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

by Vasily Mahanenko

  “Maybe I can just return and…”

  “We are outlaws! Only the Guardian can change our reputation with the city! You don’t happen to know who the Guardian of Narlak is and where we could find him? No? Okay…We’ll have to take this screw-up as fact. Let’s see where the pirates came from, at the moment there’s neither…Wait! Why are Undigit and Donotpunnik sitting in on the session?”

  “They’re like patrons or something…”

  “What patrons? Hang on a second, I’ll be back.” Stacey froze again, leaving me alone.

  “Mahan, hello!” As soon as Stacey left, my amulet began to vibrate. “This is Geyra. As I understood it, you won’t be showing up in Altameda anymore? They didn’t arrest us, but they won’t let us through to the castle as long as we remain your mercenaries. Can I assume that our agreement is void?”

  “Wait! Give me a couple days. I’ll come back to Altameda and we’ll destroy the monster! Simply give me a couple days!”

  “Okay,” Geyra agreed a little too quickly. “We won’t do anything for two days. We’ll even move away from the castle to give the guards and the Free Citizens some peace of mind. However, if you do not return, our agreement will be terminated. As soon as you need me, call me on your amulet. I’ll send you the number now. As soon as you call, we’ll show up! And remember—two days! Good luck to you.”

  “Dan.” It was as if Anastaria had waited for me to finish my conversation before returning. “Players cannot be city patrons! The rules forbid it! The Charter does mention that patrons can come to Council sessions, but it’s also spelled out in bold type that players cannot be patrons! Do you understand?!”

  “Not anymore,” I said, sitting down on the ground. “I don’t understand anything anymore!”

  “All right, let’s set our emotions aside and look at the facts. First—Altameda fell onto Glarnis. We need to ask the Dark Lord and the Emperor whether it had ever fallen onto other cities or castles before now. Second—the Azure Dragons have somehow earned Exalted status with the city and thereby acquired full rights to explore Altameda. Third—Undigit and Donotpunnik sat in on the city session, filmed it, and yet their video is nowhere to be found. Then again, only several minutes have passed, so we should check again tomorrow morning. Fourth—the Pirates. As I recall, players have only ever fought them before. No one has ever received a quest with them. Especially with that strange restriction of ‘only a single clan per empire.’ Fifth—we’re not allowed near Altameda, so we should probably just forget about it. Of course, we’ll try to break through, but it’s best to admit to ourselves that our castle will be located near Sintana. I checked out photos of it—it’s a Level 1. An utter ruin without even any walls. We’ll have to sink a good amount of gold into it. Sixth—Altameda is connected to some kind of event that the Azures know about. And we have no way of exerting any pressure on them. Have I missed anything?”

  “Seventh—I know how to solve the ogre puzzle.”

  “I do too. It wasn’t very complicated. There are two solutions and we (note how I just said ‘we’) will need to go check out both locations.”

  “Two?”

  “Don’t get distracted! Let’s think of a way that we could both get into that castle…”

  “Why both? We have Geyra and her mercenaries who are free to go in as they please.”

  “One more time…”

  “Geyra’s mercenaries are allowed to go in. The restriction only applies to players.”

  “Who is Geyra?” Stacey looked at me questioningly, but then her face smoothed over as if she had just recalled who I was talking about. “You managed to hire her?”

  “And her squad. Oh, I forgot, you’re listed as an ordinary clan member so you don’t get all the notifications…Here, I’m sending you the description now.” I sent over the contract Geyra and I had signed, forcing Stacey to take a moment to think.

  “Seventh—a squad of Level 300 NPCs, which would normally cost us at least a hundred grand per week per person, have joined the clan for free to help storm the castle…”

  “How much?” I asked, stunned by the fantastical sum.

