The Phantom Castle (The Way of the Shaman: Book #4) LitRPG series

by Vasily Mahanenko

  “He said, ‘Look at these two maps. They mark the places with the ancient treasure vaults of the Dragons. We have no need of them now, but they could be of use to you. To the first place you can bring someone else, to the second you can only go alone.’ And that’s it! He didn’t say anything else…Hold on! Oh but what a dummy I am!”

  “What do you mean?” Draco asked surprised.

  “What I said! Step aside so I don’t crush you! If this is the ancient treasure vault of the Dragons, then perhaps it should be traversed in Dragon Form? Why didn’t I think of that earlier?”

  “It worked! Brother—look at this!” said Draco, pointing with his paw behind my back. I turned around and saw a massive, carved, wooden double door that was gradually descending from above. Slowly, as though making sure that there were only Dragons around, the door materialized in our world. With each passing moment, the door—you could even call it a gate—was acquiring ever clearer definitions, showing details that the eye missed at first glance: a baroque ornament in the form of two dragons flying towards one another and massive ring pulls that looked like they had been fashioned from a thick, forged cable. I could see neither locks nor latches, which told me that I should go on and enter and nothing would hold me back.

  “What do you say, bud? Should we go see what our ancestors have planned for us? Sim sim salabim: open up!” I said, getting to my paws with a slight groan. I approached the door. Sitting down on my tail, I grabbed the rings with my paws and pulled them towards myself. It was unlikely that I would have to push. The time had come to find out what the Dragons of the Blue Flame had hidden away in this Dungeon.

  “Our greetings to you, Dragon!” came a quiet voice that was so resonant that I felt my teeth vibrate, while even the walls, it seemed, shivered. Right past the doors which I had passed through, lay a cavernous hall with walls that were draped in red ribbons hanging from the ceiling. Giant mounds of gold lay all around this chamber, as well as armor, tomes and other valuables. My personal menagerie, that zoo inside of me that had been slumbering for a while now, opened its numerous eyes, leered around the hall, instantly jumped to its hind legs and stuck out its tongue. In his fantasy, my Greedy Toad was already sweeping the hall’s treasures with his short little paws into his infinite pockets, carefully counting the gains. In the meantime, my Hoarding Hamster was already drafting a thesis stating that if I were to leave here without taking every last gem, his Grace would never forgive me. Could it really be that Renox was so thankful to his son that he sent him to such a place? After all, for a player like me, this place was nothing short of a fairy tale! “You have entered the Dragons’ holy of holies—the treasure vault. For thousands of years, the Dragons of the Blue Flame have filled it, gathering masterpieces and unique artifacts from all over the world. Gold and gemstones are mere dust in comparison to the Divine Hat of Centarius or the Sword of La. They can be yours, if you pass the trial that awaits you. Are you prepared?”

  Trial? My personal critters instantly lost interest and went back to sleep for an undetermined amount of time. Was I really so naïve as to think that the developers would just let me have this entire cave? I’d wager my head that there’s a developer sitting somewhere rubbing his hands imagining some poor sap like me stumbling into his horrible prank. If by some miracle I manage to get out of here with even a single copper coin or some piece of junk—that alone will be an unprecedented success. Although…Stop! Why am I being so pessimistic all of a sudden? I passed my test to become a Shaman and I passed Geranika’s test too. Why shouldn’t I pass the trial of the Dragons as well?

  “I am ready,” I shouted to the mysterious voice as my Totem began wheeling above the items, examining them with interest. Just then, the projection of a little girl aged about 7 or 8 appeared before me.

  “Once upon a time, a girl no different from any other was born in a godforsaken village of Malabar. When she was six years old, a Dragon attacked the village. Whether he was in his right to do so or not, no longer matters. What is important is that he burned the settlement down to embers, destroying all its inhabitants, with the exception of the girl, whom her parents concealed in a deep cellar and thus saved her from the Dragon’s flame. Two years later, the girl killed the perpetrator. She killed him with the help of magic, despite the fact that Dragons are almost entirely immune to it. It was blood spilt for blood spilt, an eye for an eye, and the Dragons did not seek revenge for the death of one of their own, even though, seemingly, the unthinkable had occurred—one of a lowborn race had raised her hand against one of theirs. Though burning down villages was not punished, yet it was considered something unthinkable: What was the point of waging war against those who could not defend themselves, while Sirens attacked from the East? Thus the Dragons let the whole thing pass.

