The Karmadont Chess Set (The Way of the Shaman: Book #5) LitRPG series

by Vasily Mahanenko

  I stared blankly at the goblin for several moments, unable to recall what he was talking about—until the proper gears clicked in my head. Oh damn! How could I forget? I had asked the goblin to assemble the aldermen in the morning and then went off crafting for an entire week! A good start to my reign indeed…

  “Tell them that I’m ready to see them,” I told Viltrius immediately. “And take Fleita to her room. I assume you have one prepared for her?”

  “I’m not going anywhere!” The girl instantly dug her heels in. “You’re planning on meeting someone here without me? That’s not fair!”

  “First of all, you do not know the language. Second, the audience that’s about to take place is the internal business of my clan. Third, a true Shaman doesn’t show her displeasure. Work on your studies. I don’t want to have to babysit you. It’s my decision that until you learn Malabarian, you’ve got no business in Altameda. Viltrius, we have a stowaway on board.”

  “Yes, Master.” Was that a note of pleasure that just sounded in the goblin’s voice? What happened next was as much a surprise to me as to Fleita. The steward teleported over to her like a Harbinger, took the girl by the hand and disappeared with her—only to reappear alone a moment later. “Your orders have been fulfilled.”

  “Where’d you take her?” I asked worried.

  “To the castle gates, Master. More precisely, to their other side. Shall I usher in the aldermen?”

  “Bring them in,” I waved my hand, reclining in my throne, an extremely uncomfortable seat, I should mention—a hard surface, no pillows, no plush. How do kings spend so much time in such discomfort? After fidgeting for a bit, I got fed up with the thing and pulled my rocking chair out of my inventory. Maybe it’s not a long winter’s night right now, but at least I’ll be more comfortable.

  As for Fleita, I had been strict with her deliberately. If she really wanted to become a Shaman—or rather, my disciple—then she’d have to get used to following certain rules. Such as doing as she was told. Especially, when we were in my castle. If I let her run amok as she pleased, it’d only cause me headaches in the future.

  “Village aldermen to see the Earl!” proclaimed Viltrius, starting me from my grave contemplations. Three burly men, one of whom I’d already met, hesitantly entered the throne room and stopped before me, shifting from foot to foot.

  “M-master Earl, p-per your orders…” Seeing my new rocking throne, Viltrius began to stutter, evidently unaccustomed to such eccentricity on the part of his liege. I was also perplexed—the majordomo of a Level 24 castle should probably be used to serving all kinds of strange masters. I’ll need to rummage around the settings. Maybe I can gift him a brocaded gown or something to make him feel more comfortable with the high level…

  “Please, have a seat.” I gestured the aldermen to the empty seats at the table. My throne room, in effect, was the hybrid of an Imperial office and throne room—it consisted of a small round conference table and an open area uncluttered by furniture for people to stand around. It was practical and cost-effective.

  The aldermen slumped heavily into their seats, planted their elbows on the tabletop and continued to peer at me from beneath their brows. I still wasn’t quite sure whether they were afraid of me or afraid that I would start heaping various dues and taxes on them. To be perfectly frank, the governing of settlements did not evoke the same delight in me as it surely did in Ehkiller and the other players granted this privilege. Often enough, I had trouble finding time to manage my own clan. Here, I’d have to deal with a whole new can of worms. I even sort of wish that I had a…Oh! Why that’s simply an ingenious idea!

  “Leite, could you please teleport to Altameda right now. There’s some business here for you…”

  Permitting players to govern settlements was an important step on the part of the game administration. The only problem is that they had granted permission to the wrong person. I had absolutely no interest in the settlements. Yet I knew someone who would be more than happy to do some city management on my behalf! Three villages with 500 residents each—Leite would work miracles with them.

  “Whatcha want?” A portal popped open a second or two later and disgorged my treasurer.

