The Secret of the Dark Forest ( (The Way of the Shaman: Book #3)

by Vasily Mahanenko

  "Seathistle," smiled Tisha as she examined my symbol, "a lovely wild flower. In Beatwick I often picked flowers like these and put them around the house. A little piece of sky can look very beautiful in your hands. I like that. What are you planning to do in the near future?"

  "Today or tomorrow I'll be heading out to the Free Lands on an assignment that Beth gave me. It should take about a month. After that I'm free. Do you need any help with anything?" As soon as the Princess uttered the words 'I like that', I immediately looked at my Attractiveness. 42 points. Wow! So there are some advantages in a floral name and a blue emblem! Getting +3 to Attractiveness just on account of a name is ... very nice. Now I had to see if I could get Tisha to give me a quest.

  "Yes, but it's not for me ... it's for Slate ..."

  "The Prince?"

  "He's no Prince. Father cannot allow some lowly Werebeast to become his daughter's husband, so he ... so we need your help. Slatey needs the blessing of his parents to marry a Vagren. For that he has to travel to the very center of Malabar, almost to the Kartoss border, but Father has no intention of giving him an escort. My future husband has to make it to his family on his own or with friends, and he doesn't have any. ... We are forbidden from hiring a paid escort – the Heralds are keeping a close watch over that ... Mahan, we need your help ...”

  Quest available: Escorting the Prince.

  Quest type: Scenario.

  Requirements: Reputation with the Malabar Empire: Respect+; Attractiveness with the Princess: 40+.

  Reward: none.

  Penalty for failing or refusing the quest: none.

  Time limit for completing the quest: 3 months.

  There was no reward or penalty, but on the other hand this was a Scenario. As Beatwick had shown, you had to grab quests like these with both hands.

  "Princess, I will help the future Prince, but after I carry out the task that the High Priestess gave me. I promised Beth I will get the Stone back, so it wouldn't be fair of me to let her down."

  "I understand," said Tisha, visibly saddened. "We can't even see each other until he has a proper title. Father sent him to the far reaches of the Palace, which I haven't explored properly yet. We tried to arrange a meeting via an amulet, but the Heralds blocked all the doors. Everyone is against me here." The girl sobbed.

  "What if Slate comes with us to the Free Lands and then from there we'll head straight to his parents?" I ventured, keeping my fingers crossed. Beth's description didn't state that the quest could only be undertaken by players. This meant that we could easily hire NPCs for it – it might be expensive, but was still quite possible. And here was an opportunity to get a decent Werebeast for free, a future Prince, no less, and even level up in Attractiveness with him. "What if we come across something that will help your Slate to gain the blessing of his parents?"

  "Hold on, I'll ask him." The expression of renewed hope reappeared on Tisha's face. She took out the communication amulet and briefly explained the situation to her Werebeast. I had to intervene and open the quest description for Tisha, which she then read out to Slate, and after a few minutes of questions and answers the party heading out to the Free Lands had grown in number, having enlisted a level 128 Werebeast into its ranks.

  "We'll meet by the Palace's main gates in five minutes," I instructed the new member of my group, "and decide what to do next there."

  "Princess, would you mind accompanying me to the exit?" I politely offered my arm to Tisha. "The palace is so new that I'm afraid of getting lost."

  The joy on the Princess's face when she saw Slate and ran towards him resulted in +5 points of Attractiveness with her. The Heralds that turned up could only watch in silence as the young couple embraced – they had the power to block their planned meetings, but stopping one already in progress was beyond them.

  "You have to be more careful," I heard the girl's admonition as I left the palace. I felt a bit sorry for the bear-man: the lady Vagren won't get off his back until she drills every health and safety rule into him. I decided not to interrupt the reunited lovers. In an hour I would contact Slate once again and arrange another meeting, so in the meantime I sped off towards the main square. I had received a letter from Elenium, saying that he was ready to meet me right away.

