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

by Vasily Mahanenko

  “So what do you need?” Clutzer asked again without so much as twitching a muscle during my speech. “While you’re thinking, I wanted to ask you—I recently saw that global message that the Emperor Chess Piece had been crafted. Can I look at it? It’s quite amazing that you managed to craft it out of sequence …”

  “I need to come up with a way to pay back Anastaria,” I said pensively, removing the shroud. I got the impression that by asking about the figurine, Clutzer was only cobbling together an excuse for our conversation and I wanted to help him out. But had I really been mistaken in my assumptions? Thinking a little longer, I showed the Lait Chess Piece to Clutzer. “Will you help me?”

  “Sorry, I have a raid coming up and don’t have the time. But if I had the chance, I’d be more than happy to help you. If there’s anything I learned back in reality, it’s coming up with dirty tricks. Damn! And you kept mum about it all this time?” the Rogue exclaimed. “Have you seen the king’s properties?”

  “Like you need to ask…I’ll tell you right now: Don’t even think of asking for the figurine. I need it…”

  “Greed is a bad habit,” Clutzer remarked philosophically. “That’s it. I have to run! Good luck with the other Chess Pieces and tell Viltrius to send me back—I’m not some millionaire’s son to go jumping around Malabar on my own dime.”

  My majordomo returned Clutzer to the castle portal, leaving me to my sad solitude. I figured that I’d get at least some hint about what was going on, but it all ended in…

  The Chess Set of Karmadont!

  Clutzer had quite openly told me that Anastaria had paid his fine, since he’d “be more than happy to help” me, but didn’t have the chance because of some chess pieces! Bah!

  Realizing that I was running in mental circles, built mostly from my own stupidity, paranoia and god-knew-what-else, I opened the clan settings, looked up the player contracts and selected the one for Stacey. We’d signed a contract with her indeed which…And here a cold sweat struck me through and through—which ceased to be effective as soon as she quit being deputy! The boilerplate contract between the clan head and his deputy had been terminated due to her quitting that post! Memories of our meeting at which I had proposed she make a contract began to flash through my mind, since who could I trust if not Stacey, but…

  “Mahan, I’m sick of crushing the training dummies,” came Fleita’s voice. “Did you invite me here to do just this?”

  “What?” I asked, still turning my new outlook on Barliona over in my mind.

  “I said, I wish you’d stop sitting there with glassy eyes. Let’s go take on some real enemies,” the girl said. “And I don’t want to end up in prison again. It’s wet and cold there!”

  “Gumtrees.”

  “What gum trees?”

  “We need to go to Gumtrees,” I explained, still not entirely myself.

  “Well that tells me a lot,” Fleita quipped. “Are you at Hatred status with Gumtrees as well?”

  “No…yes…Listen Fleita, give me a couple hours to think…I don’t feel like doing quests right now…”

  “As if!”

  “That’s my phrase…”

  “We can share it. Come on—we’ll go to your Gumtrees. You should look at yourself in the mirror. Even when I’d only just shown up in Barliona, I looked better than you do at the moment. And keep in mind that being a Zombie is pretty disorienting the first few minutes. We rise howling from a mass of dead bodies, like this…” Fleita imitated herself rising like a zombie with her arms outstretched and her head crooked. “So all in all, I can assure you that you don’t look so hot right now.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said, trying to come to my senses and rid myself of these oppressive thoughts. Even if Stacey was an agent of Phoenix, she wouldn’t receive the quest. I needed to craft one more figurine in order to open the Tomb, so I should occupy myself with that first, and deal with the other stuff later. “Let’s go…”

  * * *

  “So this is Gumtrees?” Fleita asked skeptically when we popped out of the portal into the central square. It was another standard layout reminiscent of Beatwick: an immense wooden house, village elders, a stockade, dogs barking, NPCs hurrying by on business…Just like an ordinary old village. “Where do you even find these locations? This is the middle of nowhere…”

  “Who are you?” came a gruff male voice. I turned in its direction and saw a sinewy, thickset man regarding Fleita with an unkind eye. It was only my presence with my Attractiveness bonuses that kept this grim Level 250 NPC from attacking the Zombie. “What’d you want?”

  “To speak with you,” I replied, checking his properties: Alderman Rastman. “Tanuvern sent me to you, telling me that you have a job for me and my companion.”

  “The old lady has never sent two before,” Rastman narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Not to mention a Zombie and a pirate.”

  “So there have been others before us?” I asked, ignoring Fleita’s surprised exclamation. I’d fill her in about the pirate business later.

  “Of course there have! I reckon we’ve had twenty guests in the past ten years. But not any that were like you…I think, it’s best you’d go along your way…”

  “Give us the document that says we completed everything and we’ll be gone without a trace,” I jumped at the opportunity to complete the quest in record time.

  “Document, you say?” Rastman’s face went smooth for a moment. “That’s a thought. Come on, I’ll write one right now. Do you have some paper?”

  Even in such trifles as stationary, the Corporation did its best to extract money from the players. Any little occasion to profit would do for them!

