The Way of the Shaman [06] Shaman's Revenge

by Vasily Mahanenko

  “Well and then there’s the third thing: I have an idea of how to get to that portal, of course, but there’s a ‘but’—it’s one-way. If you go in, there’s no way back out again.”

  “Now I see why Renox insisted I take you with me,” smirked Kreel, looking at me with renewed respect. All I could do was swear—Renox had sent me into this Dungeon to be the riding pony!

  “Mahan, how much can you lift?” Moni instantly inquired.

  “Two players,” I muttered sullenly. “One more on Draco. We can’t do any more. And you can’t jump off from us, so we can’t fly up to the portal and have you dive into it.”

  “Alisa, Prospero and Ugtur, you three are first. Mahan, how much more time is left on the cooldown for Thunderclap?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “Alisa, summon Plinto first—if anything happens, he’ll help. After that Kreel and on down the list. Do you have Mana potions? Excellent! We’ll take a ten minute break. Anyone who likes is free to pop out to reality. I’ll definitely do that myself.”

  A timer appeared and a portion of the players immediately dissolved in thin air.

  “Nice Dungeon you have here,” I remarked when Kreel lowered himself down on the ground beside me. “First time I’ve seen a restriction on the number of flying players.”

  “Or Architects that could build a tower. Renox suggested I take a couple, but I assumed that I’d need them in the lower floors. It was impossible to reach the third boss after the second one without them. Mahan, I have a business proposal for you.”

  “I think I can guess what it is. You’re a Titan when all’s said and done—you need to kill the Dragon to receive some class bonuses. If the Shadow Dragon hasn’t hatched yet, how are you going to kill one?”

  “So what do you suggest?”

  “After we complete the Dungeon, you can kill me and get your bonuses. Then you revive me and we fight a real duel. I want to know who’s better—a Titan or a Dragon. A duel, as I recall it, equalizes the level difference, right?”

  “Only in the Anhurs arena. To be honest, I wouldn’t mind finding out what you’re capable of in your gecko form too.”

  “Kreel, if the Dragon doesn’t exist, what are we going to do with Gnum?” asked Alisa, who’d been listening to our conversation.

  “You know Spiteful Gnum?” I ventured with surprise. There could be many Gnums in Barliona of course—it’s no coincidence there’s a tavern with this name, but still, Gnum is a fairly unusual name.”

  “Yes, we’ve crossed paths several times. I promised to summon him to the Dragon—he wanted to cut something off of him for his projects with you.”

  “A nice fillet of Dragon,” quipped Moni as he re-entered the game. “The skin’s softer there, they say. Easier to digest. Mahan, turn into your Dragon, will you? Let’s see if Gnum is right.”

  All I could do was raise my eyebrows in puzzlement at the giggling Druid. Laughing at your own jokes is a bad habit, I’ve heard. Kreel seems like a serious player, so where’d he get this Raid Leader?

  “All right, looks like no one’s laughing,” Moni went on, “it’s all very serious, I understand. But I wasn’t kidding about turning into a Dragon—break’s over. The portal awaits, the troops are all anticipation and further motivational malarkey. Get on with it. Your orders are as follows: You will enter the portal and ensure that Alisa gets twenty seconds of free time. After that, you will ensure that Alisa gets another twenty seconds. And after that, you can do whatever you want.”

  “Moni, we have two Paladins in our raid,” I suggested. “Right before we enter the portal, tell them to cast bubbles on Alisa and Prospero. Ten seconds of guaranteed immunity will be useful.”

  “I see you’re capable of more than waving your tail around,” Moni quipped wryly, and yet a notification popped up in the raid chat: “Wake up, Raynest. Get up on the roof. We have some work for you.”

  “Everyone ready?” Moni asked one more time, after he’d issued his orders. “Then mount your mounts and full gallop ahead! Mahan, where should we sit?”

  “I’d tell you where, but the skin’s a bit tender there. And if you tickle it, I might buck and toss you off,” I couldn’t refrain, causing laughter all around. “One on my neck, the other between my wings. There’s a nave there that’s a bit like a seat.”

