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

by Vasily Mahanenko

  “Can you get it for me?” I asked immediately. “I very much want to figure out the history of my race.”

  “Okay, I have a very detailed account. I’ll let you read it. Now, have I satisfied your curiosity my dear?”

  “Almost,” I grinned. “Tell me, are you familiar with the contents of this scroll?” I took out the recording of the Karmadont Chess Set and offered it to the girl. “I’d very much like to hear your opinion on the matter.”

  The final obstacle to my complete trusting of Anastaria floated up from the depths and into our joint awareness. Having on hand the ultimate piece of proof that perhaps the girl had entered my clan solely due to the quest and not due to…hmm…due to our two clans, the worm of suspicion refused to allow me to believe her. He’s a strange critter in general—he mistrusts everyone, including myself.

  “What an interesting little document,” quickly scanning the text, Anastaria pensively returned it to me. “There’s a third part there too, no? For the creator.”

  “There is.” I didn’t try to deny the obvious.

  “How fun…I imagine that you’re thinking about my joining our clan. As the Emperor is my witness, I never saw this document or the text written in it,” the girl said suddenly and was immediately surrounded by a white light. The Emperor had confirmed her words. “That would be more effective than trying to prove to you that I’m not really a giraffe. My father never showed me this paper…What a conspirator! Oh well, I’ll have a chat with him eventually. He’ll see what happens when you hide something from me. Forgive me, Dan—I’m being emotional—but he and I trusted each other that we were open with one another about everything, and here…”

  The worm of suspicion scoffed contemptuously, called Stacey some unprintable words and wriggled away back to sleep in his hole—while I, for the first time in many years, both in reality and virtual reality, embraced the girl I loved and experienced only one feeling—immeasurable happiness.

  Chapter 8. Meeting Altameda

  “The castle’s straight ahead!” Plinto exclaimed joyfully as if he could hardly wait to plunge into the thick of battle. We had only about a kilometer left to fly, but it was already seriously gloomy—the castle was surrounded by an earnest and roiling battle. And what’s more was that the battle was roiling not in the circle of light but right at the gates. Judging by the quivering white torrent flowing in a long tongue from the castle—Altameda had phantoms aplenty.

  “Let’s land by the circle of light!” Anastaria reminded just in case.

  “Oh! We’re already drawing fire!” yelled the Rogue and sharply banked his phoenix to let an arrow pass. NPCs would never open fire without first determining a reason for it, which meant that we were being attacked by players. Either the Azure Dragons’ mercenaries or they themselves—it didn’t matter. The main thing was we were at war and being shot at.

  Per Stacey’s advice I had written to Donotpunnik the night before, inviting him to join our clan—but he instantly replied with a refusal. The Death Knight was not for hire even if I paid for the entire value of his contract with his current clan. He warned me one more time not to approach the castle, adding that otherwise, his people would begin to hunt us until the Heralds would have to get involved. But okay—that was his decision to make and he made it. I won’t offer a second time.

  “Change of plan—fly right for the circle! There’s some NPCs fighting over there right now. We can help them! Our main goal is to show our passes!”

  “Let’s go,” Plinto agreed, banking his bird again and at this point, we entered the circle of light…

  You have entered blessed ground. Buff received: Eluna’s Gift. All characteristics increased by 45%; Experience gained increased x45; growth to stats increased x45. Duration of buff: 2 hours.

  “Yeaaah,” droned Plinto. “I’d kill anyone for this too.”

  “Bring us down!” came Stacey’s shout as Plinto’s phoenix transformed back into a bridle beneath me. We began falling in a parabola, carried by our inertia. Hitting the ground from a hundred meters up—that’s how high we’d been flying—is all but a guaranteed respawn.

  Yeah, right!

  As practice now revealed, flying over the castle was forbidden. If you want to enter the enormous, secure territory—you’ll have to break down the gates as per the game rules. I guess, the developers wanted to ensure that the players got a full taste of all the lovely diversions they had prepared for them.

