elenium's quest. I can't tell you, but I can give you a hint that you've started to dig in the right direction."

"I see. Then another question: why haven't you asked me about Slate yet, although it's already been a week? He's the only NPC among us and you know who he is, but are behaving as if there’s nothing’ unusual here."

"What's the point? We'll have a chat once we are finished with the Forest, assuming we don't lose him. If you tell me about this now you've as good as shared the quest with me. And then suddenly the Prince dies. Do you think the Princess will be happy when she finds out that I too was involved in the death of her intended? So, thanks, but no thanks. Once we make it out of the Forest, I'll start asking questions. Who needs the extra stress right now? Everything in good time ..."

I watched the girl as she walked away and instead of feasting my eyes on her beautifully drawn avatar I was turning over Stacey's last word: time ... hmm... there's a time for everything. ... Once again: there is a time for everything ... well, I'll be! Stacey, you're a genius!

"Mahan." The voice of Barsina, my only female Fighter, tore me away from my musings about the epic plan to capture the Castle of the Fallen. "Tell me, are you going to exclude me from the clan after we’re finished in the Dark Forest, or is there a possibility that I could stick around?"

"What do you mean 'exclude you'? Didn't we agree that you are joining the clan temporarily so that you could be part of the Imitator's loot allocation for both quests? As for sticking around ... why the sudden interest?"

"There are a good number of reasons really. The first and the main one being that it's profitable to be around you. In one week I've earned more than in the previous few months. Two levels more and I'll gain access to several interesting locations, where I can earn good money. I'm set to reach level 170 once we complete the Guardian's quest. This would mean a new ability and class-based quests. The second, and no less significant, reason is the presence of Anastaria and Plinto. They are legends in Malabar and I can learn a lot from them. Just the amendment of the Clan Agreement that Anastaria proposed today is quite something. Right now our Officers are sitting and scratching their heads, wondering how they could miss such obvious loopholes. I would've never spotted them myself either, by the way. The third ... you know, the third reason actually outweighs the other two – I like it here, in your clan. So I'd like to stay, if possible."

"Fine. In that case I'll put you in change of everything healing-related. Look at the current membership agreement and have a chat with Anastaria. In a couple of days I'd like to have a list of all the classes we might need: how many Priests, Druids, Shamans, Paladins of Light and other healer classes you would find in any normal clan. Plinto, Eric – I have a task for you!" I immediately called over the Rogue and the Warrior and told them to put together the best possible team of Fighters and Tanks. If one wanted to take part in the clan tournament (and I did), you would need people. Bugging Anastaria for every small task ... is pretty daft if there are other capable players just idling about.

So, having given everyone their tasks, I sat under the tree and started to put together my plan for getting into the Fallen Ones' castle. I watched through Plinto's video a few more times and saw once again that the mobs were spread throughout the entire castle, except for the green glade with the Stone of Light. As Anastaria put it, 'everything in good time'. If we swap 'time' for 'place' then ... .

What if the fallen mobs cannot step into an area affected by a Blessed object? And what if this prohibition is at the level of their programming? If my memory doesn't fail me, in Beatwick I managed to save a good number of NPCs from modification by giving them Blessed amulets. What if we weren't meant to kill the mobs, but scare them away? Or even – and here another bulb lit above my head – free them, as we did with the Elementals or the Lieutenant? Perhaps even my Reputation problems would go away if I returned about two hundred Vamps and Mages to the Patriarch. It may not work for me, but Anastaria definitely wouldn't miss a chance like that. In order to enact my plan, I needed Blessed statuettes ... I was feeling very thankful to Beth that she hurried her Priestesses and now, among other things, I had some Blessed ore and marble in my sack. It was time to get busy with some crafting ... .

"Will you tell me what you're up to?" Anastaria asked me in the morning, having interrupted me in the middle of another masterpiece. "This doesn't look like jewelry and, judging by your groggy eyes and level of Energy, you've been working all night. Spill the beans because I've got nothing, except the gradual clearing out the mobs."

"Let's wait for Donotpunnik, then I'll tell both of you all about it. I have just a couple of pieces of ore left, so I'll make one more blade, then you can hit me with any question you like. You're right – I do have an idea. It just remains to be seen if it's actually doable ..."

