“Dan, I…” Anastaria began, but I managed to cut her off mentally:
“Stacey, this isn’t funny! The hell with what Evolett thinks. The hell with Zlatan and what he’ll think, but Stacey! How am I going to look in front of you? Little Stacey decided to gamble on me, and I’m supposed to grin and bear it? After all, what can I say when the interests of her highness are at stake?”
“Dan, we’re talking about the phoenix here…”
“The question’s closed. I’ve said my part. Good luck to you and your ship. Try not to drown…My Energy’s running out…”
It occurred to me that I was acting like a child, but it had been a very long time since I’d felt anything like this. It’s incredibly unpleasant when a person who does such a thing to you is the person whom…whom yes…whom you love! I loved Anastaria, god damn it!
“Thank you everyone for coming here,” I went on calmly, more for Evolett’s benefit than anyone else’s. “We’ll meet up here tomorrow…”
Your patent for junior captain is no longer valid—you have lost your vessel. You are now a pirate novice.
As soon as Anastaria removed me from her ship, the system glibly demoted me to the very bottom of the pirate hierarchy. I had no reputation and no ship…To hell with it all!
Plinto didn’t even bother to say anything to me. He only smirked, cast a portal and returned to his training. For their part, Evolett and Zlatan announced diplomatically that they wished to go see the city and left me alone with Stacey—as alone as we could be in the bustling city.
“Dan, what’s with the tantrum?” Stacey asked. “I swear you’re acting like a child. If there’s anyone who should understand that Plinto’s phoenix is worth grinning and bearing it—it’s you!”
“Stacey, I’m sick and tired of constantly grinning and bearing. With the pirates I have to grin and bear it. With Plinto I have to grin and bear it. But when it comes to real life, I don’t even have a say in the matter. I’m a prisoner here! Maybe enough?”
“Are you confusing something?” The girl’s eyes narrowed. “There’s the game, in which the rules are clear, and there’s reality in which those same rules are very different. If in the game you have to grin and bear something to get a unique thing, then you should grin and bear it. In reality, it’s your duty to voice your disagreement, but not here Dan! In Barliona both you and I and whoever else will grin and bear whatever they need to at that moment. Look at Plinto—he’s even received the nickname ‘the Bloodied’ for all the craziness he pulls. And you can see for yourself just how crazy he is. Please, don’t confuse Barliona and reality—I’m begging you…”
“Don’t mix the two? For the next seven years, Barliona is my reality!” Unfortunately, I couldn’t control my emotions. I wonder whether Stacey had brought up the example of Plinto on purpose. There’s a lot in a name. What if I too become known as Mahan the Grinning Bear…well, it’s got a ring to it!
“Dan, I love you very much, but please consider again what will happen in seven years. Barliona will cease to be your reality and become a game again…I’m already twenty-eight. In seven years, I’ll be thirty-five…Our healthcare is excellent, and I’m very fit, but thirty-five…it’s…I want to have a child as it is, and I don’t want my future husband to run away from me to be in his ‘reality’—in Barliona. Even despite the fact that you still have a lot of time ahead of you in Barliona, you need to remember that it’s just a game…”
A state of permanent shock is my customary state when I talk to Anastaria. First they made bets about me, then they told me to keep out of it, and everything ended with the girl admitting that she wanted to have a child. What is even going on here?
“Truce?” meowed Anastaria, squeezing up to me with her body and wrapping her arms around neck.
“Peace,” I sighed at an utter loss about what to do. I couldn’t remain angry at the entire world, but I couldn’t forgive Stacey that easily either.
“Then let’s do it this way—I will log out to reality right now and come back tomorrow around lunchtime, and then we’ll spend the rest of the day together and do nothing but meet the pirates. What do you think of my offer?”