  But we weren’t the kind to use standard approaches.

  “Plinto, grab on,” I yelled, transforming into a Dragon. A hundred meters is about six seconds of free fall, which is enough to save everyone. Even if I couldn’t fly—I could glide, or slowly fall considering how overloaded I was…why not?

  You cannot carry two players on you.

  Ignoring the notification, I looked on in horror as my paws simply passed through Stacey as if she were made of air. I could neither latch onto her, nor slow her horrible fall.

  “Dan, it’s okay, I’ll just cast a bubble, don’t panic,” the girl’s thought flooded my mind with relief, allowing me to take a breath. I was about to toss Plinto off me! “Thanks for grabbing Plinto. Land next to me.”

  The body of the one you love, even if only its virtual representation, slamming into a crowd of NPCs fighting some phantoms is quite a sight—especially when it strikes them like bowling ball, scattering the phantoms in every direction. Earth went flying upward as did NPCs and phantoms—Anastaria arrived in style.

  “Get over here! Dan, you’re casting strengthening! Get into the crowd of NPCs. Try to find the one we need to give our security passes to.”

  “Plinto, you go to Stacey,” I passed on her request…though, who am I kidding…her order to the Rogue. “I’ll be nearby.”

  “Roger that,” came the Rogue’s response from somewhere in the vicinity of my tail and in a tone of voice that caused most players in Malabar to pull muscles. The Rogue had entered his battle mode and it was best to stay out of his way. Considering that all of Plinto and Anastaria’s stats had grown by 45%, you could say that two monsters had descended from the heavens to Alatameda’s gates. And one, well, not quite monster whose only goal at the moment was simply to survive…me, that is.

  “I don’t know who you are,” an attractive 300-Level NPC said to me—a Mage if I surmised accurately from the lightning flashing from her hands, “but you’ve arrived just in the nick of time! Tell your warriors that we’re about to retreat. It’s not possible to make it inside at the moment. We need to conserve our manpower. Retreat!” came the order and thirty fully armored warriors commenced a fairly fluid—as if they had drilled it for years—retreat. Five healers put on a master class in healing, maintaining the Hit Points of all the fighters at 90–100%, while three Mages, including the girl I’d been talking to, who seemed also to be their leader, did their best to exterminate the phantoms as they approached the Warriors. Even if they didn’t have much of an effect, the enemies that reached the plated Warriors were significantly reduced in life. It occurred to me that I should try to recruit this squad as mercenaries—what if it worked out? Who knew…

  “Stacey, we’re retreating!” I’m finding our ability to communicate with one another nicer and nicer. In the heat of battle, there’s no time to read the chat or listen to the amulet, and a person is incapable of ever ignoring their own thoughts. “Take Plinto.”

  “Uh-huh,” came the response. “You know, I only have seven phantoms here, but I know now why Undigit parked his entire clan here. Plinto is having a field day...”

  I was in complete agreement with Stacey last retort. In Krispa, when Plinto appeared in the town square, he became a murderous whirlwind, sending the enemy players to respawn in one hit. But those were run-of-the-mill Level 200s back there, who represented barely a mouthful for the Rogue. Here however, as I already noticed, there were Level 300 phantoms crawling out of every possible hole, and only one Plinto with a +45% buff. Geyra (as the NPC officer was cal
led) and her squad had already retreated from the phantoms, periodically shooting salvos at them from their crossbows, and the Rogue was now on his own. Though, as far as I could see, this did not discomfort him much and even, to the opposite, simply gave him more space to practice his favorite craft. I could hardly keep track of what Plinto was doing. He wasn’t even a whirlwind…he was…Two greenish trails gradually fading in the air behind the Legendary daggers of my Vampire were the only visual indicators that met the eyes—everything else was utterly blurry. There was simply no chance to single out any further details in this tornado. If someone had told me that a player can work at such a mad speed, I would have laughed in his face, but my own eyes weren’t lying—a death machine had appeared before Altameda. Ten, twenty, forty, fifty…As soon as the phantoms approached Plinto, they evaporated—to respawn in 24 hours. I was really beginning to like this Eluna’s Gift!

