“Parallel lines do intersect,” mused Fleita. “They teach you that freshman year…”
“Again, you’re missing the point…It doesn’t matter whether I guessed right or not. What’s important is the main principle. A Shaman must stay true to his convictions to the very end, as long as he considers them true. It’s by following this principle that I ended up in those movies. Had I played by the rules, I’d still be in the Mine, hammering a pick against the rock and dreaming of escape. Oh! One day, one of my teachers—I don’t remember exactly which one—said: ‘Thinking is for Mages. Shamans feel.’ You and I are going to proceed from this very idea.”
“Incidentally, you didn’t tell me how you passed your trial.”
“And I never will. You need to discover that on your own—or rather, you need to choose the right path for yourself. My advice here is stay away from the guides and walkthroughs. They’ll only teach you the wrong things.”
“So how are you going to teach me?”
“I already told you, I have no idea. So far one thing is clear—I’m going to take you with me anywhere I go. Right now, for instance, we’re going to go check out this one interesting Dungeon…”
“Magdey, Clutzer—are you ready for our outing?” I wrote into the chat.
“I was ready a week ago,” the Rogue instantly replied. “We’ve been on standby waiting for your majesty to awake from your most recent crafting session and make your will known to us, your poor subjects.”
“Check your mail then, oh my subject,” I replied, sending rings to both of my Raid Leaders. “You can grumble some other time.”
“Mahan, how many of these rings can you craft?” Magdey immediately called me on my amulet.
“What do you need +45 to all stats for?” I asked surprised.
“Maybe it’s you who gets +45…It’s +250 for me! I’m not Anastaria—I don’t have a rich daddy. I can’t dump vast sums of money into the game. And to get bonuses that add up to an extra thousand stat points with a single ring is a very respectable upgrade even at my level. Furthermore, I need these rings for my entire raid party.”
“Mahan, why do I get busy tones when I call you? Stop chatting—I need to talk to you!” A message from Clutzer appeared in the chat. “I need rings! Lots of them!”
“Okay, assemble your people. We’ll deal with the rings later,” I replied to Magdey and invited Clutzer to the conversation. “Guys! We need to do this Dungeon right now. It’ll take anywhere between a few hours to a whole week. No one’s ever entered this Dungeon before, so we’re sure to get a First Kill. When will the raid parties be ready?”
“Two hours,” replied Magdey quickly. “Some of my people are still out in reality. I need to invite them.”
“I need a couple hours as well,” Clutzer echoed.
“In that case, I’ll be expecting everyone in two hours at the castle. Let’s get out of here…”
“First Kill?” Fleita asked with surprise when I put away the amulet. “You’re taking me to get my First Kill?”
“Why not?” I shrugged. You’re of no use to Malabar or Kartoss…Hang on a second…”
I pulled out another amulet and made a call.
“Speaking!” answered a serious, self-assured voice. The best clan of Kartoss deserved no less.
“What’s up, Evolett? This is Mahan speaking. I have some business for you worth a million gold…”
A First Kill for completing a Dungeon is a very respectable reward, but I didn’t want to invite anyone from Malabar—there wouldn’t be enough for the rest of us. Evolett, however, was a different matter. I wouldn’t have to split my spoils with Kartoss…
Message for the player! A new territory has been discovered: The Skrooj Dungeon. The probability of finding a valuable item from an ordinary opponent has increased by 49.999%. Experience received is increased by 20%.
“I gather you’ve never heard of the proper way to assemble a raid party?” Clutzer quipped as soon as we teleported to the Dungeon. Frankly, when I made my deal with Evolett, I was worried that he would teleport to the coordinates I sent him without us. However, ever mindful of the agreed upon terms, the Priest was awaiting us at the entrance. As for Clutzer’s barb, I had to confess that our gang really was a mangy bunch: Magdey’s Raid Party with an average Level of 240, Clutzer’s boys with an average of 190 and Evolett with two dozen 300+ players and two minnows. Meanwhile, I was at Level 116, while Fleita was Level 12! In effect we may as well have been a mob of Level 100s, since this what our average came out to.