  “Sit down and I’ll bring you up to speed…” I turned to the waiting aldermen: “And so! Dear aldermen! I have gathered you here in order to communicate to you a most welcome piece of news—I am sending you an auditor and governor who shall rule on my behalf. The Emperor personally granted me the right to govern the settlements adjoining my castle. Accordingly, I will administer your villages from here on out. I will visit the Governor of Lestran Province this very day in order to obtain an official document to this effect. However, this is a mere formality. From now on I and not the province shall be the rightful ruler of your villages.”

  “Formalities we understand, of course, but without a piece of paper, how are we to believe this is true?” objected Myrrh, the alderman of Happy Moss. “We, your honor, are a simple folk. We are willing to serve, of course, but we must have assurances…”

  “The confirmation document will be here today,” I replied unrattled. I didn’t feel like swearing an oath to the Emperor or calling a Herald over these three aldermen—if I made some error in wording, I might get penalized—and it wouldn’t take much to flit on over to the Governor of the Province. “But we’re not talking about that right now. As the lord of these lands, I am assigning this Warrior as my deputy. He will work together with you to administer your villages. He will guide your growth and make your most ambitious plans a reality. The objective at hand is to make our villages renowned through all of Malabar. I want all the people in the land to dream of only one thing—how they too can live in Happy Mosses, Silent Vine and Lower Creek.”

  “Why, who would travel to such a remote wilderness?” the alderman of Lower Creek could not refrain from asking. “We can’t keep our own youth from leaving as soon as they learn to hold a slingshot. We have five hundred mouths to feed, and only 150 men to do it with—and more than a hundred of them are old men and boys. Why, we have barely any men to go hunting…”

  “Three villages,” Leite muttered pensively, staring away into the distance. To be honest, I had taken a great risk by thrusting Leite into this meeting without warning him beforehand. If he doesn’t agree—I won’t look too good in front of the aldermen. “How many people all together?” Leite looked up from ‘the distance’ at the elders.

  “Five hundred and three,” Myrrh immediately replied.

  “Five hundred and forty…” “Four hundred and twenty,” echoed the other elders.

  “What do you do?” Leite went on with his inquest and by the light in his eyes I already knew that I had managed to shift another burden from my shoulders. Who better than a financial guru to engage in economic strategy? Definitely not me at any rate…

  “We are furriers, lumberjacks, farmers,” the aldermen began to enumerate, causing Leite to become more interested and move forward:

  “What kind of lumber? The furs of what animals? Are there tanners among you? How do you…”

  The questions came flowing in a torrent and the elders could barely keep up with their answers. Judging by the camera icon that had appeared, Leite was recording and was planning on reviewing his inquest later to determine what he would do next. I sat in on the meeting a little while longer and finally slipped out. As I reached the door to the throne room, I could hear the elders begin arguing with Leite about the best tanneries and lumber mills in the area and how many fields needed to be plowed during the planting season. I couldn’t help but grin—it was looking like Leite would need me to hire him another deputy. Surely the Warrior would want to maintain the villages under his close governance, and yet he couldn’t abandon his work with the auctions—it was bringing in too much money for the clan. We needed more help but lacked the manpower …

  “Here,” I held out the four clan rings to the Warrior when he came in from the meeting about an hour later. I didn�
��t dare go meet the Governor without Leite—I needed to present him as my deputy, so I occupied myself with crafting further rings. It wasn’t difficult now that I had the recipe and ingredients. One ring took me about five minutes, so I made several for myself and Leite and a couple for Clutzer. Who knows? Since the stat bonus formula is hidden, perhaps he’ll get more than +45 to each main stat. I absolutely had to level up to Gem Cutter third rank…only where would I find the time to do it?

  “Thanks. Mahan…” Leite paused, again staring off into nowhere. “You know, as long as I’ve known you, you’ve never ceased to amaze me. You always turn up with some goodie that makes my eyes pop. Are you the only one who’s been granted the right to govern villages?”