  “Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. When I was in Phoenix we’d frequently hire mercenaries to protect Dungeons. Eighth—the Crastil of Shalaar. I forgot about it. The devs didn’t simply throw a thing like this into the game. I suspect it has something to do with the castle. Ninth—the cards…No, here I’m not sure. The cards don’t seem to relate—after all, you got Slate’s quest a lot earlier than the castle. By the way, give them to me so I can study them—maybe I really should play a game of solitaire…or play a game with whoever made them. Then ninth—the issue of jurisdiction. Altameda destroyed Glarnis and now should theoretically occupy its territory, without Narlak having any right to it. But the Council members were explicit that they had fully investigated this issue. We need to take a closer look too. Tenth—the powerlessness of the Heralds and the Emperor. As far as the latter is concerned, he doesn’t seem too disposed to taking any action at the moment—as long as that dagger is in his throne…but the Heralds! I don’t understand what’s happening and can’t wrap my mind around this puzzle. All that emerges is some kind of nonsense…”

  “Nonsense?” I still didn’t understand anything.

  “Okay—decision time! Enough wasting time! I’ve gotten so used to not doing anything in your clan that I’ve started miscalculating and allowing myself to make mistakes. Enough!”

  “In that case, here’s another factoid for you.” I had put off telling Stacey about my agreement with Evolett for too long as it was, and if this bit of information would influence her planning—why she’d eat me whole (along with all my belongings) if I didn’t tell her.

  “He agreed to give us his warriors?” Stacey echoed in disbelief.

  “I’m not sure any more. Our deal was contingent on Narlak’s permission, and now when that permission is definitely off the table…By the way, you didn’t receive our agreement yet?”

  “After calling Leite and Barsina…call my uncle! You’re right—forget the reputation! We’ll kick the Azures out of Altameda by force!”

  “Speaking!” sounded the amulet. I’m curious—is Evolett always in-game, or merely from 9 to 5 like it’s his job?

  “Evolett, this is Mahan and Anastaria. I am calling about our agreement…”

  “Hi uncle! We really need your warriors. Narlak won’t be granting permission—we’re in Hatred status with them. I’ll deal with dad—he won’t help the Azures, but Etamzilat and his people will probably join up against us. We’ll pick up some extra mercenary players, but your people could really come in handy! Will you do it?”

  “Did you read the contract?”

  “Not yet because I haven’t received it, but we definitely won’t meet the part about obtaining permission.”

  “Stacey, losing reputation with a neutral city is a big deal. If I were going alone as an ordinary merc, it’d be one thing, but acting as a clan…Surely, you understand?”

  “I understand. Just listen to this,” Stacey read aloud the description for the pirate quest. “Now think about it. We’re already representing Malabar—who’s going to do the same on the Kartossian side?”

  The amulet went quiet for practically a minute. I even began to worry that our connection had dropped, yet the shimmering blue cloud around the amulet let me know that everything was okay and our conversation partner was simply staying silent.

  “I need a day,” came the reply at last, “as well as three Mages who can cast a teleport to Malabar. We’ll fly to the Kartossian border, but you’ll need to pull us over to your location. Three thousand Level 200+ and mercenaries. I don’t know how many, but I’ll try to get as many as possible. Let’s make one thing clear right away—the mercenaries get to keep all the loot from the phantoms they kill. Otherwise, no one will agree to this.”

  “That works!” I instantly replied. “With the exception of items that provide clan quests. I get to keep those
.”

  “Agreed. Mercenaries don’t need those anyway. Stacey…Are you sure that you want to start a clan war?”

  “Yes! The hubbub around Altameda at the moment is very reminiscent of Beatwick and the Dark Forest. Do you remember how all that turned out?”

  “One day! Tomorrow at 6 p.m. server time, I’ll be waiting for your portal at the following coordinates…”

  Evolett read out the coordinates and went off to go assemble his people.

  “Barsa, Leite!” Not wasting a second, Anastaria took out two amulets making two calls simultaneously. “Put an announcement up that we’re hiring! Here’s the description,” Stacey dictated the text describing Altameda and the hiring terms. “The assembly point is the central square in Anhurs, tomorrow at 5:40 p.m. Make sure to include the following in the contract…”

  “You think anyone’s willing to agree to work an entire month without pay?” Barsina asked in surprise.