  “Cast the bubbles on the count of three,” Moni commanded as soon as Draco and I soared up into the air and began to wheel around the tower. The most astonishing thing was that I could distinctly make out the limit of the no-fly zone—a half-transparent cone located twenty meters below the roof and turned at 45 degrees toward the sky. A mere twenty meters from the roof and I would crash immediately. It looked like the designers really had made this Dungeon with flying players in mind. Players like me. Hmm…Like me…Doesn’t this mean that somewhere in Malabar or Kartoss, or in the Free Lands (assuming Kreel is from there), there are players who can fly too? For example some Phoenix class, let’s say—or Sparrow or Grasshopper. Knowing Barliona, the developers were liable to cook up any odd thing that struck their fancy.

  “One. Two,” Moni began to count. I banked sharply and hurtled in the portal’s direction. I was carrying the healer and the tank, so I’d need to make it through the portal first. “Three!”

  The shimmering veil surrounded us from all sides and when the world regained its clarity I saw an enormous hall with four torches that dispersed the darkness, set around a snow-white egg. At the same time, I couldn’t feel my arms or legs—I couldn’t move my wings or my tail. I wasn’t even in the hall! It was as if my avatar was gone and I was watching a movie.

  “Are you seeing this? Anastaria’s thought occurred in my mind.

  “Yes. I don’t understand…What is this?”

  “A cutscene for the scenario. They’re about to show us the history of this place—what, why, how and who’s responsible. It’s been a long while since I’ve seen one of these.”

  Here, I stopped paying attention to Anastaria since the first character appeared on stage—a half-transparent shade of a phantom, barely noticeable in the surrounding murk, which only served to make it that much more sinister and terrifying. The shade flew in a circle around the egg, making several attempts to reach out and touch it with its arm/appendage—yet the four torches prevented it from coming closer. The egg remained immaculate.

  “THIS IS MY LAIR!” roared a savage voice and the second character stepped on stage. In his dimensions, the Golden Dragon Aquarizamax was almost larger than Renox. He emerged in a somewhat incongruous waddle out of the gloom and forced the shade away from the torches. “NO ONE DARES TOUCH MY SPAWN!”

  “Draco, I kept meaning to ask, what kind of creature is Aquarizamax? What was he famous for?”

  “Nothing as far as I know. Like all the other Dragons, he served the Tarantula Lords, murdered sentient creatures by the hundreds, and refused to leave this world when the time for exile came. Nothing special.”

  “You grow weak, Dragon,” a sweeping whisper sounded in the hall, scaring me even though it was just a cutscene. “Soon the egg will be ours! Then the world shall behold the Dragon of Shadow!”

  “THAT SHALL NOT COME TO PASS!” A pillar of fire erupted from the Dragon’s maw, tearing the shade to tatters. “MY SON SHALL REIGN OVER THIS WORLD ALONE! THERE SHALL BE NO SHADOW.”

  “You know, Aquarium, if we keep going this way, I’ll run out of warriors pretty soon.” The third character in this drama stepped onstage. The Lord of Shadow, Geranika.

  “MY NAME IS AQUARIZAMAX!”

  “What’s the difference what your name is? I need either you or your son. Choose. One of you will become the Dragon of Shadow. The other will die. Two Dragons is too much for me. I recommend you choose yourself—since I don’t really feel like messing around with your child, raising him, feeding him…Too much of a hassle.”

  “ONE MORE STEP, MONSTER, AND YOU SHALL BE DESTROYED!” roared Aquarizamax, without however rushing to attack Geranika.

&nbs
p; “Destroyed?” smirked the Shaman, continuing to advance on the Dragon. “You’re old, weak and you haven’t eaten in about two millennia, roosting on your egg here. Do you really imagine that you’ll have the strength to fight me, THE LORD OF SHADOW?”

  Geranika didn’t shout these last words, and yet they resounded with such force that for a moment I lost my concentration. The hall’s murk began to tremble strangely like a sheet in the wind and suddenly rushed onto the fast fading points of light, drowning them in the gray light emanating from Geranika’s staff. Paradoxically, the illumination allowed me to see the entire scene and I realized that this wasn’t a hall at all. The cutscene was taking place in an enormous Dragon’s lair that merely resembled a hall around the egg. And the rest of the cave was filled with shades like the one the Dragon had already destroyed.