  “And yet, over the next six years, the girl had already killed 35 Dragons. Too late the Dragons realized that a monster had been born in Malabar. And so one of the most terrible battles of Malabar began. All the Dragons against one small human. After the death of 150 Dragons, they fled the field of battle in terror, leaving behind them their dead. Implausible, but that was the way it happened. The more of us there were, the more powerful grew the girl. She managed to live only 27 years in this world before she completely burned out. Her hate of the Dragons burned her from within and kept her from finding her own place under the sun.

  “And thus I send you into the past: ‘The Plague,’ as the Dragons named her afterwards, has vanquished her first offender. The revenge has been exacted. You are permitted everything. You may kill her and thereby save the 342 Dragons that she slew in her brief life. You may leave her alone and let history take its natural course. You may do whatever you like. But remember! Your choice shall determine the outcome of your trial!”

  Something flashed before my eyes and I found myself alone—without Draco—in a coniferous forest. Among the immense mast-like pines that rose high into the sky, a bloodied girl sat on the earth with her back against the immense torso of a slain Dragon. She regarded me from beneath her knit brow.

  “Have you come to avenge the murderer?” asked ‘the Plague’ in a hoarse, not at all childish voice. In the slanted sunlight, bloody flecks punctuated each word from her mouth. Only now did I notice the ribs protruding from her contorted chest, her unnaturally twisted legs and her arm, wholly singed and hanging like a blackened stump from her shoulder. The combat with the Dragon had cost her dearly.

  The Plague’s Hit Points were down to 2%, so acting on instinct, I left my Dragon Form and began to summon the Healing Spirits. I could always destroy an 8-year-old girl later on—though I shudder at the thought of having to do so—but for now, I must at least heal her. Even if this is just a game, and moreover a historical episode from a game, I can’t bear to watch a child (even if only a virtual child) die. I’m simply not morally prepared to witness such a thing.

  “You’re even a changeling,” the girl added a minute later when her Hit Points—and appearance—had returned to normal. A weird quirk about the Barliona game world is that neither blood nor damage is depicted, since it is considered that doing so would traumatize the players’ psyches. If one sees blood anywhere, then it’s only in the scenarios where it’s used to provide the requisite atmosphere. It follows that, in the given scenario, I have to appear to this girl in human form, as I don’t know how to heal people as a Dragon. Or, if Draco were with me, I could ask him to heal her—though, he uses his fire breath to heal, which I doubt this girl would enjoy very much. The thought that the developers could have conceived of anything else but having me help the child did not even occur to me. Only an utter psycho could act differently in this situation.

  “My name is Mahan,” I introduced myself to the girl. “What should I call you?”

  “You wish to know my name so you can write it on my grave?” rejoined this prodigy, not even bothering to glance at the hand I offered to help her stand up. Something about this girl’s speech has absolutely nothing to do with th
e speech of children. And the look in her eyes is predatory and angry and doesn’t resemble that of an eight-year-old girl. Her look is that of—I don’t even know—a hardened criminal who’s spent most of his life breaking up rocks. There is nothing in it but anger, malice and—what unsettled me most—complete despair. The NPC child was certain that I had come to kill her and was even prepared for it. Where was all this headed?

  “You are in one piece and healthy,” I continued, despite the girl’s clearly adversarial disposition. “You are free to go wherever and whenever you like.”

  “You want to watch me suffer a little longer?” the girl grumbled without getting up from the ground.