Unlike all the Dungeons I’d seen, it was difficult to call this place a Dungeon. The portal took us to an enormous plateau with a stone labyrinth located about a kilometer from the entrance. Several packs of strange creatures, twenty or so per pack, were running around together in the stretch of ground between us and the labyrinth. They resembled slightly greenish wolves—or else very nimble crocodiles—it was difficult to describe these mobs accurately. Yet the average level of these reptilian dogs, which turned out to be the same crocolupes Fleita had mentioned, came as an unpleasant shock for me: Crocolupe is too cute a name for a 300 Level monster…
“Ahem,” Clutzer cleared his throat when he realized the futility of participating in this venture. His Level 190 fighters wouldn’t be able to do much against a 300 Level horde of crocolupes, aside from maybe distracting them for a bit. And by ‘bit’ I mean the 2–3 seconds it would take these underdeveloped wolves or overdeveloped crocodiles to send them to respawn.
“Ahem indeed,” muttered Magdey with concern. “Evolett, do your guys speak Malabarian or are you the only one?”
“Unfortunately, only I do,” the Priest replied, peering at the menacing mobs teeming ahead of us. “I’ll take care of that problem shortly, but…Hmm, I don’t even know…One pack of those guys won’t do much to my boys, but crocolupes have a very large aggro zone…If we attack one pack, a second one will show up immediately—and it’ll fall to you to deal with it…”
“That works. Here’s what we can do,” Magdey jumped at the idea and immediately began to plan the tactics for the coming battle: a battle in which Clutzer, Fleita and I would play perhaps the most important role of all—that of extras.
“I’m reeling in the first group!” said Evolett’s tank once everyone was ready for battle. Despite the fact that he spoke in Kartossian and only his clan mates could understand him, the habit of reporting his actions remained. “Attention! We have a second pack aggroing!”
“Bunch of bunglers,” Clutzer muttered, watching helplessly as the first pack of five crocolupes was joined by two others—of four and seven monsters respectively. I wonder, whose term is ‘bungler’ anyway? Leite’s or Clutzer’s?
“We’ll take the newcomers!” Magdey commanded and his tank immediately began to throw something shiny at the third wave of crocolupes. The doggies, which weren’t especially intelligent, immediately surrounded the tank from all sides, trying to tear their current target to pieces so they could pass on to their next quarry as soon as possible. They didn’t even notice the other players! This at least was some relief. I had been afraid that these ordinary mobs had been imbued with advanced Imitators and that we’d have to respawn several times—yet here it turned out that everything was business as usual. If it wasn’t for their high level, we’d probably hardly notice these mobs at all.
“Are these the same puppies that you and Kornik were hunting?” About thirty seconds into the battle—when it became clear as day that the crocolupes posed no threat to us—I decided to prod Fleita, who stood frozen beside me, into some semblance of activity. Judging by the wide-eyed look on her face, watching a raid battle on TV is one thing, and taking part in it yourself is something entirely different. Halos of light constantly flashed around the girl, informing everyone around her that the Zombie had received that which players hold most dear—a new level. Fleita was in our party and therefore received a very small but steady percentage of the XP from the Level 300 crocolupes we kil
led. And at Level 12, you didn’t need much to level up…
“Y-yes…”
“So what are you standing there for? On your mark, get set, go! You didn’t come here to enjoy the pleasant weather. Help us out…”
At the ninth wave of mobs, I received a blessing of my own in the form of a new level. Now, I am a Level 117 Shaman. I’m pretty scary—as long as I don’t take a hit or two…
“Goddamn!” cried one of Clutzer’s raiders who had been designated to collect the loot. Evolett had tried to bargain for a share of the profits, but I dug my heels in and insisted that my clan would get all the spoils from this dungeon. I’d gifted Evolett a ticket to a Fist Kill—no one had said a word about him getting the loot too. And as practice showed, this was absolutely the right decision… “What’re the chances that they’d drop this kind of thing?”
“This would be for you, Mahan,” smirked Clutzer, offering me a crocolupe paw. “You showed me something similar one time…What do you think, shall we go?”