  “EITHER YOU OR YOUR SON! THERE IS ALWAYS A CHOICE. NOW YOU MUST MAKE IT!” Geranika stopped two steps from the Dragon. Even though he was much shorter in stature, the Lord of Shadow somehow managed to look at the reptile from above. The noose of shades began to tighten around the Dragon menacingly, forcing him to take a step back. Then another. And a third—until his tail brushed up against the egg. Several times the Dragon wanted to lunge at Geranika who kept advancing, but then he’d glance back at the egg and take another step back. The Dragon could not permit himself to leave the egg alone with the host of shades.

  “YOU ARE RIGHT, LORD OF SHADOW,” smirked the Dragon, once he’d run out of space to retreat. “THERE IS ALWAYS A CHOICE! BUT YOU ARE WRONG TO ASSUME THAT THERE ARE ONLY TWO OPTIONS. YOU SHALL NEVER HAVE MY SON! HE SHALL RULE BARLIONA!”

  The Dragon roared and a strange aura appeared around him, pushing Geranika several meters away—after which Aquarizamax’s enormous torso collapsed to the ground. The encroaching shades smothered the torches, and yet, still, they could not reach the egg. A pulsating, golden sphere had appeared around it—upon whose surface, here and there, shimmered the sigil of a Dragon.

  “What’s that, Draco?”

  “The Last Will,” my Totem whispered reverently. “The Dragon sacrificed himself to become a defender. If the sphere is destroyed, the egg will perish. They have become a single whole!”

  “Argh!” roared Geranika, clenching his fists. “Why must Dragons always be so difficult? Bring me the Blackeners!”

  A moment later several shades emerged from a portal, bringing with them two enormous machines that I had already seen back in Beatwick.

  “Why couldn’t he simply die without being a pain in the neck?” Geranika went on bemoaning his fate. As soon as the Blackeners were erected across from each other and with the egg between them, the Lord of Shadow activated them with a careless snap of his fingers. A dark vapor began to creep toward the golden sphere from the devices’ long antennae, but as soon as they touched it, the sound of shattering glass echoed throughout the lair.

  “How much time will the transformation take?” Geranika asked a small shade in the form of a goblin standing beside the Blackeners.

  “Three years, oh my Master,” whispered the goblin whose eyes were no more than two clumps of swirling fog. Another clamor of shattering glass swept across the lair, forcing Geranika to frown as if he had a toothache.

  “If it must be three, let it be three. I am patient…I hate this gloom,” Geranika added with undisguised revulsion. He traced a figure in the air and created a dagger similar to the one I had used to kill the players in the Dark Forest. Breaking the dagger in two parts and melting down its blade, Geranika approached the golden sphere and, swinging, plunged the hilt into it. Once again the sound of shattering glass resounded, while the silvery light illuminating the lair began to emanate not from the staff but from the dagger’s hilt in the sphere.

  “This should make the transformation go more efficiently,” Geranika smirked. “Set up a security perimeter! Do not allow anyone to approach the egg! In three years we shall destroy the spirit of Aquarizamax and his son shall be ours! Get to work!”

  Quest update to ‘Assassinate the Dragon Aquarizamax’: The Dragon has sacrificed himself to save his egg. The Golden Dragon will hatch in a year and become the ruler of the world. If you don’t destroy the Blackeners, then in a year the defensive sphere will collapse and the Golden Dragon will become a Cursed Dragon of Shadow. Make the right choice. Reward: Variable. Penalty for failing the quest: Variable.

  “Alisa, start summoning our men,” I whispered as soon as I regained control of my limbs. The cutscene had ended and the raid chat filled with a discussion of what we had just seen—but we had better things to do than discuss lore. The portal had brought us to the lair filled with the silver light emanating from the dagger’s hilt. Black tentacles reached from the antennae of the enormous Blackeners and crept to the sphere whose golden sheen was already tarnished. It looked more like a faded sun now, occluded by gray clouds. The clamor of shattering glass no longer resounded in the cave and the Blackeners hummed at full power. The corpse of Aquarizamax, uncorrupted by the intervening years, still lay beside the sphere. However, the most unpleasant thing was that the goblin with the foggy eyes we had seen in the cutscene still remained standing beside the egg, jotting down something on a scroll and no doubt compiling a report on how his work was coming along.