  “You’re a strange one.” Despite the gravity of the situation, I couldn’t help but smile. There were simply too many contradictory feelings when your eyes see one thing and your ears hear something else entirely. “I’m about to kill you—bad; I healed you—bad; I tell you you’re free—bad. Why don’t you take a moment to figure out which of the above is bad and which not so bad? Then, that which you can live with is what I’ll do.”

  “Dying is bad,” the little monster before me said after a moment’s thought. “The more Dragons I can kill, the better life in Barliona will be!”

  “What did the Dragons do to you? I admit that in destroying your village, this one here acted pretty horribly, but what are the others guilty of? For example, I’m a Dragon. I healed you. I can’t feed you—sorry, I haven’t got anything with me. But I can fly you to some human settlement, so that you don’t have to wander around the forest on your own. Are you going to kill me too?”

  “Yes!” the girl snarled, once again looking at me from under her brow. “There is no place for Dragons in Barliona. You are all evil! You don’t care one bit whether it’s a village, a town, a city or a country! You think you’re untouchable, and then if people try to defend themselves, your entire flock descends on them and destroys everything in the vicinity! The fewer there are of you in Barliona, the better!”

  “But how did you pick up all these ideas?” I was still smiling, yet something in the little one’s words had snagged me. Admitting to yourself that you belong to a race of killers isn’t very pleasant. I preferred to imagine Dragons as magnificent and wise creatures.

  “They’re not ideas. I’ve seen all of this with my own eyes! Besides my village, this bastard,” the girl angrily elbowed the Dragon’s corpse at her back, demonstrating her disposition to my race, “completely destroyed three other villages and one town. And he didn’t act on his own. Four Dragons divided the area into four equal parts and played the ‘Who can incinerate the most people in 10 minutes’ game. I was on a hill next to the town and I watched them burn living people and animals. I burned and moaned with tears, but the Dragons were having fun! The chief Dragon—the green one—was watching over the whole thing and pointing out the attackers’ mistakes to them: You took that bank too quickly, you didn’t turn your head right, the area you burned was too small for that attack. We’re no more than ants to them! The Dragons must be destroyed!”

  “The chief Dragon? Who?” I echoed surprised. A green dragon and in charge? Strange—I am utterly unfamiliar with the history of my race. I really should fill in this gap.

  “Every sentient in Barliona knows who Aarenoxitolikus is,” said the girl, forcing me to start in place. Renox? “If a person doesn’t utter his name at least once a week, then the Dragons come and punish him. Every five years, a curse is placed on each and every sentient that forces him to praise this green monster! And there’s no point in pretending like this is news to you! The Sirens and the Cyclops are the only ones who can stand up to them!”

  To say that the girl’s words shocked me would be an understatement. The wise Renox, my in-game father was according to this child one of great terrors of this world? My legs were feeling unsteady, so I took a seat on the earth and began to think. Memories of my time in the game flashed before my eyes—my first meeting with Renox, his jests with Kornik, my birth as a Dragon. Not once had Renox given me reason to doubt his intellect, his might and his objectivity. Even when he had appeared to stop Geranika—he had not simply attacked him, but had appealed to his emotions. Now it turned out (and I didn’t doubt it) that Renox had trained his warriors on humans, forcing them to raze cities. Although, hang on a second! Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed as well, and no one complains about that! What if those who lived in that city had no place in Barliona through their own deserts? It’s unlikely that the girl would answer this question. I would have to go to my father and ask him directly. I don’t even know how I would start such a conversation…“Hi Renox, so I heard that you’re a murderer…” Hmm…This was a nice trial indeed. What do the Dragons want from me anyway? What must I do according to this scenario’s logic? If I were a real Dragon, it would be my duty to kill the girl before she did more harm. Over three hundred slain Dragons, considering the race’s low birthrate, is too many to ignore. But I…I guess I wasn’t a true Dragon if I didn’t feel any pity for those killers. The one lying dead beside me right now deserved his death. The four that burned the city also—unless there were some mitigating circumstances, like phantoms that had possessed all the inhabitants or some horrible disease that was threatening to spread across all of Barliona.