  * * *

  Elenium, Dukki and Sushiho were glad to see me, but I had to tell my story to each of them, read the commiseration in their eyes and assure them that there was nothing they could do, that I was perfectly fine and that I don't have any next of kin that are in need of help. All three of them agreed to take part in the quest, warning me right away that they could only be online between 6 in the evening and 2 in the morning, game time. Far from ideal, but this couldn't be helped: work and family were sacrosanct. The level numbers looked as follows: Elenium, 118; Dukki, 122; Sushiho, 127. Taking Slate into account, the total level came to 622, so the conditions of the High Priestess had been met. We agreed to meet at 6 in the evening by the temple of Eluna. I formed a group, met with the future Prince, described the situation to him and headed for the place that I'd wanted to visit for a while, but had little chance to until now: the Dating House.

  "Biological age verified," came the voice of the Imitator responsible for admittance as soon as I stepped through the arch of the Dating House. "Limitations detected: no more than 24 hours a week. Time still available: 24 hours. You may enter. Welcome!"

  I found myself in a small room, piled high with plush cushions and a single sofa on which a beautiful lady NPC was sitting and leafing through a magazine. Nothing had changed since my last visit: my sight still goes slightly blurry, the NPC still stays quiet until you speak to her or until 10 minutes goes by from the moment you enter the room – no pressure of any kind or any prickly comments. The room was generated individually for each player – the Corporation did everything to make sure that players didn't feel ill at ease. The task of the NPC placed in the room included providing advice on choosing the player’s object of desire or, if the Imitator managed to correctly assess the player's tastes, manifest the direct embodiment of their preferences. I had another look at the girl: she was a human, quite cute, but not tawdry, with a slightly up-turned nose, bright blue eyes, which I saw when she shot me a glance, and luscious white hair. Why on earth had the system suddenly decided that I like blondes?

  "Pretty Lady, would you help me choose a girl?" I finally ventured to make the request.

  "Of course, have a look at what we've got." Several 3D holograms of elves, humans, gnomes and other representatives of Barliona's females appeared before my eyes. "Choose a race."

  "I think I've already chosen," I said and smiled at the NPC girl sitting in front of me. The longer I spent looking at her the more I liked her. The Imitator had guessed correctly. "You are magnificent and I wouldn’t change a thing."

  "Thank you." The blonde girl blushed and a message flashed in front of me asking whether I was prepared to pay for the Dating House services worth 2500 Gold an hour. ... Nice prices they have here, I chuckled. Very democratic. Still, I pressed the 'Yes' button and embarked into a fantasyland of my own. The allowance of 24 hours per week needed to be utilized ...

  Three hours had gone by before the Dating House released me from the spell. I didn’t think that my lengthy abstinence would have led to such an explosion of energy, but it would seem that my desire for intimacy had reached its peak. Right now I was walking aimlessly along Anhurs’ streets killing time before the meeting by the temple and enjoying the sights of the city. Anhurs is almost the only place in the game not built following a template. Each house was custom-made and a separate design company was responsible for each street, every one of which they tried to make into something exceptional. I had no idea why it was necessary, but it made the place a wonder to behold. I would close my eyes and completely immerse myself in my surroundings as I cruised on autopilot along the streets that I had run around for two years before my prison sentence. When I was a Hunter, I had usually tried not to depart too far aw
ay from the capital, which was the scene of the most interesting happenings and which I knew like the back of my hand.

  Without a thought that I could get lost or become a victim of PK-ers (the weather was great and the city was a safe-zone), I found myself next to a painfully familiar place: the Rogue training grounds. Subdued shouts from players doing various agility exercises, their happy exclamations when they got something right and bursts of laughter from the crowd when someone fell down ... this place brought back so many memories. ... My heart missed a beat, a lump came to my throat and I turned and entered the training grounds. At one time I spent at least two months teaching myself to complete the first stage of the obstacle course, so I felt completely at home in these training grounds. Since I ended up in this area, why not try to go through the course as a Shaman? Let's see if my body still remembers the movements that I'd honed for such a long time.

