“Radring?” I asked, staring at Fleita’s puzzled face. I had figured that I was about to find out about the squidolphin and how I could defeat it, but the old granny launched into a spiel about some new city instead. “I’ve never heard of that place…”
“Don’t yell!” the old lady whispered and looked around like some spy on a mission. “Radring and Cadis have a very poor relationship. In fact, put simply, they’re at war. I spent thirty years before the mast in the service of that mighty kingdom, but now I spend my time finding people like you—who can’t imagine themselves away from the sea and don’t want to be—or cannot be—pirates. I’ve sent about three thousand Free Citizens from here to my native land. Now your turn has come. So—will you go?”
Quest available: ‘A Sailor’s Apprenticeship’…Quest type: Rare.
“Mahan, let’s take it! What do you say?” said Fleita, who’d received the same message.
“Why did you send us to Gumtrees then?” I asked the old lady, feeling no urgency to accept her quest. No doubt the three thousand Free Sailors she’d helped recruit had already unearthed all the secret quests available in Radring. Meanwhile, there hadn’t been any pirate players before me as I understood it.
“Where else could I send you?” the granny replied with surprise. “All of the surrounding villages are on the side of the pirates. The feed them and the quests there are all the same—catch the fish, plant a tree for a ship, steal a sheep for supper. Gumtrees is one of the few locales that the pirates haven’t captured yet. Something to do with monsters of the deep or something. So it was either Gumtrees or Gorlov, Shady Trees or Wellbeckstein. I’ll confess that I don’t send players to Gumtrees often—it’s a bit far, but…Why would I send a pirate to his favorite village anyway? Especially considering he managed to pick up a Zombie along the way. I assumed that you were a pirate agent come to catch me—meanwhile Rastman has a cleaning quest that no one’s been able to complete yet. I wanted to get rid of you—it was a mistake I…You’re a dependable guy, one of our own…So, will you go to Radring?”
“Sure, I’ll go check it out,” I accepted the quest, thinking to myself that no one could force me to do it, and this way, if things didn’t work out with the pirates, I’d have a backup…It was too bad that I didn’t have much time available to me.
“So when do we go to Radring, Mahan?” Fleita asked impatiently as soon as we stepped away from the old lady. Tanuvern had played her role as contact person and now turned back into an ordinary NPC with a quest to offer. Three thousand players had already done it and been set on the path of subjugating the seas’ expanses in the Sea Wolves’ ranks…Should I follow in their wake? I didn’t much feel like it…
“You don’t want to take a look at the sea monster anymore?” I asked surprised.
“I do and all, but…”
“But?” I raised an eyebrow askingly.
“But this is an adventure! Sea battles, endless expanses, the sway of the deck, the courageous warriors and daring pirates,” Fleita’s eyes lit up as if the girl was already imagining herself on the deck of a ship, sailing straight at the enemy fleet.
“Adventures are nice. Are you sure, as a Shaman, that you have taken care of all your business in this area?”
“As a Shaman? What do you mean?”
“I suggest you listen to your feelings and say to yourself, ‘I’m going to Radring; there’s nothing else for me to do here in Cadis.’ If nothing holds you back…”
“That’s not fair!” the girl exclaimed. “You can’t just shift responsibility to someone else like that.”
“I don’t follow you…”
“I want to go to Radring. I want it very much…But I want it with my brains. In my heart, I know that I need to return to Gumtrees…You see, when I said that we needed to stay there, I felt something…I felt something that forced me to stand up to you even though we have our agreement. It was the same feeling that led me to you originally…And it’s the same now—my head is telling me that I need to travel to the Sea Wolves as soon as possible, while my internal voice is forcing me to go to Gumtrees…Only I can’t understand how it is that I feel this…I feel like I’m going crazy, so I’m still for us going to Radring.”