“Let’s try it,” I agreed again, understanding that I shouldn’t argue with Stacey at the moment. I didn’t have any arguments to make…
“In that case, until tomorrow.” Having kissed and evaporated in my embrace, Anastaria logged out to reality. Now at last I could take my anger out on someone. The important thing was not to get sent back to the mine in the process…
“Dearie, could you help a helpless old woman?” The typical request for aid encountered me as I was wandering around the city contemplating my revenge against Stacey and Plinto. More so against Stacey, since Plinto simply started the argument. Once I had calmed down, I considered that Stacey was a mature person with her own issues and insecurities, so it would be utterly inappropriate of me to try to break her and change the way she was to suit me, playing the macho role. Given the way I feel about her, I’d prefer to be constructive, but I couldn’t ignore the way she acted either. I needed vengeance, preferably of the crueler variety.
“Dearie, could you help a helpless old woman?” the granny repeated, addressing some other player. I glanced at the time—it was 3 p.m. and I had most of the day ahead of me, so I could easily put some work in. I couldn’t come up with a preferred plan of vengeance—all of my ruminations ended either in the bed of a tavern or the Dating House, so I decided to distract myself. Sending everything to the devil, I made a beeline for the old lady—social quests can be interesting too. I knew this from experience.
“How can I be of help, madam?” I asked the old lady who was sheltering in the shade of one Cadis’ many stone buildings.
“A pirate?” smirked the old lady, giving me a sidelong glance. “Move along, dearie.”
“So you do not need help?” I asked with surprise.
“From a pirate, certainly not!” The hag cut me off, turning sideways and calling out to another player.
“Why I’m hardly a pirate!” I exclaimed, my premonition warning me that I shouldn’t let this quest slip away. “I don’t even have a ship of my own. I don’t belong to a pirate fraternity. So you’re being unfair…”
“You’re not part of the fraternity?” The old lady, whose name was Tanuvern, asked. “How is that possible?”
“I’ve been a pirate for all of two hours—here: The ink on my patent isn’t even dry yet,” I took out the document and showed it to the old lady. She examined it very carefully as if she were a customs officer or something, scratched her head and then asked me a question that killed me:
“So what do you need, little pirate?”
I just about bit my tongue off, shutting my mouth which was about to ask the old lady if she hadn’t confused something. Luckily, I noticed that I’d just gained ten points worth of Attractiveness with this NPC.
“I wish to accomplish a great deed so that Grygz will take me on his crew. But I don’t know what that deed could be. Maybe you can help me?” I began carefully, feeling out the situation. Unlike other players, I had received a unique chance to get the old lady to talk, and as a result, even my quarrel with Stacey was relegated to the back burner. If there are any player-pirates at all, surely not many of them do social quests…
“So you wish to be a pirate?” the granny asked me, indicating that I was digging in the right direction.
“You didn’t understand me,” I changed tack. “Simply…I love the sea very much. You could say I’m crazy for it. To see the waves, the pretty sunsets, to visit new lands and climes…Pirates are the only faction that traverses the sea at will. That is—the only free faction. I don’t want to be a merchant or mercenary on a trade ship. As a result, yes—to make my dream a reality, I can only join the pirates. I can’t live without the sea.”
“Why exclusively the pirates?” the old lady asked in a friendlier tone. “There’s another faction that sails the seas at will…”
“You should first go into the service dearie,” the old lady reprimanded me. “You can ask your questions after you’ve done that. Everyone’s always looking for a free ride around here. It used to be different in the good old days…”
The various slogans that you hear in the cities of Barliona are basically all the same—love your loved ones, take care of the elderly, make this world a better place, the grass used to be greener and the sky used to be bluer. Which all begs the question of how this world tolerates people like me…
“So what needs to be done?” I asked, when Tanuvern paused to take a breath.