  Clan achievement gained: The Best of the Best. The highest level player in Malabar is in your clan. As long as this achievement belongs to your clan, the experience gained by all clan members is increased by 5%.

  “If your fighter keeps working at this rate, he’ll burn out,” said Geyra, observing the dance of death that the Vampire had put on. “Stop him. We certainly won’t enter the castle today, so there’s no point in wasting so much energy. Eluna’s Gift comes with a fee, and for this sentient the price will already be enormous. Don’t let him pay with his suffering!”

  “Stacey, we need to extract Plinto! He’s gone berserk and can’t hear us!” I typed in the chat, as the constant healing and strengthening I was casting had decreased my Energy by half. If I address her telepathically, I’ll simply pass out.

  “Okay, the bubble’s cooldown has just ended. I’ll get him out now!” wrote Anastaria, but in that very moment Plinto performed an incredible feat: With one leap he traversed almost ten meters and landed right beside Geyra’s warriors, behind the cover of their bristled spears.

  “I wouldn’t call that berserk,” he said in a self-satisfied voice and, leaping one more time, only now over the warriors’ heads, landed beside me and Geyra. “D’you see that, boss? Seventy-two phantoms in total and almost half of my XP bar! I’m the best! For the first time in a decade, Hellfire is second!”

  “I don’t want to disappoint you, but I heard that there’s a recovery period,” I said, bringing my Rogue back to earth from his perch up in the clouds.

  “Found something to scare me with…” Plinto began to say but did not finish, for his eyes rolled back and blood began to stream from his nose and mouth. His Hit Points began to plummet and the Rogue collapsed on the ground as though all his bones had been ripped out of him. O-okay…The avatar only bleeds when the scenario allows for it. I would guess that at the moment, Plinto cannot leave the game and the system is making him feel all the joys of the ‘recovery’ from the buff he had received.

  “Stacey!” I yelled, pouring all the healing I had into Plinto. Geyra instantly issued an order to her fighters and two of them grabbed Plinto underarm and began dragging him out of the blessed land. Damn! That’s where the Azure Dragons were!

  “Dan, get us out,” croaked Anastaria, like Plinto crumpling to the ground. The only silver lining was that the girl hadn’t lost her consciousness. “You can leave the game only after recovering from Eluna’s Gift. Don’t use it!

  “She too must be extracted from the circle,” said Geyra, sending two other soldiers to Stacey. By that point we had already passed halfway through the blessed circle, steadily fighting off the oncoming phantoms, so we could allow ourselves the luxury of saving the wounded. “Come with us. You were healing too much. The recovery from Eluna’s Gift will impair you too.”

  “In the name of the Emperor, you are under arrest!” shouted a whiskered guard when we had almost reached normal ground. We were met at the very edge of the blessed land. The guard had already managed to grab Plinto, who remained unconscious. They pointed their spears at Anastaria and aimed a dozen crossbows at me. “You are hereby placed into custody for violating the border of Castle Urusai.”

  The guard went on, declaiming our sentence as if he were judge, jury and executioner. However, being taken prisoner was not among my plans. Stacey was trying to say something, but could only emit a hoarse mutter. Plinto was lying prone while Geyra’s men gradually pushed him past the border of blessed land with their feet, as if relief from the buff would come only on normal ground. All of this meant that I would have to deal with the situation myself. The only upside was that the immense mob of Azure Dragons standing beyond the blessed circle didn’t dare do anything to us. Even if they shot their arrows and spells at us, not one would hit its mark, for the Barliona guards were intent on taking us to prison and no one could get in their way. If someone did, they’d only find themselves in the neighboring cell.

