“Mahan?!” A familiar voice exclaimed in astonishment, causing the orc to adopt a combat stance. I automatically tried to place my hand on Gerdom’s shoulder, intending to calm him, but yet again only encountered thin air. We remained in different planes of reality.
“Slate?” I asked cautiously, disbelieving my own ears. Several moments later, a shade appeared in the fog and slowly gained the form of a bear.
“I thought you became human?” I blurted out when I realized that the enormous bear and the Prince of Malabar were the same entity. An entity several heads taller than my orc, who stood frozen with his sword.
“That’s right,” the bear confirmed, transforming back into his human form. The fur along the hide withdrew into the torso, revealing an entirely nude and wrinkled bear, after which the body began to withdraw into itself, forcing the joints to twist in an unnatural manner. Not a very pleasant sight, especially for someone unprepared, so I wasn’t surprised when Gerdom bellowed a war cry and leaped on the werebear with his sword. Sparks went flying from where the sword struck the stone, the orc was flung around by his own inertia and he barely caught his balance at the edge of the path, halfway ‘inside’ the body of the Prince. These two were in different dimensions as well.
“Your friend is a bit touchy,” Slate remarked, completing his transformation. Paying no attention to Gerdom’s sword flashing before him and piercing his torso, the werebear approached me and offered me his hand as greeting. The gesture was so natural, that I automatically shook his hand.
“You don’t belong in Erebus,” noted Tisha’s husband, smiling at the shock on my face. Slate was real for me!
“What the…” I said the most articulate thing that came to mind.
“The dead don’t linger too long in the Gray Lands either,” the werebear understood the gist of my inquiry and began to explain. “Anyone who bears the mark of death enters Erebus in a month. We spend the rest of the time here, in the form that we arrived in. I’ll become human when I return to Barliona. There’s not much time left. How is Tisha doing?”
“Okay, I believe,” I muttered, still out of sorts. All of this was just too unexpected. “Geranika returned her mother, so Tisha is catching up on lost time with her and is getting used to having two parents again.”
“Her mother was alive?” Slate asked with surprise, forcing me to recount the recent events in the living world.
“I can see you’re not sitting around idly,” the Prince smiled when I had completed my tale. “In that case, let’s get down to business. I’ve been sent to negotiate with you.”
“Negotiate?” I echoed surprised. “Who?”
“The boss of this entire mess,” Slate gestured at the fog all around us. “The one who consumes the souls of all the dead creatures. The one who wishes to snatch a crumb of his deserved treat. The son of the High Priestess of Eluna is a very great delicacy. I am even afraid to ask how you’ve managed to involve yourself in this affair. The Servant of Chaos has sent me to you.”
Given that Slate couldn’t contain his laughter looking at my face, its expression was quite telling. If I relate to Anastaria everything that’s been said here word for word, she’ll eat me alive! Why doesn’t my damn camera work?!
“As you know, Barliona isn’t unique. It is but one of many world spinning in eternity. Every world has its own Creator and often several worlds have the same one, but haven’t you ever considered the question of who created the Creator? Who was the primary cause of everything that is? Now you know the answer — it was Chaos. Self-sufficient, whole, joining everything within himself, eternal, Chaos decided to play a game and structure certain parts of himself, fettering those parts with certain laws. This being of absolute power created the Creators, who were granted the power to create worlds, and then Chaos began to wait patiently when these worlds would eventually return unto itself. Each dead creature that does not bear the mark of death, returns to it, bringing with it the pleasure and joy of reunion.”
“How do you know all this?” I asked surprised. I’d never had a reason to delve so deeply into Barliona’s history, and my mind was now absorbing the new information like a sponge.
“The portal of reclamation is located several kilometers from here. A piece of Chaos that the deceased enter. The portal takes all creatures aside from those that bear the mark. We who bear the mark can only wander around and talk to each other, sharing information. Five months of doing nothing will drive you crazy unless you speak to someone. But there are some lucky ones whose time of revival is short. I recently met one of them — a Dungeon boss named Gigantic Mantis. He comes here every week. He told me that after revival, we won’t remember a thing about Erebus. Death, darkness and new life — that is all that our memory retains. However, once we return here again, we will remember everything. Such is the lifecycle of information.”
