“A name!” I recalled the phrase that Sabantul had mentioned in passing. “Or at least a handle. I didn’t really understand. ‘Roxanne.’ You can check the logs. Sabantul mentioned her.”
By coincidence I was looking at Stacey as I uttered the name and as I did so, her eyes went wide with shock. The name Roxanne meant something to her!
“There are almost two thousand different Roxannes in the game,” Alex grimaced. “There are even more out here in reality — lately the name’s become popular among young families. By the way, what’d you decide to name your kid?”
A pause followed. The stone mask on Stacey’s face cracked, showing a universal melancholy to the world. She even moaned a little as if saying ‘who asked you?’ and then reclined in her chair, tucked in her legs, nuzzled her chin between her knees and began to whimper quietly.
“Your capsule’s medical indicators are showing unambiguously that…” Alex began, but noting Stacey’s reaction, hesitated, looked from Stacey to me and back and then asked baffled: “What, doesn’t Mahan know?”
The only thing it occurred to me to ask was:
“Stacey, you’re pregnant?!”
Chapter Nine. The Bard of Shadow
“That’s why I didn’t say anything,” Stacey concluded sadly, reaching to the end of her ‘engrossing’ (in all senses of that word) tale. “The doctors still refuse to guarantee anything. I hope you understand why I…”
“You’re such a little scaredy-cat, baby.” I embraced the girl who was on the verge of tears and pressed her to myself. “Everything will be okay. We’ll be okay. We’ve been in worse situations and we’ve made it through!”
When she was still a child, Stacey was diagnosed with a rare disease that, effectively, made it impossible for her to conceive or have children. Her father took her to the best doctors in the land, but they simply shook their heads in puzzlement. Since in our world, time and money can accomplish if not everything, then quite a lot, eventually a solution was found: In order for Stacey to become pregnant and bring a healthy baby to term, she either required in vitro insemination or some miracle. Stacey put off medical intervention up until the last moment and resolved to tell me everything right after the wedding so that we could decide together how we would deal with this problem. Because of all this, imagine her surprise when upon entering Barliona one day, her capsule notified her that she could spend no longer than 8 hours in the game — the maximum time limit for pregnant women. She instantly went to see her doctor who confirmed the capsule’s diagnosis while scratching his head in puzzlement — what had taken place was nothing short of a miracle. And yet, the doctors advised her to wait in order to see how the pregnancy would develop. For the last three weeks she had been seeing the city’s best gynecologists and obstetricians, without telling me or her father a single word. Scary. What if all of this is simply a dream?
We had finally reached the moment when it was time to talk about our relationship. Not merely in the ‘I love you; let’s be together’ sense, but as a conversation that would place everything in its right place: what, where, why and how. Starting with the wedding and what it would look like, where we would go for our honeymoon, and ending with all the financial questions. Stacey’s family — especially following the Donotpunnik affair — had become one of the wealthiest in our region. When I asked how much the Corporation had paid for Ehkiller’s silence and understanding, Stacey named a figure with so many zeros that my jaw clean fell off. Numbers like that don’t exist! This was why Stacey was incredibly happy with our independent financial position and my ability as the future head of the family to provide the level of comfort she’d gotten used to, doing so without turning to her father for help.
I had to give Alex his due. Realizing that his further presence has become inconvenient, he had left us on our own for a few hours. And yet we still had to ride with him to the police station in order to sign our affidavits. This incident really had been utterly out of the ordinary — the mysterious killer had not only left no trace, but he’d managed to wipe clean the recordings of all of the cameras in the vicinity. To make absolutely sure that no one could even get close to him. The police Imitators huffed and puffed, growled and smoked, but they were unable to reconcile the bits and pieces of information into one big picture. It simply didn’t exist. The corpse existed but the information about how it got that way, didn’t.
“Stacy, tell me, who is Roxanne?” Once all the formalities had been dispensed with, I decided to relax a bit and ask the question that had been bothering me. “When I mentioned that name, you started as if it’s connected to unpleasant events in your mind.”