  “I repeat—you are free and may go wherever you like,” I said one more time, making my decision. Let what happens happen. I wasn’t going to fight against history. “Only remember: Not all Dragons are the way you’ve described them. Killing each one only because he knows how to fly and has scales instead of skin, isn’t right. May I help you with anything else?”

  “You could drop dead!”

  “We will all die one day. Some of us earlier and some later.”

  “Dragons only know destruction! You have no other use! You only know how to lord over and destroy those who don’t bow their heads! I loathe you all!”

  “You’re mistaken. Love of destruction is not inherent only to Dragons! Take any race—even people! Why would they want to destroy Karmadont’s Chess Set?”

  “Karmadont? Is that another Dragon? Dragons don’t know how to make anything beautiful—only arms and armor. Armor and arms. Those are the only things Dragons have ever made!”

  “Karmadont is the human Emperor,” I replied through my contemplation. If the girl didn’t know this, it followed that I had been cast back into such depths of history that I shuddered to even think where—when—I was. “He created these here chess pieces, which I’m now trying to restore.” I produced the figurines from my bag and placed them on the earth before the girl who was still leaning back against her vanquished foe.

  “Oh how lovely!” exclaimed the girl as she examined the dwarves and orcs. The tone of her exclamation was so utterly different, so childlike and full of emotion that I couldn’t help but feel warmer inside. However, after a minute she lay aside the figurines and reverted back to her resolute, serious, adult voice: “You are a Dragon! And that means that you didn’t really make them. I bet you stole them! Dragons don’t know how to make anything beautiful! They only know how to destroy things!”

  “Oh really?” I raised my eyebrows inquisitively, suddenly realizing what I had to do. “Look here—this is Grichin,” I approached the girl who immediately pressed back into the Dragon’s body as if I were coming to kill her. “He is famous for…”

  Taking each figurine in turn, I told the girl its history and how it ended up becoming a chess piece. At first uncertainly, as if not understanding what was happening, the girl crept further and further from her slain foe, peering with curiosity and even a degree of fascination at the chess set.

  “What great heroes they were!” the girl said with such feeling—once I had finished telling her about the orcs—that it seemed she herself was an orc and I had reminded her of the great heroes of her tribe.

  “What excellent craftsmen!” she added with no less feeling, once I told her the stories of the dwarves. Utterly unafraid of me, she was
now sitting before me, listening to my tales.

  “Say, have you ever heard the tale of the two battle ogres?”

  “No,” said the Plague, shaking her head. If it weren’t for her attire, which healing spells had no effect on, nothing suggested that this girl was the killer of Dragons. Large blue eyes, literally demanding the next fairy tale, cute little pigtails protruding in opposite directions…The person sitting before me was as ordinary a girl of eight as the developers could draw.

  “It’s too bad. I don’t know why Karmadont included them in his chess set either. But I have an idea! Let’s make up a story ourselves!”

  “Is that allowed?” she asked in surprise.

  “I don’t know!” I replied honestly. “But we can try! And so—there were once two ogres…”

  “A boy and a girl,” the Plague immediately interrupted and looked down. “Let them be a boy and girl.”

  “Okay. Two little ogres once went for a walk in the woods. When suddenly…”

  “They were taken prisoner!” the girl interrupted again.

  “Yes, they were taken prisoner by their enemies who wanted to destroy the ogre tribe.”

  * * *

  “Rorg! We’re not allowed to go walking in the woods! It’s dangerous here!” said the small girl, whose fangs had not fully grown in yet, indicating that she wasn’t yet ten.

  “Don’t be so dull, Gragza! We are ogres!” replied her brother, who was older by virtue of being born an entire minute earlier than his sister.

  “Watch out! If dad finds out that we’ve left the canyon, we won’t be able to take a seat for an entire week with the spanking he’ll give us.”

  “Oh come off it! The green-skins haven’t shown up in our parts for a week already. There’s no one and nothing for us to be afraid of in the woods. Come on. I heard about this one glade which has really tasty berries growing in it. You should have seen the scouts licking their lips when they told dad about them.”