  "Look – what do we have here?" said an unpleasant and jarring male voice. "There's a Shaman on the course, everyone stealth now! Ha-ha-ha!"

  I managed to find the source of this mocking voice in the crowd of Rogues preparing to go through the obstacle course. He presented a standard image of a hero with a square jaw, a pack of muscles (why would a Rogue need muscles?) and a billowing cape. ... This was no player, but some comic superhero. I didn't even bother reading his name, since I immediately lost any interest in this person. Using an auto-generated game avatar wasn't forbidden, but it was considered bad taste amongst most players. Why choose a template when you could run around as yourself?

  A word about the obstacle course. The main stat for Rogues is Agility, so that's what they level up in first. It can be increased not only with marksmanship exercises, but also by overcoming various obstacles. If you jump over a log you get +4% Agility, if you jump over two that would already be +5% and so on. The Rogue training area was stuffed full of various devices, but the crown was the main obstacle course: it was an enormous stretch of ground, about 500 meters long, peppered all over the place with swinging blade-pendulums, flame jets, hanging chains and other features that made progress through it a rather complicated affair. Hunters often came here to do some additional leveling up in Agility, because their training grounds contained little else other than shooting targets. Rogues welcomed such visitors and the reason was quite understandable. Often this kind of neighborhood gave rise to Hunter-Rogue PK group formations. Destroying such a group single-handedly was almost impossible: there was just too much crowd control, poison and additional force in the form of the Hunter's pet. It was three against one. The obstacle course was broken up into five parts, 100 meters each, and the task for each contender was to complete them all, one after another. Completing each of them granted titles that were seen as a mark of high honor among Rogues, but were completely useless to other classes. At the time, after a long period of preparation, I was able to complete the first 100 meters on autopilot, with my eyes closed. But that was the limit of my skills and I didn't know any Rogues that were able to complete the entire stretch. It was impossible to die on the course, since as soon as your Hit Points reached 1, you were teleported to the beginning with the length of the covered ground highlighted. A hundred meters corresponded to the title 'Dodger', which was the first step in the Rogue hierarchy.

  "What'd you forget here, you miserable bastard?" The maladjusted player continued to have a laugh. "Get back to summoning your spirits, there's nothing for you to do here."

  "Lloyd Redoombsky." One of the NPC’s Rogue Masters appeared next to me. "Three laps around the course. On the double!"

  "But why, Master?"

  "Four laps with three stone weights! Now!"

  "Yes, Master!" Mumbling something under his breath, the player ran up to the wall that surrounded the Anhurs Rogue training grounds, picked up three stones from the neat pile lying near the wall and sped down the track. Four laps equaled to almost ten kilometers, with weights that gave you +3–5% towards Agility and +2–4% towards Stamina. Despite all his grumbling it would do him good.

  "How can I be of help to an Elemental Shaman?" said the Master, stressing the last word, my class, and hinting that there was little for me to do here.

  "I would like to go through the obstacle course." I tried to speak with a degree of pride, but my last words were drowned out in the laughter of the Rogues and Hunters. Suddenly an idea popped into my head: why not put these snobs back in their place? That would be some joke. Who would expect a Shaman to complete a course that Rogues spend so much time trying to perfect? No-one. This could play in my favor. I had no idea if I could pull it off or not, but I still remembered every move in the first hundred meters. I wasn't deterred by the fact that back then I was a Hunter with maxed out Agility. I knew all about rings and had the ability to change stats on them too.

  "Anyone is free to go through the obstacle course." I was grateful to the NPC for not dropping even a hint of a smile when he heard my proposal. "Shaman Mahan has never gone through this trial. I, the Master of Rogues, can confirm this. Give me a sign when you're ready."

  "I'm ready," I grinned, as I watched the reaction of the players. They stopped doing their exercises, surrounded the strange Shaman, without blocking the way to the obstacle course, and kept making pointed remarks about my sanity and or total lack thereof.