“You’re not going crazy,” I grinned. “That’s called the Way of the Shaman, and you have only just set foot on it. Your job as a player is to follow it as much as you can. Only then will you be able to complete your class initiation and receive your unique Totem. I’m telling you this as a player who has traveled along the same Way…And another thing…Let’s decide now—if you feel something that contradicts what we’re doing—you tell me right that instant. Please, I beg you, don’t mix mess with your feelings by throwing tantrums. Nothing good will come of it.”
“In that case, let’s head back to Gumtrees,” Fleita offered, a little uncertainly, but it was a start. “Thank you! I just understood why you brought me along on these quests…”
“Back already?” Rastman asked with astonishment when we reappeared in Gumtrees. “Did the old lady not accept my letter?”
“The letter went over fine, don’t worry,” I assured the alderman. What a difference 13 points of Attractiveness makes! The new opportunities they bring are invaluable. “We wanted to see the monster that haunts these lands. Your description of it really piqued my interest. When did you say, it’ll show up?”
“Typically early in the morning, around four or five. It tries to break through the barrier for about an hour and then gives up and heads off to destroy everything else it can get its tentacles on …”
“Wonderful! Could you tell us where we can rest until early morning?”
“The tavern might have some free rooms available. We don’t get much tourists around here typically.”
“Typically? So some do come by every once in a while?”
“Of course! Not very long ago, about two months or so, we were visited by a Free Citizen, a kobold named Reptilis Y’allgotohellis, I believe. He declined the quests I offered him, but sojourned in our village for a few days, constantly creeping around the hills. I have no idea what he found here, but he was positively glowing on the last day…Before him, we had some other guests stop by…”
Rastman went off listing the players who had visited the village, but I was already barely listening to him. The news about Reptilis was much more interesting to me—what did that snooper want here? In view of the immense speed at which this player was leveling up, I couldn’t help but be curious about him…
“Mahan, I’ve spent too much time in-game as it is today and I need to get up early tomorrow. May I leave?” Fleita asked guiltily, sitting down on the edge of the only bed in the room. As Rastman had assumed, there was indeed space for us in the tavern—only this tavern came with a surprise: It only had a single room. One room with one bed. A player could of course sleep in any position and any place, but purely from a psychological point of view, ordinary beds retained their appeal. Therefore, when Fleita saw the room we were offered, she went chalk-white. It’s no simple matter to sleep in a single room with a strange man: To do so in one bed is overboard for a 17-year-old girl.
“Go on,” I smiled, understanding perfectly well the way she felt. Despite the fact that were I even free, I couldn’t do anything to her (in Barliona, all erotic contact was banned until the age of 21), I’d never insist on Fleita spending the night beside me. It was looking like our relationship was growing tighter, especially in its teacher-student aspect, and the last thing I wanted was to spoil the beginnings of our mutual understanding.
Glancing at the watch, which read nine in the evening, I set my alarm for three in the morning and went to bed. I had a hard day ahead of me tomorrow…
Chapter Eleven. The Squidolphin
“WAKE UP!” I heard Fleita yell as my bed began to rock left and right. “Get up! You’ll sleep through the hunt!”
I opened my eyes and saw the Shaman above me, her white eyes shining in the room’s darkness.
<
br /> “It’s not even 3 o’clock yet!” I muttered, turning off the alarm. A mere ten minutes remained before it was supposed to ring—but they were MY ten minutes!
“Don’t grumble,” Fleita parried. “I brought you some breakfast.”
And indeed—next to my bed stood a small tray with a piece of toast, a bowl of oatmeal and a pitcher with some liquid I didn’t feel like investigating. After eating at the Golden Horseshoe, other food elicited nothing but condescension.
“Thanks,” I told the girl regardless, consuming the food mechanically while trying to ignore its flavor. With all due respect to the local cook, even I, with my 32 points in Cooking could had prepared something that tasted better.