“What did the Servant want from me? And why does he seek negotiation instead of making his demands? By the way — this might be a dumb question — but why you? Did this entity appear before you and order you to go find the Shaman and hold talks with him?”
“I…No, everything was…” Slate hesitated, blinked his eyes, trying to understand why he had appeared before me, and even backpedaled several steps from me as if I was about to attack him.
“YOU CANNOT SPEAK TO ME FOR VERY LONG!” came the reply, forcing me to my knees. All of my stats plummeted towards zero, pausing at the 10% line, and almost for the first time in my time in Barliona, I wished peace and fortune to the unknown technician who had set the sensory filter on my capsule to maximum.
“I understand,” I creaked, pouring my quickly diminishing supply of HP potions into myself.
“The Servant of Chaos knows what you seek. Six ghosts are slowly yet surely moving in the direction of their last point of rest. There is almost no time. You are being offered a deal — you will perform two tasks and you can take the ghosts with you.”
“…?”
“Mahan, try to understand, I didn’t come up with this. Moreover, I won’t remember a thing when I return to Barliona, so you have to decide on your own. The first thing you have to do is sacrifice this creature,” Slate pointed at Gerdom, who tensed at the words. “Simply knock him off the path. He will return to the same place you plucked him from. If you adopt your Dragon Form, you will be able to touch him.”
“Got it,” I drawled. “What’s the second assignment then?”
Slate breathed a deep sigh as if gathering his courage and then blurted out:
“You have to compensate Chaos for every soul you take. You must make a sacrifice. A thousand deaths for each soul you seek to retrieve.”
“What?!”
“To make this task easier to perform,” Slate went on, shutting his eyes, clenching his fists and spitting out the words unwillingly, “the Servant will give you the coordinates to the Annihilator. You must adjust it to destroy the required number of cities. The Mages aren’t expecting another attack for two years, so you won’t have any problems.”
The Annihilator…Mages…Two years…Cities…As if at a click, the mosaic came into sharp focus. The Annihilator was the device that once every fifty years generated the black fog of which the High Mage of Anhurs had spoken. A device to destroy cities. Sounds fun — I was being offered the chance to be remembered as the Destroyer of Barliona.
“So what do you think?” asked Slate, opening his eyes. “Is that a fair price for rescuing six sentients from the land of the dead?”
“Here’s my counteroffer. Ten for one,” I gibed, knowing full well that I wouldn’t be able to send even one sentient to Erebus. Otherwise, I could go ahead and delete my Shaman right now — Eluna, the Emperor and the Dark Lord would never forgive something like this. Perhaps only Geranika would welcome it. Hmm…Geranika, eh?
“A THOUSAND!” the bombastic voice boomed, taking my words seriously. Maybe I should make a little ‘/s’ sign and hold it out at the right moments.
“Mahan!” Slate ex
claimed angrily, but I was off and running:
“Fifty! I mean, I’m not asking for Karmadont here — and he’s the only one who could be worth a cool grand. Everyone else is spare change. We’re talking about town guards here! They’ve all got arrows in their knees! Fifty is the most I’ll do.”
“FIVE HUNDRED!” the Servant of Chaos rejoined after a thoughtful pause. Slate and Gerdom were staring at me with pure loathing, like I was the vilest creature in the world. But by this point I had already formed a plan and I wasn’t about to abandon it.
“A hundred — but only out of my respect for a representative of the creator of life, the universe and everything. A hundred souls for one guard!”
Pause.
“TWO HUNDRED!”
“Deal! But I have two conditions,” I yelled, barely concealing my glee. “The first is that I have to see the guards to make sure that the goods are in good condition. And the second is that I get to take Mr. Steelaxe here with me.”
“WHAT?!” I was forced to the ground once again. “HE SHALL BE DESTROYED!”
Begone smile! We’re haggling again!