  “I am. With this kind of grinding opportunity on the line, not to mention the Legends of Barliona and Mahan, we’ll find plenty of willing people. Publish the announcements across all channels. We don’t care if the Azures see it. There’s no time for secrecy at the moment. Signing off!”

  Replacing the amulets in her bag, Stacey shut her eyes for a moment as if considering whether she had overlooked anything. Then she said out of the blue:

  “What solution did you come up with to the ogre riddle?”

  “The riddle?” I didn’t comprehend right away.

  “Stay with me, Dan! The riddle of the ogres from the chess set. You said that you solved it. Tell me your version and we’ll compare it to mine.”

  “The verses denote coordinates for a location we need to go to. I can see three options—verse number, verse number given their proper place in the poem and stanza number.”

  “What about stanza number given the proper order of verses and verse number multiplied by the stanza number? There really is a myriad of options, but only two results yield coordinates that pertain to Malabar—verse numbers and stanza numbers. Everything else lands us either in the ocean, in Kartoss or in the Free Lands. Which of the two options shall we choose?”

  “I’m in favor of the second one. Verse number is too obvious.”

  “I agree. Leite!” Stacey grabbed her amulet again.

  “I’m already on it! I’ve almost made the payment!”

  “Good job! But at the moment, I need something else—get me a teleport scroll to 11352334: 1255218.”

  “Okay, I’ll get on that,” the Warrior sighed bitterly and added: “You know, I’m beginning to second-guess my decision. All I’m doing is running around Anhurs back and forth! The way I see it, the director of finances shouldn’t be doing so much running!”

  “Well as soon as you actually reach that post, we’ll hire you some assistants,” I said and heard a quiet ‘Damn! He’s there too?’ in response. Of course—what did he think, that he was in some fairytale? It was time to work!

  “Don’t forget about the cards, Dan,” said Stacey, switching off the amulet. Sitting down on the ground she sighed: “I think that’s it! Now we just have to wait for the day to end!”

  “Here,” I offered her the cards, sitting down beside her. “I haven’t seen you so busy in a while. Even during a raid you’re much more tranquil.”

  “During a raid, everything depends on me, but here there’s so much to figure out. Can you imagine what will happen if it turns out that we weren’t supposed to liberate Altameda? The probability that the devs put that very Urusai in there as the monster is incredibly high! A Naga Demon is no small matter! It’s a terrifying and powerful foe! It’s no accident that Elena’s circle surrounds the castle. The goddess wouldn’t do it without good reason. Grrr! I hate it when I don’t understand something! I feel like catching and killing someone! Just because.”

  “I know another way to let off steam,” I grinned, embracing the girl, but Stacey instantly slapped my arm aside:

  “Dan, the fate of the clan hangs in the balance, we’re facing an immense enemy and you’re thinking about one thing!”

  “Okay…” I said. “Maybe I’m missing something, but is there anything else you can do at the moment?”

  “Not anymore. What’s done is done.”

  “In that case, why worry? We can worry tomorrow, precisely at six o’clock.”

  Maybe you’re right,” Stacey smiled and turned to face me. “So what is this special method of yours?”

  I drew Stacey to myself and decided that Barliona could go to hell, but for the next two hours, there’d be nothing us but ourselves…

  * * *

  “Did we make a mistake?” I muttered, standing knee-deep in swamp muck. Two hours of joy managed to last only forty minutes, at which point we received a letter from Leite containing the teleport scroll. So we got dressed again and headed forth in search of adventure. Not knowing our current location, Leite didn’t worry too much and bought a scroll with an effective radius of the whole of Malabar. Forty thousand gold for one measly hunch…It was a bit much.

  “It’s looking like it,” Stacey replied, slowly sinking in the bog as I was. “So, what, shall we check out the second set of coordinates or scout around this place some more? It’s only a Level 70 location, so you won’t die too quickly. If you start drowning, I’ll just have to pull you out.”