"It might just work!" exclaimed my Azure Dragons deputy advisor, when I described my plan and showed him the result of my nightly labors: twenty thee knife blades – which lacked handles, but still represented completed items – and around thirty small, marble, pinecone-shaped figurines. I had a new recipe to show for it too: Marble Pinecone. I had also discovered that Jewelers were able to make throwing weapons, which would cause physical damage depending on the strength of the thrower.

"What's their radius?" asked Anastaria straight away.

"For that we need a victim," I told the happy news to my advisors. "We have to go to the castle and check. I'm not at all sure that a Rogue carrying a Blessed item will be able to sneak inside, even under Invisibility, so we have to be clear from the start that the victim would end up going for respawn."

"Should we cast lots?" proposed Donotpunnik, "Because, aside from you and your three fighters, no-one would volunteer to lose 30% of the Experience Progress Bar. Trying to send a Priest to get the volunteer back up ... would mean sacrificing the Priest. But for you the loss of Experience would be negligible by comparison."

"I agree," Anastaria said after some hesitation, "the optimal choice would be Leite, as the one with the lowest level. But we should still draw lots ..."

"No, we shouldn't," I put an end to these deliberations. "The decision has already been taken – I'll go. This was my idea, the stones and the ore were mine and I should be the one to carry it out. Due to my penalties, I'm not much of a Shaman for the next two weeks anyway. And I'm somewhat curious too. It's not every month that I have the opportunity to visit a castle with level 350+ mobs. Plinto! Let's go. You'll get to tape the raid leader being sent for respawn ..."

"Hold on," Anastaria stopped me, "let's at least ask the others, just in case anyone else wants to take the risk. Remember, if this idea works, we won't wait for your respawn and attack straight away. There's little point in the raid sitting on its hands for 12 hours straight. Two hundred Vampires, Elementals and Mages ... with your current 82nd level, you're almost guaranteed to hit 90 after this. Are you prepared to lose that much Experience?"

Hmmm ... I hadn't really thought about my respawn from this perspective. It's like I’d started to perceive myself as some great hero, unbeatable and unstoppable. Oh! I recalled a rather suitable word for this: bigheadedness ... was I really suffering from it? And where do you place the thin line between luck and letting things go to my head?

"I'm against sending the low-level players now," Donotpunnik said, completely ripping my plans to shreds. "I had another look at Plinto's report and finally understood that there's nothing they can do there. As you can see, the gates may be open, but there's around twenty meters to cover between them and the nearest tree. There are two towers by the gates with 250-level archers, which means that any low-level player would be dropped in an instant. So the question arises: what would be the point? You can't throw a bubble over him, because then the mobs would go for the rest of the raid. Mahan doesn't have any defense either, since he can't even summon his Spirits."

"So you want to check it out then?" Plinto, whom I’d called over earlier, didn't go anywhere and was now looking thoughtfully in the direction of the castle. "You won't be able to run under the noses of the dark mobs with Blessed items on you, you'll be discovered immediately ... give those to me. I'll go pay those castle campers a visit. If the plan works, don't forget to get me back up – I can wait for three hours or so. Time I began to work off that investment you made in me, right? And Mahan, a little word of advice for the future: you can't do everything yourself in this Game, you have to delegate, otherwise you'll burn out all too soon. That's it – I'm off. Fogger! You're with me as cameraman. Lanterius! You come along too: you'll film it from the other angle. What am I doing?"

"Here," I handed Plinto several items. "Your task is simple: you have to block the entrance into the castle by throwing these items along the gate, about a meter from each other. The Fallen must get locked inside so the raid can walk right up to the castle and Antsinthepantsa can gradually free the Vampires. There's no need to attack anyone. You may even throw some of the cones and knives inside, which will cut the Fallen up into several groups. All in all, do as you see fit, but the main aim is the gate."

"Gotcha. Then give me everything that you've made. With Haste and Cloak activated (-40% damage for 10 seconds), I'll run across the castle and make their day. That's it; I'm off. Send me a postcard." The Rogue took all the Blessed items from me and headed off to the castle.

"Stacey, how do you know him?" said Donotpunnik slowly, gazing after the departing Plinto. "To be honest, I always thought that he was one of those spoiled bratniks, but now my whole understanding of reality has been demolished: Plinto, whose name has even given rise to the special term – 'to plint it' (that is, to do something without switching on your brain first) – turns out to be a completely reasonable guy."