  “Mahan, we can’t just leave this place,” Fleita said, watching our conversation. “There’s something here that’s…I can’t say what, but…strange feelings—as if it’s not a good idea to leave…”

  “So, will you give me some paper?” the alderman raised his eyebrows inquisitively, but I decided to trust my student. I hadn’t felt anything myself, as if I’d grown old and insensitive, but since Fleita was feeling something, it’d probably be best to indulge her.

  “Never mind about the paper,” I sighed. “We’ll deal with it later. What’s the job? What do you want us to do?”

  “So you don’t want to take the easy way,” grumbled Rastman. “Have it your way…I do have something for you and your Zombie pet to do…”

  ‘Help Gumtrees’ quest complete…

  ‘Clean the pigsty’ quest available…

  “Will you take it?” grinned Rastman. “It’s been a month since it’s been cleaned. Even the flies refuse to go there.”

  “We’ll do it,” Fleita announced calmly. “We’ve seen worse…”

  “A pigsty?”

  “Well…We’ll be like Hercules,” my student shrugged as soon as Rastman indicated where we needed to go. He didn’t want to accompany us, owing to the smell. Maybe this NPC was sure that he was seeing us for the last time in his life and didn’t want to take up his memory registers with useless data.

  “Listen brother, I just remembered that I forgot to do my homework,” said Draco when about three hundred meters remained between us and the large stone building. Situated on a hillock—which made it impossible to use Hercules’ trick of cleaning the stables by diverting a river—the pigsty was a sad sight indeed. It was dirty, foul-smelling, weathered by time and full of broken windows and the mad squealing of swine.

  “Mahan, I’m not sure I want to go in there either,” Fleita joined Draco. “Maybe you’ll deal with it on your own?”

  “What? You’re the one who took the quest! Don’t even think of shifting it on me. Grab the shovel and let’s go do some cleaning…”

  Next to the door holding on by one hinge lay two shovels—as if the devs knew ahead of time that there’d be two of us doing this quest.

  “How do these animals survive in here?” croaked Fleita, frowning from the mortifying smell. I have to admit that the developer
s had really pulled out all the stops. My student informed me that she’d received a warning that her olfactory perception had been turned up to 100%, which meant that she was experiencing the same thing I was. The pigs—that is the enormous, lazy monsters called Swinesnouts—were lying on their sides in large puddles of mud, making bubbles and oinking in contentment. They seemed completely unfazed by their surroundings, as if living their lives in the manner was completely acceptable to them.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I barked, almost running out of the sty. It was impossible to remain inside of it and terrifying to think that we’d have to clear those enormous mounds of excrement on our own. By the time we’d clear one side, a similar pile would have been made on the other. It looked like we’d been forced into a Sisyphean task. I needed to mull things over…

  “I’m not going back there again!” Fleita announced flatly, as soon as we’d gotten a breath of fresh air. Even though the air beside the pigsty wasn’t much, it was fresher than what we’d just breathed.

  “I agree. We need to find some other way. Did you notice that that place hardly has a roof?”

  “You mean all the holes in it? I noticed…”

  “Well, I did too. If we can shovel the excrement, then we can move it some other way too.”

  “And so what?” the girl asked puzzled, failing to understand what I was getting at.

  “And so nothing!” I raised one finger meaningfully, got out my amulet and called Clutzer: “What’s up! Listen, I urgently need four Water Mages who can cast a rain shower that doesn’t do damage…Yup, just a huge torrent of water falling from the sky…No, it’s not for a date…You know what? Throw in one more—scratch that—two more Druids. We’ll need to bind a hundred or so mobs in place temporarily. I’m sending the coordinates. I’ll be waiting.”

  “How do you like the piglets?” Rastman asked, barely containing his laughter. “You gave up a little quickly. Ordinary Free Citizens take a little longer to come and complain.”

  “We’ve completed the task you gave us, esteemed alderman,” I replied, paying no attention to his conceited tone. “How else can we help you?”

  “Completed?” the alderman’s brows hiked up to his forehead as his jaw dropped to his chest. “But how?”

  “You haven’t replied to my question. How else can we be of assistance to your village?”

  It’d be a mistake, I think, to inform the locals that we’d just almost drowned their bacon in a lake of filth. Clutzer’s Mages called down such a flood that the pigs that we’d bound to the earth, could do nothing but scream and complain about the unfairness of life. We’d even had to resuscitate one of them after the water had receded—the dumb beast had managed to drown. But the result was satisfactory—the pigsty was sparkling clean and the animals had re-assumed their original color—pink. Pink Swinesnouts…What could be more terrifying…

  “I will…send someone to make sure…” the alderman muttered, still not believing us. “However…Maybe…That’s right! I have one more job for you, Free Citizen! We have this one problem—every month a monster comes from the sea seeking to destroy our village. Luckily we are protected by the magical beacons situated along the coast. All we have to do is charge one of them and the village will be left untouched. Just such a beacon is located right here in the village. But there are another 22 beacons along the coast and we’ve never managed to light all of them at once—three of them are very difficult to get to, and a beacon stays lit only for 24 hours. Plus we only have two crystals to activate them with, so you and your companion need to hurry. Will you take it? The monster will show up tomorrow morning. I can show you right now how to activate the beacons with the one in the village and then I’ll give you a charging crystal apiece. If you manage to activate all 22 beacons in time—eleven on each side of the village—I’ll mark them on your map—I’ll sign the paper for Tanuvern. If you don’t make it in time, come back in a month and you can try again. I really want to see what all these beacons are here for.”