  “No—there are three others. They’ll be testing us for six months, evaluating to see where we take the lands that have been entrusted to us. After that they’ll make the decision of whether to keep this mechanic or not. I have zero desire to play as an economist. If you do—here’s your chance!”

  “You know I do, very much, but…Well, hell! Where am I going to find the time for it all?!”

  “We need more people…”

  “That’s the problem—we need people whom we can trust with our money. If we hire some bungler, he’ll buy a thousand swords when we need ploughshares and we’ll spend a fortune fixing it…or worse… All right, these are all details already. To hell with it though. Even if he gums up the works, I’ll be around to set it straight again—it’s just a horrible idea to give the first person we come across access to the bank account! He’ll make off with all the gold and then good luck trying to find him.”

  “Do you really not have anyone in mind? I find that hard to believe!”

  “What if I invite my wife to the clan and make her my deputy? How will you feel about that?”

  “I’m fine with that. As long as the result is solid. She’s not an economist too by any chance, is she?”

  “No, but she is one of the few people I trust. I’ll teach her everything I know. She’ll do no worse than me.”

  “Okay, agreed. Bring her on board. You’ve already finagled yourself a messenger boy. It’s high time you got a normal assistant. The important thing is that you do a good job with the villages so that I don’t have to appear empty-handed before the Emperor in six months. What kind of salary did you have in mind for your wife? How about 75% of what I pay you, plus bonuses based on performance?”

  “75%? Have you lost your mind? Do you want to ruin us? Fifty will suffice! That’s several times more than what she makes in reality anyway. All right—let’s go visit the Governor for that document…He will give you one, right? Or am I going to have to eat all those pretty words I told the aldermen?”

  “Of course he’ll give me one. What choice does he have?” I reassured Leite, opened my map and relayed the coordinates for the capital of Lestran to our man in Anhurs, so he could send us a portal. “By the way, Leite, there’s one more job for you. I need you to figure out how to use the castle teleport, please. My Greed Toad is starting to strangle me at the thought of all the money we’re spending on teleporting around the continent…”

  Chrondavir, the Governor, turned out to be a very pleasant old fogey. Leite and I were received by the Governor without any issues—my aristocratic status played its proper part here. And once I explained the reason for my visit, the Governor immediately reached for his quill and penned two letters. The first one declared me the rightful ruler of the three villages, while the second delegated authority to Leite without stripping me of responsibility for the final outcome.

  Assuring the Governor of peace, friendship and other lofty aspirations, I returned to Altameda and Leite took off for Anhurs in order to take care of the business we had decided on. Lounging in my chair, I was digging around the castle’s properties, trying to find something that would help Viltrius when I heard the ringing of an amulet—and not the one from my clan. Strange…who needed to talk to me all of a sudden?

  “Listening,” I answered cautiously.

  “You are an evil, nasty, mean and selfish moron!” came the voice in the amulet. Despite Fleita’s serious tone, I couldn’t help but crack a smile—she was speaking in clear Malabarian. Given that only a few hours had elapsed, I could safely reckon that the girl had bought herself a language pack from the game site, installed it and was now about to tell me everything she thought about this game and my place in it.

  “I hope you’re still out in front of the castle?” I asked, completely ignoring the stream of abuse. When I was a programmer, I would often have to teach others—since not everyone learns everything on their own—so to some degree I was used to this kind of reaction. It would have been much worse if Fleita had silently swallowed her expulsion from my castle. That would mean that she and I would have issues later on and she would be unlikely to become a ‘true’ Shaman. At least, such was my view of teaching.

  “If you think I’m going to pretend like nothing has happened, you’re deeply mistaken! Yes, I’m at the gates, where you dumped me like a stray dog…” Even though she still sounded irate, Fleita did reply to my question. Something tells me that the girl has a lot more brains than she wants to show with her behavior and words. She’s simply too…thoughtful or something…And then there’s the request to take her on as my student out of the blue…Damn—I think my paranoia is acting up again.