“For me—nothing,” the old lady surprised me again. “Not far from here there’s a village called Gumtrees, it’s right on the coast. You should go there. Ask for Rastman. He’ll tell you what you need to do for him and the village. If you do what he wants, he’ll give you a confirmation document. Then we’ll talk about the free faction of the seas. You should go now—you’re blocking my sun…”
Considering the old lady was in the shade of the building, she’d just sent me to hell. There really is a lot of that going on today…It doesn’t bode well. Accepting the ‘Help Gumtrees’ quest, which appeared as a waypoint on my map, I just about cursed out the old hag—‘not far from here’ meant 200 kilometers to the east of the city. If I rode a mount or flew in my Dragon Form, it’d take me a day to get there. I’d have to use a portal. Eh…more expenditures…However, before calling Viltrius, I decided to make another call:
“Hi, Fleita! What are you up to? …You’re still angry about the prison? Oh come off it. Anyway—I need you here. I’m sending you an invite.”
I tussled Draco’s scruff and called my majordomo to ask him to summon me to the castle. If I had to go to Gumtrees, why not take my student with me? Our previous adventure had ended fairly well, so I could give it another shot…
“Master, the esteemed treasurer has asked me to prepare a financial report for you for the last two weeks,” Viltrius said by way of greeting as soon as I appeared in Altameda.
“Show it to me. By the way, why didn’t he prepare it himself? Do you have access rights?”
“Now I do. Master Leite granted them to me. Since Barsina and he began to govern the villages, he hasn’t had the time to pay attention to anything else.”
“Is he here?”
“No. You and Barsina are the only members of the Legends of Barliona present on the premises.”
“Tell me where she is and then send over my student to us,” I asked Viltrius. It had been a while since I’d seen the little Druid—almost a week—so I should stop by and say hi.
“Mahan!” the girl greeted me warmly, looking up from some paperwork. “What’s up? Listen, this is some kind of treasure trove!”
“Where?”
“Why the villages we’re governing! Have you read the financial report for our clan?”
“No, I just arrived and stopped by to see you.”
“Read over it. You’ll find it very interesting. Leite and his wife are working miracles!”
“I’ll make sure to read it,” I assured the girl. “What about you? How are you?”
“Oh, don’t even ask. I can’t believe that I wasted so much time trying to be a mercenary…I thought that the money was in the quests and Dungeons…What a fool I was! This is where the real money is,” Barsa gestured around her. “Storehouse rental, transportation services…And much more—check out the reports. Listen, thank you for giving me the chance to prove myself. Where’s Stacey?”
“She’s out in reality. When’s the last time you were out there?”
“Hmm…It’s been several weeks now…Maybe you’re right. I should take a little break. Otherwise, I’ll turn into a zombie….Speaking of zombies, how’s your student progressing?”
“Fine, I think. Listen, Barsa, would you consider yourself a cruel woman?”
“E-ehh…”
“You see, I need to come up with a revenge against Anastaria.”
“What do you mean, ‘revenge?’ Why would you want vengeance against your wife?”
“To show her that I have feelings as well…”
“Hmm…You know, without knowing the full story, I can’t really tell you anything. Will you tell me, or is it something between you two?”
“Not anymore…I want revenge because of something that happened not between the two of us but with other people. But okay, it’s nothing worthy hiding from you…Basically, this is what happened…”
“Mahan, are you sure that Stacey really needs that phoenix?” Barsina asked after I’d finished relating to her what had just happened.
“What do you mean?”
“You see…I don’t even know how to explain it to you…Would you ever act the way she did?”
“Of course not. That was…”
“And we both know who Anastaria is and what she used to do earlier…”
“You mean her working for Phoenix as an analyst?”
“Therefore,” Barsina went on, without answering my rhetorical question, “we can conclude that Stacey surely must have foreseen the consequences of her behavior, right?”
“Well…Yes, but I don’t understand what you’re getting at…”
“Let me go on. Plinto, whom you haven’t seen or heard from for almost a month, suddenly offers a wager about how you’ll act and then he bets something that Anastaria effectively doesn’t really need—she already has a pretty decent griffin. And yet she accepts the wager. I might say some bad things about our Stacey right now, so don’t take my words too seriously, but Mahan, are you sure that Anastaria is really on our side?”