  “Let’s look around a bit,” I agreed, noting a tiny loss of Hit Points and the interface telling me that I had been attacked by a tick. Summoning the Spirit of Water Strike to shoo away the bloodsucker, I added: “This reminds me of the place where I got Leara’s Wedding Dress.”

  “I keep forgetting to ask you—why did you give it to Reptilis? He’s a nice enough guy of course, but I still don’t see your rationale there.”

  “You think I had a choice? He was trying to prove to you that he was a good player who was worthy of you. The dress he gave you is a good piece of evidence for that.”

  “He never gave me a dress! Why would you think that?”

  For a second, my mind glitched and I sank into the swamp up to my waist—how had he not given it to her? I even had a letter from him in which he stated that he’s immensely happy and grateful to me…

  “All right, it doesn’t matter. Tell me, how did he find out that you’re a Siren? As I understand it, that information is not readily available and is at times even classified as ‘secret,’ so it’s quite surprising that an ordinary player would know such particular details about mysterious and lovely you.”

  “He’s an Assassin, and a very good one. By the time he was Level 20, this little prodigy had managed to infiltrate our castle, getting past all our guard posts. That’s how he spied on me training. When he realized that we were onto him, he fled. I even used mind control spells against him, but they didn’t work—a property of his race…You should have seen it—a bunch of drooling Phoenix players and a green wonder darting around and among them—managing to pilfer their pockets along the way. To make a long story short, when we caught him, I made sure to have a serious chat with him and asked him to keep my personal details to himself. I can send you the video of his caper. I still have it somewhere. He really is a very nice guy. He reminds me of you somehow—he’s just as unruly, has his own clan, refused to join Phoenix and, my friends tell me, has already reached Level 152 without resorting to any grinding. If you recall, when I hired him to be your bodyguard, he was still at Level 147. I’d really like to know how he managed to level up so fast. By the way, Etamzilat and his boys are after him at the moment. Reptilis cleaned out their vault, snagging some very interesting toys along the way.”

  “The clan vault?”

  “Uh-huh. I’m telling you, he’s a curious fellow with a penchant for thinking outside the box. Understanding that he wouldn’t manage the venture on his own, he set an enormous flock of Rukh birds onto their castle. He did this by obtaining some of their eggs and hiding them around the castle. Then he smashed one. I can tell you right away
that forty Level 300 birdies, in the throes of bloodlust, can really do some damage to a Level 9 castle. The fowls leveled the walls, demolished almost all the buildings, and destroyed all the communications…In short—it took them a single attack to reduce the castle back to Level 4.”

  “And what? So they busted the walls and made some noise. What’s the vault got to do with it?”

  “What ‘and what?’ Wishing to ensure his safety, Etamzilat outfitted his castle with the best of upgrades—the most powerful magical defenses, traps, and portal passages keyed to individual players. This was a virtual Fort Knox, which was practically unassailable. Since flying over the castle was prohibited, no one expected an attack from that angle…And it turned out that the security systems have a very unpleasant quirk. They require the castle to be at least at Level 5. As soon as the birds destroyed the walls and buildings and the castle level fell down to 4, all of this expensive protection became useless, and Reptilis used his stealth to slip into the vault like he owned the place. He used a teleport to get back out, but they identified him right before he jumped. Now they’re looking for this green crocodile, offering vast sums of money for any information about his whereabouts. If Etamzilat knew that Reptilis was watching you while you were crafting, he would have taken your workshop apart brick by brick.”

  “What’s the point in looking for him? He’ll simply respawn. It’s not like they can recover their items…or can they?”

  “They can’t, since Reptilis obtained them without breaking any game rules. As for the point—well, it’s pretty simple: It’s just salve for their ego. After all, a single nobody put one over the entire clan! Straight to the blacklist with him and wipe him out at the first opportunity. Make him respawn again and again until he begs for mercy. Or until the Heralds intervene.”