  “Viltrius,” I called my majordomo without disconnecting the amulet. I wanted the girl to hear my order. When he appeared, the goblin caused me to smile—my fiddling with the castle settings hadn’t passed without effect—Viltrius now sported not only a robe, but also a huge gold chain and boots with turned up toes like that of race-walking shoes. The upgrade had cost me a mere thirty thousand gold, so I couldn’t resist the temptation to make a present for the NPC—we’d be working side by side for the next seven years after all. “My student is in front of the gates. Please bring her to me. If she puts up any resistance, she’ll be banned from entering Altameda for the next week.”

  “As you wish, master,” said the goblin, bowed majestically and disappeared. Oh wow! The new outfit had even altered Viltrius’ bow—it was now more noble and upstanding and less obsequious than it had been earlier. This is much better in my view…

  “Your Highness! Is it your pleasure that I retire to my chamber?” The venom in Fleita’s voice was so thick that I couldn’t help but laugh. An irate Zombie really is a hellish sight.

  “Do you know what distinguishes the Shaman from other classes?” I answered her question with one of my own. Without waiting for her answer, I went on: “Composure. A Shaman must be calm and composed inside in order to understand which Spirits he needs. Remember when you were fishing—were you angry, were you irritated? I’m willing to bet that you withdrew entirely within yourself and you had only one thing in mind—the fish. Everything else, including your emotions was secondary…”

  “Kornik told me the opposite,” replied the girl, without any sarcasm, however. “He taught me to summon the spirits. Didn’t I tell you that while you were working on the chess set, I was hunting crocolupes? So when I was doing that, the goblin explained to me about emotions and that I can call on the Spirits only through them. As for the lake and fish…How would you feel if you couldn’t do something for two weeks and then a famous Shaman came along but instead of helping you out, he began yelling at you and ordered you to sit next to some lake? Why I was ready to slash the entire lake to pieces with my fishing rod to vent my rage. I mean, really, I think you’re way off base here…The Mentor as you called him also tried to tell me about staying calm, but he didn’t do much good either…”

  Uh-oh!

  “In that case, I have no idea how to go about teaching you,” I confessed. “Initially I thought that I’d tell you some fairy tales about how you must be calm and composed, show you the Astral Plane and then…Hmm…”

  “I can do my own studies by reading too,” said Fleita, noting my hesitation. “As I understood
it, the important thing for Shamans is to pass the first trial. I already read its walkthrough on the forums. It’s not difficult. Rescue the lamb…”

  “That’s exactly the point—the forum users are bunglers,” I said, borrowing Leite’s word. “They don’t understand anything about the game and yet they’re also eager to offer advice….”

  “Are you saying that the forums are full of misinformation?”

  “I’m saying that every Shaman has his own way to follow. It is possible that for some of them, doing the trial in the manner you read is the ideal option. But for me, for example, it isn’t. And for you, it remains unknown.”

  “So how did you do it?” Fleita asked puzzled. “There aren’t many options there after all. It seems like a standard walkthrough should be useful.”

  “There’s a standard there, I agree, but it’s a different standard for every player. For some, a gold coin is money, for others it’s a piece of gold, for someone else it’s just an entry in a database…All three are right in their own way and each one will follow his own truth. The Shaman’s task is to determine for himself—which of these truths is important to him at the given moment.”

  “At the given moment?”

  “Of course! For example, I’m an ordinary guy who thinks that the Earth is flat and resting on three whales. Tomorrow I might be convinced that it’s not whales but an enormous space turtle. And the day after I might realize that the turtle is in actual fact a…”

  “But it’s round,” said Fleita, looking at me like I was mad.

  “The Earth here is just an example, which I’m trying to use to explain my thought to you. I’ll admit it’s not a very successful example, and yet still…Okay, I’ll put it this way, the way I personally feel—sometimes it’s like a light goes on inside of me and it tells me to ignore what everyone around me is saying. Even if they tell you that two parallel lines will never intersect—if your premonition says otherwise—listen to it! Damn…this isn’t making sense, is it?”