“Okay, now I’ve really lost your thread…”
“She doesn’t need the phoenix—that’s a fact. But you couldn’t find a single player in Malabar who doesn’t know about how badly Hellfire and Ehkiller want to get their hands on that bird. They’re ready to give a lot for it too! Anastaria was in Phoenix and supposedly left it, yet she agrees to make the bet over an item that she doesn’t need. I told you I might say something bad, but…With all due respect to that girl, Mahan, what if she’s still working for Phoenix under a different banner, so to speak? Do you have a contract with her?”
“Obviously.” Barsina’s suggestion stunned me. My little Druid really was getting at something beyond the pale.
“In that case, I don’t know,” Barsa shrugged. “Forgive me—lately, I’ve been imagining enemies all around us who want to infiltrate our clan and co-opt what we’re doing, so I’m a little paranoid…and tired. You’re right, I need to take several days’ break and spend some time at home, away from Barliona. It’s not so simple to change professions. It’s just that I used to wonder how is it that Anastaria manages to get Phoenix’s help, considering she’s no longer part of that clan. Were I the leader of Phoenix, I’m not sure I’d be ready to help her. After all, you have to consider…Well, sorry, I can’t really help you. You can see yourself that I’m so tired I’ve begun talking nonsense. I’m going to go, okay?”
Barsina jotted down several letters, cast me an apologetic look and dissolved. The entire time that the Druid was making her preparations to leave, I remained standing staring at my feet, trying to gather my thoughts.
Barsina’s words had struck me in the gut…
No, there was a reasonable explanation for everything—Ehkiller was Stacey’s father and would always try to help her. Stacey leaving Phoenix was just show for Hellfire and Rick…Who nevertheless remained in the clan without changing even a bit…Damn! What if Stacey really only joined my clan to be deputy for six months and then, when she learned that I had Karmadont’s scroll, she’d come up with a plan B? No—nonsense! After all, she’d summoned the Emperor to witness her oath while swearing that she’d never seen the scroll before…Damn it, Barsa! Why did I tell you about my quarrel with Stacey?
“Master, I ha
ve brought your pupil,” Viltrius said, bringing me back to reality. I glanced at the goblin’s bowed head and a new thought struck me like a lightning bolt. I reached for an amulet and made a call:
“Hey Clutzer! Listen, I need you to do a small thing for me. Can I summon you to me? Viltrius—summon him please.”
The Rogue had gained his freedom by paying the not insignificant (by current measures) debt to the government. And he had asked me not to tell anyone that I knew this…especially…especially Anastaria.
“So what do you need?” The Rogue appeared before me a moment later. Sending Fleita off to level up her Intellect at one of the castle’s training grounds, I waited until she left and then cast my shroud of protection over us—even though it was impossible to eavesdrop on me inside my castle.
“I am going to do the talking. I want you simply to listen. You’re free now which means one thing—your twenty-something million debt to the government has been paid. You couldn’t have paid this amount on your own, so it follows that someone paid it for you, forcing you to sign some contract first. I suspect that the contract includes a nondisclosure clause, which stipulates that you can’t let anyone know of your freedom, whether with word, gesture or some other means. But you found a way to let me know the happy news without violating your contract…This means that it’s not immaterial to you…But okay, I’m interested in something else. Who paid for your freedom? I have several candidates in mind, and I don’t like a single one of them. The first is the Corporation—who wants to have someone near me to adjust my actions if the necessity arises. I can’t imagine why they would need to do this and any reasons I can think of fail at the very idea of it, but the thought still remains. The second candidate is some enemy clan that’s ready to pay money to find out the secrets of our clan. I realize that this sounds even nuttier than the first option, so I will be more concrete…Phoenix bought your freedom—though I have no idea why they would need to do so. Moreover, Anastaria knows that you are free…And you know, I suspect that you’re bound not only by an in-game contract, but another one in reality…But again, for the life of me, I can’t figure out why anyone would do this.”
The Karmadont Chess Set (The Way of the Shaman: Book #5) LitRPG series Page 30