“Roxanne,” Stacey said unwillingly, hesitated, gathered her thoughts and then began to tell her story while staring into the ‘nothing’ outside of the car window. “Roxanne and Alexander Vecchi are the people I suspected of your abduction. They’ve been my father’s main competitors for a long time. A huge error on my part. If I had taken into consideration both options — them as well as Donotpunnik — everything would have worked out otherwise. But I got fixated on Roxanne as being the mastermind.”
“Why?”
“If I only knew! I simply…I never liked her. She is rude, irritating and revolting. Several times she visited my father on business, and every time she left nothing but disgust in her wake. You mentioned Bat the other day — well, imagine Bat in a skirt. She’s happy to smile at you, while she holds a knife behind her back and bides her time for the most opportune moment to stab you. I don’t like people like that…Listen, Dan, I had a big fight with my dad.”
“He wants us to do the Tomb with the Celestial?” I guessed.
“You’re giving him too much credit. He’s already made the deal. While you were chasing the phantoms, I spoke to him one more time. He knows that the Ergreis is in that Tomb. And he knows what it does. He wants to hand the heart over to the Celestial Empire. According to the prophecy that Bihan saw, the penultimate boss has the heart. And he’ll only drop it if you’re there with the Original status. Dad promised that you’d take part in the raid. Phoenix’s raiding parties, Plinto and I will come along as reinforcements. The contract’s already been drawn up, so dad doesn’t have a way out.”
“Whoa…” I managed in shock. What a pleasure it is to live among the elite. While you were breaking your back, doing your job, they managed to sell you out, buy you back and sell you out one more time for a slightly higher price. Real bunch of capitalists these guys. They’ve been doing the same thing for ages.
We reached home in complete silence. Stacey was still hypnotizing her reflection in the car’s window, while I did my best to gather my thoughts. Here, if I filtered out all the profanities bouncing around in there, I was left with a single clear thought: ‘Ehkiller isn’t right.’ Really not right. It’s even strange that he decided to surrender the Tomb to the Celestial players without putting up a fight. Considering the amount the Corporation had compensated him with, money shouldn’t be an issue for him. That means that something else’s at play. But what?
Attention, everyone! Everyone! EVERYONE! The first Kalragon inter-clan tournament has begun!
EVERYONE TO THE TOURNAMENT!
During the tournament, killing other players has been disabled across the continent.
Furthermore, to ensure that nothing distracts from such a momentous event, during the tournament, access to all Dungeons on the continent has been disabled as well!
GOOD LUCK AND MAY THE STRONGEST AMONG YOU TRIUMPH!
(Teleportation services to the tournament location are being brought to you free of charge by The Legends of Barliona Clan)
The next morning was sadly ruinous for my clan — two days remained until the tournament and the entire continent was changing. Festive banners and posters were plastered all over Anhurs. The guards were dressed in their parade uniforms and even their pikes were festooned with tricolor ribbons — a symbol that during the tournament, all wars had stopped around the continent. Three empires
— Malabar, Kartoss and Shadow — were united under the eaves of my castle, revealing my coordinates to every thief and brigand in Kalragon. I’m sure that among the tournament participants there’ll be plenty of those who’ll plot to rob my castle. After the tournament, I’ll have to change my castle’s location. Mr. Kristowski will again complain about my spending of sums with seven zeroes. What the hell was I thinking when I offered them Altameda anyway?
A player dashed past me, handed me a paper and ran onward. I glanced at the text and couldn’t restrain a smile — the Corporation had already cooked up a bunch of social quests for the tournament. For example, I had just triumphantly and with great honor received a summary for the 381st Tournament with a schedule and list of all its events.
Day 1
10:00 Tournament Opening Ceremony
14:00 Individual Archers Competition. Distances of 100, 200, and 500 meters. No level caps.
15:00 Group activities. Number of participants: 20–50. No level caps.
15:00 Kalragon’s Top Chef. Qualification phase.