“I don’t understand why you sent Slate to see me, if you’re the one doing all the talking,” I grumbled, quaffing the last of my potions. “If all your yelling kills me right now, there won’t be anyone to make a deal with. Gerdom comes with me. Twelve hundred souls is a completely reasonable price for seven. Now let’s see the goods, er, guards I mean.”
“You have changed,” Slate spat, while the master of Erebus made his decision. “The Mahan I knew would never do this.”
“It’s a good thing that you won’t remember anything then. How do I use this Annihilator thing?”
“Two hundred more souls for Gerdom.” Slate ignored my question. A map icon was flashing alluringly, inviting me to check the updated map. Swipe that aside. Now’s not the time.
“Sure,” I agreed. “And so we agree on one thousand four hundred souls. Where are my guards?”
“Look.” A passage formed in the fog leading into infinity. Several silhouettes appeared on its other end. The distance between us was so enormous that the figures did not seem to move. “Are you satisfied?”
“What is this?” I asked with surprise, when the corridor disappeared. “Where is that anyway? All you showed me were some strange silhouettes, nothing I could make out. Is that even them? Are you trying to pull one over on me?”
“Try and think about what you’re saying!” Slate exclaimed. “You’re dealing with the Servant of Chaos, the progenitor of all that is!”
“Which includes lies and deceit,” I parried. “Didn’t he create that too?”
“What do you want?” The Servant asked through Slate.
“I want to see them at arm’s length. To make sure that they’re the ones I’m looking for. Then we can keep talking.”
“YOU ARE INSOLENT, SHAMAN!” the master of Erebus couldn’t contain himself.
“I’m merely looking out for my interests.”
Skill increase:
+2 to Trade. Total: 21.
+2 to Charisma. Total: 82.
“WATCH OUT!” Erebus went spinning around me, Slate and Gerdom disappeared and once everything had calmed down, I saw the six guards trudging along at arm’s length from me. With Clouter in their midst.
“One thousand four hundred souls, Mahan. You have eighteen hours,” said Slate appearing beside me. Gerdom didn’t trail far behind and again tried to stab me with that sword of his that I gave him. What is wrong with the orcs anyway? Why are they so stabby?
“How do we get out of here?” I asked, reining in my anxiety. James knows me very well, and he’d never come up with a quest like this for me. I had to think!
“If you walk from the portal,” Slate explained, trying not to look at me, “then you’ll get tossed out of Barliona in ten seconds.”
“And Gerdom?”
“Is he somehow different from you?” Slate spat out once again. “Ten seconds in the other direction and he’s free of the Servant of Shadow. What do you need him for, murderer?”
“He’ll bring me my slippers!” I couldn’t help but quip. Those silly NPCs are going to try and teach me how to live my life!
Slate fell silent, clearly considering his next speech, so I addressed the orc:
“Are you ready to obey my orders?”
Flaring his nostrils and trying to restrain his anger, the orc merely raised his head and boomed:
“Gerdom Steelaxe shall never carry slippers! I shall be happy to return to Chaos with my honor intact! Better you kill me somehow!”
“YOU! WILL! OBEY! MY! ORDERS!” I didn’t even yell this so much as growled it, expelling the words through clenched teeth. Swiping away another notification about +2 to my Charisma, I caught up with the guards who had left us behind with one giant leap. Opening design mode as I flew, I created the projections of all six guards. The outward appearance of the guards had been a mystery to me until now. In order to foil the Servant, I had to see them, including Clouter, who had grown up and changed a lot since the day we had met. I needed to act quickly, while the Imitator responsible for the Servant hadn’t understood what I had in mind.
All that I needed was to come up with ten seconds somewhere.
“Nooo!” six throats screamed in unison as the blinding light shattered the fog of Erebus to pieces. No time to lose! I opened my wings and only now realized that I had already become a Dragon. Hell with it! Leaving the path, I glided at the guards and grabbed them in my arms. All six of them. Gerdom was a dozen meters away, so I flapped my wings, grabbed the orc by the leg with my teeth, biting down to the bone or perhaps even through, and then darted away from the center.
One second!
“Mahan!” Slate’s shout faded behind me. To hell with it!