Fleet Hound Paw. Description: A hundred millennia ago, before humans appeared in Barliona, the world was ruled by cruel and capricious Tarantula Lords, who subdued all other races with their power. The slavish crocolupes served the Tarantulas, bringing them the prey they caught or sacrificing their souls to their masters. The Tarantulas passed into oblivion, yet to this day, the leader of the crocolupes remembers his former rulers and wants nothing but to return the Tarantulas to this world to sink it back into the gloom of fear and pain. Stop him or it will be too late. Go to the Emperor for further instructions. Quest type: Legendary. Level requirements: at least 100. Group requirements: at least 20 participants. Reward: hidden.
Warning—this item will be lost if you do not complete the Skrooj Dungeon in one attempt. The item will be lost if…
“Would you believe it? We just received a restriction,” Evolett said pensively, gazing at the properties of my new acquisition. It would be silly to keep anything from the very player I’d invited into my raid party, so I kept the Paw visible to everyone around me. “Now we’ll have complete this Dungeon in one go. We can’t afford to lose this thing. You know, Mahan, you’re quickly becoming a prohibitively desirable member of any clan!”
“My own is enough for me, thank you very much. If anyone has need of me, they’re welcome to pay me a visit. I haven’t turned anyone away yet. Besides, I was planning on doing this Dungeon in one go anyway, so this paw doesn’t change anything for us. As for the quest,” I turned to Clutzer, “no one’s going anywhere until our raiders reach an average Level of 200. The quest’s non-recurring. We’ll only have one crack at it. As soon as you feel like both raid parties can work together fluently, we’ll activate the Eye or the Paw. Until that point, though, you may as well forget about this item. And in general—let’s focus on the task at hand…”
“The crocolupes are starting to respawn,” one of the fighters informed us. “Judging by the timer, it looks like the respawn time is one hour.”
“In that case, the smoke break is over!” I declared, prodding the players back to work. “Evolett, Magdey—we need to reach those cliffs in the next thirty minutes. Let’s go!”
What followed was routine—Evolett’s fighters would draw a pack of crocolupes, Magdey and his men would take the reinforcements, both packs would be cut down in short order, we’d pick up our loot and move onward. Another pack, another set of reinforcements and more loot. Mobs, mob reinforcements, loot. Mobs, mob reinforcements, more mob reinforcements, loot. And another Level…
“There’s three paths here. Which one shall we take?” said one of the Rogues, whose role as I understood it was to play the scout. Despite my orders to move forward as fast as possible, it took us another hour-and-a-half to reach the large mountain of stone which the devs had formed into a labyrinth—at one point we drew in four packs of crocolupes at once and in the course of dealing with them, lost half our raiders. So much time passed while we were finishing off the mobs, reviving the fallen and re-casting buffs, that the pack of crocolupes we’d killed earlier began to respawn. Then we had to deal with them again, since these beasts had an enormous aggro radius and no one wanted to move on with ravenous packs of crocodile-dogs nipping at our heels.
“We’ll take the middle one,” I made my decision immediately, since Magdey and Evolett were looking in my direction expectantly—as if I had a map of the area in my hand!
“Drang, Ustar,” Magdey commanded, “scout ahead.”
“Mahan,” Fleita, who had by now reached Level 67, approached me haltingly. “Maybe…”
“Hold on, Magdey!” I said, looking at the girl who became even more embarrassed. “Fleita, do you sense something?”
“I…Yes…No…Well, basically, the right passage…”
“What about it?” I pressed her. Unfortunately, I felt absolutely nothing myself—it seems that my capsule had somehow blocked my premonition. Or else I had become so numb that I had ceased to be the Shaman I had once been, and my premonition had withered away…
“It’s just that when I look at the middle and left entrances, I get nothing but a vague urge to yawn. But as soon as I glance at the right one…I get this feeling as if something is turning over in my chest and I have to catch my breath…Is this normal? Should I go see a doctor?”