Nighttime in Gumtrees met us with silence and pleasant coolness. There were neither bustling passersby, nor children playing, nor a smith forging, nor a tanner blackening the sky with his fumes. Silence, coolness and the alderman standing near the tavern, waiting for us. I wonder why he isn’t sleeping…
“I’m tired of hiding,” he explained when Fleita and I approached him. “I’ve never seen all the beacons activated before, so the monster can’t do anything to us. I’ll at least have a look at it, since the opportunity presented itself…Where are you going to look at him from? WHAT THE HELL! A DRAGON!”
No sooner had I turned into a Dragon than the alderman changed completely too. He collapsed to the ground and began to crawl back like a crab until he encountered the nearest wall and began to crawl in place. And the most curious thing was that Draco, who had been with me the entire time, hadn’t caused this reaction—and yet when I turned into a Dragon and flew up into the air to look for a convenient observation point…
“What are you yelling for?” I asked the alderman, turning back into my human form. “So it’s a dragon! Have you never seen a Dragon before or something?”
“No, your highness,” the alderman whispered, his face as pale as Fleita’s. If earlier he had paid no attention to my title—an Earl in Malabar isn’t an Earl in the Free Lands—then now it was as if Rastman’s eyes had opened for the first time. Here is the power of true terror—the fear of Dragons at a genetic level. I’m starting to understand how Casper felt!
“In that case, here’s your chance to look at one. Just don’t yell. I don’t like yelling! Draco,” I turned to my Totem. “You’re carrying Fleita again. Will you give her a ride?”
“Sure,” my brother nodded. “Where are we going to observe from?”
“I think that we can…”
BOOM! A sound reminiscent of the ringing of an enormous bell resounded throughout our surroundings. It was deep, saturated, clear and it forced all your organs—or whatever it is in-game avatars have—to vibrate.
“It has begun!” the alderman paled even further—his fear of the monster seemed to be greater than his fear of the Dragon—and yet, to his credit, he didn’t crawl away or try to fade into the wall. “It’s come earlier today for some reason…”
Paying no attention to Rastman’s ravings, I turned into my Dragon Form and rose into the night sky of Barliona. Draco with Fleita stayed beside me, but I didn’t pay any attention to them either—utter chaos reigned only a hundred meters from the coast. In a cloud of sea spray, foam and muck, an amorphous shape was trying to break through to the shore—encountering with its tentacles the barrier that stood between it and the earth. As soon as the thing touched the wall, a shower of sparks flew up and the tentacles retracted back into the cloud of spray and foam. It didn’t seem at all that the monster was somehow restrained or paralyzed, so I flew up closer and…
“Mahan!” Fleita yelled. “That’s no monster…”
“I can see that…”
When a mere twenty meters remained to the barrier, the monster’s outlines grew sharper and I gained access to its properties. The properties of the object—not the monster—that we were dealing with…
Minor squidolphin. Level: 1. Object class: Underwater/Surface vessel. Crew size—7. Owner—None. Status—Feral. Velocity…Armament…Armor…Maximum operating depth…Additional characteristics…
Well, damn!
The squidolphin really was a sight to behold—a long sleek body with a flat deck on which I could clearly see three rows of seats. Or perhaps a nave in the creature’s body that resembled seats. Long appendages were situated along her sides, where ships had oars. The appendages looked almost exactly like a squid’s tentacles, but several times longer and thicker…The squidolphin’s nose had a toothy mouth and two red eyes that were staring at us with open hostility. A minor squidolphin…Considering that this monster was about twenty meters long, it was hard to imagine what a normal squidolphin, or for that matter, a large or giant squidolphin looked like…
The amulet around my neck began to vibrate, so I turned to activate it.
“M-Mahan,” came Fleita’s voice. “We need to train it…”
“Her—she’s a ship. But yeah, that’s a reasonable idea—do you have any suggestions about how we might do that?”
“No…Yes…Maybe…”
“Fleita!”
“She needs to be tamed like a stallion!”
“What?”
“We need to saddle her and try to hang onto her until she stops kicking…That’s what I think at any rate…While you try to break her in, I’ll go to the village and bring back some fish. A lot of fish. Like five barrels’ worth, I guess. She’s just a child after all. We need to feed her.”