19:00 Arena (2 vs. 2). Qualification phase. All participants scaled to Level 100. All personal items scaled to Level 100.
20:00 Battle of the Bards. Qualification phase.
Day 2
…
…
Day 7
10:00 Last Man Standing. Individual competition for the title of Tournament Hero.
21:00 Tournament Closing Ceremony.
My eyes almost rolled up into my head when I saw all the events that had been invented for the tournament. Forget two birds, the Corporation had decided to kill the entire flock with one stone — there were individual competitions here as well as contests for duos, groups, chefs, sculptors, bards and every other gaming class that was committed to crafting. It’s scary to even imagine the size of the crowd that’d show up at my castle walls.
Please confirm the withdrawal of 30,000,000 gold from your clan account.
For: Initial payment for the tournament’s opening.
With a feeling of utter emptiness, I pushed the ‘Accept’ button and entered my digital signature. Mr. Kristowski didn’t have the authority to transfer a sum of this size, so I had to approve it personally. The Corporation was getting on my nerves yet again — when someone other than you spends money like this, you tend to take it more calmly. Ehkiller was about to spend three hundred million on this tournament. Well done, I applaud you, have a pie as a reward, or something. But when you have to give someone 30 million with your own hand, understanding that your return will be insignificant, your inner menagerie, long since in hibernation, will surely start dusting off its torches and pickaxes in preparation of a protest: ‘Animals against Financial Ruin!’ ‘All Paws to the Barricades to Oppose Corruption and Largess!’ ‘Down with the Tyrant Shaman!’ and other motivational slogans flashed past my eyes, when the clan budget had once again plunged to unacceptable levels.
Why is this happening to me?!
“Look guys, it’s Mahan!”
“Get out of here, you Corporate lapdog!”
“Thank you for the tournament!”
The other players milling around the Anhurs central square had noticed me and immediately began to harass me. The most surprising thing was hearing them berate me — I didn’t think I’d given them any reason to be upset…and yet a large part of the players were pouring all their choice words on me, screaming that not only was I the Corporation’s creature but that I had abandoned ‘free crafting’ for easy money. Over the last three years, many a hunter of wealth and fortune had studied my biography.
Seeing that I had nothing to do in Anhurs, I blinked to Altameda. I wanted to see what had happened to my castle.
“Master!” squealed Viltrius as soon as I appeared. “The hobgoblins wouldn’t let him in, so he…he…he killed them! The m-monster!”
I looked around and almost swore. None other than Geranika sat reclined in my throne, sipping some wine from a wine glass. Five furry spheres lay at his feet — checking their properties I discovered that the hobgoblins were still alive. Geranika had wrung them, dried them, emptied them, but kept them alive. Spiteful Gnum was muttering grumpily to himself, wandering around the defensive statues he had crafted and glancing unhappily in the Lord of Shadow’s direction. The only thing I could make out clearly from his grumbling was ‘I’ll get my hands on you yet!’ and ‘I’ll show you what happens when you hurt my girls!’ I guess the statues had attacked Geranika as soon as he appeared, but he simply froze them. As he did to Vimes, whose horn I could see protruding from behind one of the statues.
“Curious boogers,” drawled Geranika once he noticed me. “I’ll need to get some of my own. I’m surprised I actually had to concentrate so as not to kill them while ensuring that I could speak with you. I wonder where they draw their power from…But all right, that’s for later. Get your stuff. I need to introduce you to your future army.”
He didn’t have to repeat himself. Emptying my personal inventory as much as I could and throwing anything I didn’t need into the bank, I left only some Diamonds for making the Pendants, healing potions, elixirs of Mana, ten scrolls — and then swore at myself one more time for not having gone to see my Shaman trainer. Nodding to Geranika that I was ready, I held out my hand to teleport when a surprising exclamation sounded from the front door:
“Halt!” shouted Plinto, bursting into the hall, disabling his acceleration as he went. “Running off to Shadow without me? As Mahan likes to say: ‘Like hell!’ I’m coming with y’all!”