“No, it’s fine. That’s what we call a premonition. The only thing that’s unclear is whether it’s cautioning you away from this path or telling you that it’s the right one…”
“Why is this happening?”
“Because you chose a class that operates at the level of feelings and emotions. The developers have coded in various mechanics that allow us to make decisions about how to act in certain situations. However, this works only in respect to the game world. Our premonitions are utterly useless when it comes to other players. And on top of that, one of the other Shamans told me that once you pass Level 100, the system begins to generate false sensations that mislead you.”
“Is that happening to you now?”
“Well, you know that I can’t do anything for the next two months. All my Shamanic skills have been blocked. But forget that. Let’s test your premonition—we’ll take the right passage!”
Fleita’s premonitions did not disappoint—what did disappoint was our misinterpretation of them. When the girl said that she had to catch her breath when she looked at the entrance—you really needed to be a true, ahem, Shaman to send the entire party that way.
The passage was winding but did not resemble a labyrinth. It was more like a cave without a roof, or a canyon. Yes, the road was a winding serpentine, but we never once encountered a branching path. Everything was linear and very laid back until…until it occurred to me that my student’s premonitions had augured peril after all.
Ten players from Clutzer’s raid party were walking ahead of us. We had decided that if there were monsters in these stone jungles, then they would surely attack the low-level, defenseless players, whereas they may not even notice Evolett’s high-level fighters. The idea was logical enough, so no one questioned it until the worst happened.
In Barliona, a player can be incapacitated for up to one hour. More specifically, a player may be frozen, blinded or paralyzed—in short, he may be variously deprived of the pleasure of moving freely around the game world. If the period of such incapacitation exceeds one hour, then the player receives a temporary immunity to all kinds of status effects, just so he can extricate himself from the given situation. But there are exceptions. Take for example a player who goes for a walk, slips, falls and, when he wakes up, finds himself in a crevice. There are sheer cliffs all around him; he has no scrolls of teleport on him; no one answers his messages. What can he do? Sit and wait for his friends to enter the game so they can bring him a teleport scroll to the nearest town? And what if he doesn’t have any friends? Will he have to beg on the forums for someone to buy him a scroll? Why, they could quote him such a price for it that he’ll be left penniless…So in this situation our u
nfortunate player may do the following: He can stay in place for eight hours, not budging an inch, until the ‘Character Stuck’ button appears. Once you push this button, you’ll be sent to the nearest respawn point without having to pay anyone any money.
And so now…
It was a good thing that our raid party was large and we could stretch out in a long file. It was a bad thing that Evolett’s high-level warriors were following right behind Clutzer’s low-level vanguard.
With each step forward, a greater heaviness descended on my soul. On the one hand, I knew very well that my Shamanic skills were blocked and this included my premonition—so technically, I shouldn’t be feeling anything right now. On the other hand…Several moments before the catastrophe, I stopped as if rooted in place, suddenly realizing that a big boom was imminent…
“Everyone back!” I yelled and repeated the warning in the chat. I turned, grabbed Fleita by the hand and yanked her back in the direction we had come from. Ten seconds—that was exactly how long I gave myself to get out…If only I had listened to myself earlier…
I rushed forward, pushing through the bewildered players as a deafening roar came sounding from behind me. An enormous cloud of dust—which didn’t occur in Barliona naturally—now surrounded me, covering the players from head to toe and making it difficult to see anything, but I kept running without stopping for a second. I had fully surrendered to my feelings which screamed at me to keep running…
The roar behind me continued to grow and the raid party chat erupted with curses. I sensed that someone was with me, running beside me, but in the cloud of dust it was difficult to tell who it was. The one thing I knew for sure was that I needed to sprint the three hundred meters we had managed to travel from the entrance without pausing for a single breath…
“What was that?” Fleita murmured when I poured an elixir of Energy down her throat. I had had to carry the girl on my shoulders the last hundred meters, since she had become little more than dead weight—the girl’s recent, abrupt jump in levels hadn’t allowed her to increase her Stamina and her Energy plummeted almost instantly.
The Karmadont Chess Set (The Way of the Shaman: Book #5) LitRPG series Page 9