A third second!
“WHAT?!” The Servant of Chaos came to much too quickly, beholding my flight with astonishment.
The sixth!
“SHAMAN, YOU ARE VIOLATING OUR AGREEMENT!” the orc’s and guards’ life bars fell halfway. They were little more than dangling dolls, allowing me to carry them away from the center of Erebus. In my Dragon form, the voice of the master of Erebus had no effect on me. A little consolation, that!
The ninth second!
“OUR DEAL IS OFF! YOU SHALL BE PUNISH…”
The tenth!
You have left Erebus against the will of its master. From now on, this location will be off limits to you.
Scattering benches, candles, players and other dross in every direction, I landed heavily in the hall of Eluna’s temple. The guards, who still had no idea what was going on, fell out of my grasp and rolled along the floor. I spit out Gerdom and grimaced: The orc’s HP was practically at zero.
“Stacey, I need help! ” I hollered telepathically, sending a summons. I urgently needed a healer.
“What do you want me to do?” Stacey appeared instantly, still in her Siren form. The players around us gasped in awe at seeing the Siren and the Dragon in the flesh for the first time. I pointed at Gerdom, who had somehow still avoided returning to Erebus. The orc was fighting tooth and nail for the chance to remain in Barliona.
“Who’s this, Mahan?” Anastaria exclaimed with astonishment. Her actions weren’t doing any good — the orc was wheezing on the floor, his Hit Points had waned to 3% and went on waning, the auras and flashes around him doing nothing besides making the orc groan more hysterically. “What the hell?! He’s a Zombie!”
WHAT?!
“What’s going on here?” Elizabeth’s ringing voice forced the temple into silence. I stared dumbly at Gerdom’s properties and didn’t know what to do: A Dark Zombie Warrior. Level 120 and with every passing moment burning away under the light of Eluna’s temple. Anastaria’s healing had done the opposite of what I wanted.
“Have you returned, Mahan?” Elizabeth asked, surprised. “So quickly? Did you fail to…”
“Mother!” sounded Clouter’s barely audible voice.
“Son!” The High Priestess immediately turned into a mother. Elizabeth rushed to one of the guards. Falling to her knees, she pressed him to herself…and immediately pushed him away.
“NO! Anything but this!” Elsa whispered in despair. I looked up from the creaking Gerdom, peered closely at Clouter and couldn’t help but blurt out:
“Oh goddamn!”
The properties of the High Priestess’s son were more telling than any swear words: ‘Clouter (Level 250). Zombie Priest.’
Chapter Four. The Harbinger
“Dan, what have you done?” Anastaria asked quietly, looking over from Elizabeth who was frozen in shock to me and back.
“I brought them back from Erebus,” I grumbled, checking and seeing that all the guards were now Zombies. “The way I see it, it’s better than nothing.”
“Okay, we’ll figure out what to do with them later. What’s with the orc?”
We looked over at Gerdom who was still spasming on the floor. His Hit Points had fallen to 2%, he was foaming at his mouth and his eyes had rolled back, but the orc continued to cling on to life.
“I’m pulling him out of here. Deal with Elizabeth. I’ll tell you everything later,” I grabbed Gerdom by his legs as Anastaria looked on in puzzlement, opened my ‘Blink’ input box and blinked right into the center of the Nameless City. If the orc is suffering from Eluna’s light, perhaps, he’ll feel better in the murk of Tartarus?
What I liked was that as soon as I set foot on the cobblestone street of the capital of Kartoss, the orc stopped groaning and foaming and his Hit Points froze. However, the good news ended there. The bad news took over from here — the orc’s green mug turned gray and lesions began to appear on his skin.
“The enemy has breached the walls!” A squad of the Nameless City guard appeared beside me and leveled its pikes at the graying orc. What in the living hell! If these Minotaur guards didn’t treat Gerdom as one of their own, the Priests of Tartarus may have a similar issue.
“Stop it!” I yelled, shielding the orc. “I need help!”
Clans War (The Way of the Shaman: Book #7) LitRPG Series Page 8