  “By the right conferred upon me by the Emperor of Malabar, I am the rightful owner of this castle!” I yelled, resisting the guards’ efforts to twist my arms behind my back. “I have permission to pass through the security cordon, both for myself and my companions,” I pointed at Plinto and Stacey, “and I therefore demand we be released immediately. And I request protection! I request protection for myself and my friends from any attempts on our lives by the Free Citizens currently surrounding my castle!”

  “Please show me your pass, Earl!” demanded the Captain of the local garrison, approaching me. “For you and for your people!”

  Why look at that! A second ago you wanted to twist my arms from their sockets, and now I’m an Earl again! Why couldn’t we just begin from here? Is it a religious thing?

  “My pleasure.” I offered him three green papers which almost immediately dissolved in the captain’s hands. At the same time, green markers appeared over Plinto’s and Anastaria’s heads in what seemed like a visual indication that they now had clearance to come and go as they pleased.

  “You requested our protection, Earl,” the captain went on as his men began to unbind Plinto and Anastaria. “It shall be provided. As of now, you and your companions are under the protection of my garrison. However, I would like you to bear in mind that I have my orders and neither I nor my men may travel further than fifty meters from this castle. Also keep in mind that we grant you protection as the owner of this castle. As soon as you cease to be its owner, I will no longer have the right to protect you from other Free Citizens. All the best. My healers will examine Plinto and Anastaria.

  Buff available “Master of the House”—players do no damage to you in a radius of 500 meters from Altameda Castle. Duration: 62 days. Do you accept?

  What a question! Of course I do!

  “Does Plinto not require protection?” the captain asked with surprise when the wheezing Rogue, who was still spitting up blood, began to stir. The Vampire had been pushed past the boundary of blessed ground and was being attended to by healers, which meant that he was no longer in danger of having to respawn.

  “The choice is his,” I replied philosophically, perfectly understanding Plinto’s motives: If every time he goes to the castle, he has to suffer this, he’d prefer to have someone around to take it out on. By way of diversion, nothing else. Since the Azure Dragons declared war on us, why not engage in a little genocide? He did not fear an all-out assault—the guards were around and would get involved one way or another—and the strongest player in Malabar had little to fear from sucker punches. I’m certain that he’d even welcome them, since they’d merely grant him permission to exact vengeance. If we factor in that Plinto was generally unmanageable, I wouldn’t envy whomever decided to test his luck on him.

  “In that case, I will now leave you. Geyra!” the captain addressed my new acquaintance. “Didn’t I warn you that it’s dangerous to enter the circle? Were you simply seeking your death or are you perhaps the lucky carrier of the Mark of Death?”

  “It is my duty, captain! You know so yourself!”

  “And yet you are responsible not only for yourself but your people a
s well! What is the sense in losing your head here and now? Do you wish to make the phantoms happy or something?”

  The captain began dragging Geyra away, while she resisted, and at this moment, an arrow flew straight into my face. More precisely, it should have flown into my face, since thanks to my immunity from damage done by players, the arrow and I were actually in different dimensions and all I felt was a whiff of air as it passed.

  “Beldar! For an attempt on the castle’s owner, you are hereby remanded to custody for 24 hours!” the guards yelled immediately and twisting back the arms of the hapless marksman, sent him to Narlak. It looked like the Azure Dragons had decided to test the reliability of my buff. I’m curious—if they have NPC mercenaries, will my ‘Master of the House’ buff remain effective or will I have to defend myself? I wouldn’t quite want to test this conjecture on my own hide.

  “Stacey, two general questions occurred to me,” acting as if nothing serious had just happened, and making a show of ignoring the players milling nearby, I approached the girl. Stacey looked like she had recovered a little from ‘Eluna’s Gift’ and could speak again.

  “I’m listening.”

  “How did you two activate the ability and why is it that neither you nor I received the experience that Plinto earned? We’re in a single group together after all, but his level is the only one that grew.”