  ‘Defense activation’ quest available…

  “We’ll do it!” I replied in Fleita’s place. There’d be no problem reaching the beacon—I’d send Draco and Fleita in one direction and head in the other in my Dragon Form. Unless there’d be some problem with the actual activation—this quest was a shoo-in.

  “I’ll warn you right off though—you won’t be able to fly there!” Rastman said. “Griffins get scared for some reason and refuse to fly over the coast. You can only complete this quest over land.”

  “We’ll see about that,” I replied ambiguously, knowing full well that Draco had no problems flying in this area. And if he can, why couldn’t I? I’m a winged lizard too, aren’t I?

  “Beacon four activated—we’re headed for the next one!” Fleita reported over the amulet. “How are you coming along?”

  “I’m a hundred meters from the sixth. You must be dragging your wings!” I smirked. The activation procedure presented no difficulties—as soon as I held the charging crystal up to the special device, a spark flashed and a message appeared that the beacon had been activated. The beacons themselves were three-meter-tall posts of some strange metal with unreadable properties. And yet the devs had situated them in such strange locations that unless you knew how to fly, you’d be utterly out of luck: in a deep canyon with sheer cliffs for walls, at the top of a hill, on an island several hundred meters out to sea…Not a single of the beacons was easy to get to, as if doing this quest required twenty-two players assigned to one beacon each—as well as three Mages with an endless supply of mana in order to teleport each player and crystal to the required locations.

  You have activated the coastal defense against the monster of the deep. The coast will be safe from its attacks for the next six months.

  And that’s it? Nothing about what the monster would drop if we slayed it? A simple announcement that it’d be barred from this area for half a year? By the way, what harm could the monster cause anyway?

  “See that hill there?” Rastman pointed in the distance when I asked him this question. Upon our return to Gumtrees, Fleita and I were met by a village in celebration. I’d never imagined that I’d find so many people so far away from the large cities—the entire town square was brimming with revelers, celebrating their safety for the next year. As soon as we landed, the alderman marked both of our quests completed, while our Attractiveness with him soared through the roof to 38 points. “Once upon a time, that was our farm, but the sea monster appeared and destroyed it, consuming all our swine. Since then, we don’t build our farms near the sea.”

  “What did it look like?” Fleita inquired. “I’d never heard of sea monsters that could crawl out to land.”

  “I don’t even know…We were hiding in our basements at the time. The village is protected, but I ventured a peek…It had a long body like that of an enormous whale—with long tentacles like an octopus. I can’t say anything else about it….Tomorrow morning, if you like, you can see it for yourself—it tries to break through to the village directly at first, but as soon as it encounters the magical barrier it shifts its attention to the neighboring areas. Here—this is your paper for Tanuvern—you’ve done a great deed for our village…”

  “What kind of monster is that? An octopus and whale in one creature?” Fleita asked, surprised. “Does that exist?”

  “I guess it does…Let’s go back to Cadis and complete this quest. We’ll come back here afterwards. I kind of want to take a look at this monster of the deep…”

  When I handed over the paper with Rastman’s words of gratitude and a description of what we had accomplished for the village, the old lady spent about five minutes studying it, turning it from side to side and even testing it on her tooth, as if doubting its authenticity. Considering that during this entire process, the NPC’s eyes turned into two glassy orbs, I could safely assume that she was downloading new data, as if this Imitator hadn’t expected us to succeed.

  “I don’t even know what to
say,” Tanuvern’s eyes finally regained their sight and she addressed us. “I remember issuing the quest, but the Zombie had nothing to do with it.”

  “This is my student, madam,” I immediately covered for Fleita. “I have been charged with the vital task of setting her on the Way of the Shaman and it is not in my power to object to the will of the Supreme Spirits. From now on, she follows me wherever I go and performs the same quests I do. Such is the fate of all students…”

  “I can see that she’s your student,” the old lady muttered, “I wouldn’t even have mentioned her otherwise…Okay, let it be so, I accept your letter. Remind me—what did you want to know?”

  “You were going to tell me about the faction that sails the seas as freely as the pirates. I can’t live without the sea, you see…”

  “That’s right—the faction…Well, north of our continent lies the city of Radring. The ruler of this city and its surrounding lands is King…hmm…I forgot the new one’s name, but that’s not the point. The important thing is that he rules this kingdom with the help of the Sea Wolves—the people who hunt the pirates. If you’re so crazy about the sea but don’t want to be a pirate—ask any guard in Radring, complete the quest he gives you, then the training and you’ll become a Sea Wolf!”