  The Dungeon’s final boss was this undead, green goblin. A creature whose power seemed at odds with his stature—the Level 240 Shadow goblin had four hidden abilities. His Hit Points were hidden from us as well. The only silver lining here was that no one was attacking us and we could summon the other members of the raid in peace.

  “Okay—now I’ll say it openly,” Moni began as soon as Alisa had summoned the entire raid to the Dragon’s lair and we began to discuss the tactical plan. “Anastaria, I wouldn’t refuse your assistance. Four hidden abilities, an odd fine print in the quest description, and an undead goblin boss. I’ve never encountered this before.”

  “Can’t say I’ve seen four hidden abilities before either,” Anastaria said pensively, observing the goblin. “‘Make the right choice…’ That phrase really gives me pause for thought. The egg must be destroyed in any case. There’s aren’t any options about that. But how are we going to do it? What if, as soon as we destroy the sphere, the Blackeners will spawn the Dragon of Shadow? And why did they leave the goblin here? There’s just too little information. It seems to me that the Blackeners haven’t been placed here for no reason. The designers wouldn’t simply place such obstacles here—we’ll probably have to use them for cover. What remains to be understood is when. Or—what’s also possible—we’ll have to bait the boss behind them when he uses one of his spells, so it doesn’t hit the egg. And then there’s that dagger…Eh…Wish Hellfire were here.”

  “Our tank’s no slouch either,” Moni interjected.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that before,” Anastaria replied. “The most important and, really, the only question is where we’re going to try to keep the boss. There’re four columns in the hall. They should serve some function too, like the Blackeners. Most likely, we’ll have to lead the goblin away from the egg. I suggest we kite him in circles. Do you understand what you have to do, Ugtur? Who’s going to be our second tank?”

  “Baruz is a Warrior.”

  “Baruz, Ugtur—come over here.” Anastaria produced a piece of parchment and sketched a plan of the hall on it. The diagram was so precise that even the goblin was marked on it. “First you run with Ugtur along this trajectory—then we’ll determine where you should position yourself. Who can take a lot of damage temporarily?”

  “I can,” Kreel said tersely.

  “How much?”

  “Enough. I have good armor.”

  “Okay. Let’s move on to the tank that isn’t pinning the boss. The video showed a huge army of shades. There’s a probability that those’ll be spawning regularly. The free tank has to corral the shades in a group. Do we have any fire magic?”

  “What do you need fire magic for?”

  “Remem
ber how the Dragon killed the shades? He incinerated them. That’s nothing if not a hint. We need fire spells.”

  “The Necromancers and—assuming we have ten minutes available—the Mages can change their affinities. Although, no—only two of them can, since Alisa won’t be able to come back if she goes.”

  “Tell them to go and do it. This is very important.”

  Moni didn’t bother arguing and immediately sent the two Mages back to Anhurs to change their magic affinities.

  “I also recommend we form a group to focus the Blackeners,” Anastaria suggested after a little more thought. “If you grant me the config rights, I’ll organize the groups. Okay, everyone with melee will focus the boss. Ranged fighters will set up like this—you here, you here…Plinto, you will handle the shades. We’ll need to soften them up a bit before we put them to the torch. First group—you’ll position yourself here near the red mark and focus the Blackener,” a red beam appeared not far from one of the columns and stretched from the ceiling to the floor. “Step out of it only on command and only in the direction of the blue marker. Everyone else help kite the boss and pour everything you have into him. Where are those Mages?”

  “I’m summoning them back now,” Alisa replied.

  “Okay. Now, the group that’ll be in charge of the shades: I’ll say it again, the free tank will corral the mobs, Plinto will soften them up and you guys will incinerate them. Nothing complicated. Moni, assign some healers to them.”

  “You got it.”

  “All right. I think that’s about it. A huge request to everyone—as soon as I issue an order, you have to drop whatever you’re doing and do what I say. If I tell you to jump at the count of three, you jump exactly on three—not a second sooner, not a second later. If I tell you to flee or hide, you drop everything—even if the boss or mob you’re fighting has 1 HP—and you do what I tell you. I assume everyone’s okay with this? You won’t mind if I lead the raid, Moni?”