“Fleita, what the hell are you talking about?” I asked surprised. “What do you mean we need to break her in? Don’t you see she’s got the red eyes of an aggressive mob?”
“I see it, but Shaman Mahan!” steely notes sounded in the girl’s voice. “On your mark, get set, and grab that ship! Your orders are to hold onto her until I bring the food!”
A pause followed, and then Fleita added in an apologetic voice:
“Sorry, but you said yourself…”
“Oh go and get the fish!” I barked and soared up higher. I rose over the barrier and then dove while trying to avoid the tentacles. It seemed that it was easier for a Beginner Shaman to sense this world than for me now that I had passed Level 100. After all, even Antsinthepantsa had told me that I’d start having inaccurate and misleading sensations…In my case—I didn’t have any at all. Since Fleita was sure, I’d have to trust her…By the way, something tells me that she might be ready to do her initiation trial. As a Shaman, Fleita was already well on her way—everything else was a matter of technique.
The deck, if I could call the squidolphin’s back a deck, was slippery and wet—and not at all designed for a Dragon, so I had to turn into my human form in order to take one of the seats. As I did so I kept dodging the tentacles.
You have stepped aboard a feral minor squidolphin. The taming process has begun…
A status bar with the label ‘Taming’ appeared and was followed by a series of instructions, demanding I do various things.
When the squidolphin turns right sharply, you must shift your center of mass to the right, forcing the ship to straighten out. Try to do this now…
My foal (that’s what I’ll call the squidolphin) suddenly banked right sharply, leaving the shore. The acceleration was so abrupt that the inertia pressed me into the left side of the ship, immobilizing me.
“Where are you going, Mahan?” Fleita shouted into the amulet, while another message appeared:
Steering maneuver failed. Number of attempts: 1 of 3. Please try again. When the squidolphin turns right sharply…
It took me all three attempts to summon enough balance to successfully counterweigh the ship. Shifting my body to the right, I beheld a welcome message:
Right turn successful.
When the squidolphin turns left sharply…
The training went on for several hours I believe. I was taught how to straighten the vessel out as she turned. What to do when she submerged (a dome appeared over the seats, allowing me to breathe underwater), when she jumped out of th
e water, how to dodge her tentacles’ attacks, how to stay calm when the monster bellowed, and how to hold on when she stopped abruptly. The system dutifully repeated the ship’s various actions, preparing me for the scariest maneuver of all—the underwater roll.
Training exercise complete. Taming will commence in 60 seconds…
“Catch the fish!” yelled Fleita, hanging over my head. The squidolphin was gathering strength and her tentacles were submerged in the water, so Draco flew up to me and Fleita dropped down a giant barrel of fish.
“Thank you!” I yelled in reply, not quite sure why the ship needed food. But since Fleita thought that it could come in handy, I’d leave it…The important thing was that she didn’t get in the way as the ship rolled.
Prepare yourself! Taming commencing in 3…2…1…
The bank to the left again pressed me into the ship’s right side, while an error appeared before me:
Number of errors: 1 of 10.
The squidolphin straightened out, allowing me to regain my original position, and instantly dove under water, throwing me onto my back.
Number of errors: 2 of 10.
A sharp turn to the right…Abrupt braking…Left…Right…
Getting to my feet one more time and noticing that I only had two attempts remaining to tame this ship, I found a moment to smirk at myself—I really wasn’t acting like a Shaman here. I get the impression that along with my powers, I had also been stripped of the most valuable thing that Shamans have—my premonition. I was trying to react to events as they happened instead of seeing ahead…It wasn’t right…
Number of errors: 9 of 10.
As soon as I saw this message, something clicked in my head. I lost all interest in whether I’d succeed or not, whether I’d manage my nerves or not—I simply stood up on my feet and leaned right. For, at the moment, everything was right…
The Karmadont Chess Set (The Way of the Shaman: Book #5) LitRPG series Page 32