  "I bet five hundred gold that he won't get through even 20 meters!" finally came a shout that I was eagerly expecting. Bigheaded snobs shouldn't just be punished, but hit directly in the pocket – that's the only way they'll learn that putting people down randomly can result in unpleasant consequences.

  "I'll take that up!" I shouted. "Five hundred for 20 meters. Anyone else?"

  The place descended into chaos. I barely had time to sign the agreements that flashed before my eyes. First came the agreements for 30 meters, then for 50 and then even a handful for 90 meters, staking just over 3000 gold each. As soon as the bombardment of agreements had ceased and the players started to exchange pleased glances – clearly thinking that they were about to clean up as a result of a seriously nutty Shaman – I walked up to the start of the course and looked at the final total: a hundred and twenty three agreements amounting to 52000 gold. Not bad; now I just had to earn it. There were swirling cylinders and pendulums ... everything looked and worked the same as before. ... Let's see. I changed the bonus on my rings to Agility, closed my eyes and took the first step. The test had commenced ...

  Jump forward, putting the weight straight on the knees. Immediately roll left and jump up, as a blade slashes under your feet. Two small steps ahead, head ducked, then stop for two seconds and make another two steps forward. Jump up, head still ducked, feel the air being sliced by blades just a centimeter away, lie flat and make a sharp roll to the right. Then jump straight up and five quick steps forward ...

  I suddenly felt that something wasn't going according to plan. I sensed a threat coming from the right … I soon lost track of time, so I couldn't say exactly how many meters I'd covered, but judging by the silence around me, only broken only by the squeaking of the mechanisms, I've covered enough: the players were very quiet. That'll teach you to cross a Shaman! All of this took just a moment to flash through my head, as I forced my body to make an awkward movement to dodge a probable line of attack. As soon as I fell down I got the feeling that I had to run from this spot. I rolled sideways, opened my eyes and looked around. 112 meters. Having covered the stretch that I had learned by heart, now I was in unexplored territory. I didn't have a clue how to get through here, so what the players were expecting to happen from the very first moments of the trial finally happened – I was hit by a pendulum ... and flew out of the obstacle course. ...

  I came to myself by the start line. My Life Bar froze at 1 point, but soon began to slowly climb back up – having a healthy amount of Energy was helpful. Going through the obstacle course gained me +15 Agility and +5 Stamina. Although these weren't stats that a Shaman would need, I'd find a way to make good use of them too. I got to my feet a
nd looked around. The silence of the players, who had just witnessed a miracle, was the best reward – even better than the extra 200000 gold I just earned.

  "That's quite something," finally uttered one of the Rogues, and the crowd of players exploded with noise. As the enthusiastic buzz surrounded me, I began to be bombarded by messages – just as I had received agreements previously – that this or that amount had arrived to my account from some player or other. A minute later I only had five outstanding agreements, worth 3000 gold each.

  "Some people still haven't paid up on their agreements." Without a moment's hesitation I tried to outshout the crowd of players. My ear caught a rather interesting scrap of conversation: "Are you sure you filmed everything? We have to put it up on the site today, no-one will believe it unless they see it."

  "I haven't paid up," came the voice that had taken a swipe at me at the very beginning. "I won't pay. You cheated!"

  "What?!" Such an accusation made my jaw drop. "What cheating? What are you on about?"

  "No-one can cover that stretch on the first attempt. You trained especially in order to rip players off. You're a thief! I'll drag your ass through the courts! You'll be kicked out of Barliona for a trick like that! Hand over the money or I'll lodge a complaint against you with the Heralds!"

  "Have you gone crazy, pretty-boy?" I took a few deep breaths, trying to regain my cool, but wasn't exactly succeeding. The urge to punch this idiot in the face was so strong that I barely restrained myself. Players weren't permitted to attack each other in the city, but on the training grounds fighting was allowed. As in the case of the obstacle course, a player couldn't be killed: their Life Bar wouldn't fall below one point while their attacker wouldn't be branded with the red PK-er mark. This was the training grounds, after all.