Video recording worked perfectly in the castle and thanks to Stacey’s demands and an updated capsule with a memory upgrade, it would turn on anytime it could. So now I was imagining how great of a screenshot I could obtain later, and most importantly, where I would hang it: Geranika, stunned and still, his mouth half-open, his eyes foggy and his Imitator trying desperately to resolve the most optimal course of action to take. I have to confess that Plinto had shocked me as well. I hadn’t expected this from him, but Geranika shut down entirely. Geez, I sure hope he doesn’t like reformat himself or something…
“Do you comprehend the consequences of this decision?” It took the system an entire 30 seconds to generate the appropriate behavioral algorithm.
“A bonus for being one of the first players to visit Armard as a guest and not as a conqueror. The first and only who’ll enter and exit the ‘Cellar of Betrayal’ without having to bash my head against a wall to leave. The first and only, even if just for a short while, Shadow Vampire. I doubt the Patriarch will object if I do some recon work about how to best fight Shadow. Within Shadow itself. Do I need to go on? Or are you suggesting that my Reputation will drop and all that? Pfff…That don’t scare me. I’m going with y’all.”
I had to concentrate to understand what this ‘Cellar of Betrayal’ that Plinto had mentioned was — the player Musubi had set up a hundred of the best players from the Heirs of the Titans and the Azure Dragons clans, sealing them in a room inside the city. They were forced to kill each other to get out, but…Here I ceased to understand the point of going to that ‘room.’ There wasn’t anything there, after all. Why would Plinto need this?
“I accept your choice, Right Reverend Plinto the Bloodied,” Geranika uttered in an official tone and even bowed to the Rogue noticeably. “You are not bound to me by anything, so you shall have a reward once the tournament is over. Whether you accept it or not shall remain up to you. Do you need time to get ready?”
Plinto smirked and shook his head, while I looked at the Vampire with entirely new eyes following Geranika’s words. When had he gone from a Cleric to a Reverend? Attaining a new rank, as I well know, isn’t a matter of scratching your head. You have to put in an effort. Does he live in Barliona, or what?
Geranika told Viltrius to soak the hobgoblins in water to restore them, then appeared beside Plinto, touched him, appeared beside me and the world around us lost its volume transforming into the special effects of the inside o
f a portal.
“Welcome to Armard!” Geranika said triumphantly, when reality regained its substance. I barely managed to look up to see how the palace had changed since the Cataclysm, when a long litany of notifications began to stream past my eyes with the speed of a bullet train:
Achievement unlocked: ‘Too good to be true.’ Description: You have joined the first fifty players who have visited all three palaces of the three Empires. +2 Attractiveness with all Kalragon NPCs.
Quest available: ‘Secret Recon.’
Quest available: ‘A Friend among Strangers.’
Quest available: ‘Mata Hari, Ames, Fuchs, Julius & Ethel Rosenberg, you…’
Quest available…
The system offered me a dozen quests for various factions and Empires of the continent — beginning with a basic reconnaissance and mapping of Armard and ending with a quest to assassinate Geranika. The reward for each quest was so attractive that everything contracted inside myself when I pushed the ‘Decline’ button again and again. My Reputation with the various factions — even ones I’d never come across before — plummeted, but I couldn’t care less. I didn’t come here to spy.
When the quests ceased appearing — or perhaps when the system decided that I wasn’t about to take its bait — the flickering before my eyes ceased. I was about to look around and enjoy the work the developers had put into the continent’s third palace, when Geranika suddenly said to me:
“Check them.”
For about ten seconds nothing happened and I even managed to exchange puzzled glances with Plinto when a painfully familiar voice sounded from behind me.
“They’re clean, brother. Neither Malabar nor Kartoss sent them to us.”
Your reputation with Geranika has grown. Current status: Respect.
You have gained access to the Palace of Shadow. Current access level: 38%.
Your reputation with the factions of Malabar and Kartoss has fallen to Friendly status.
Clans War (The Way of the Shaman: Book #7) LitRPG Series Page 21