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

by Vasily Mahanenko

  “All because he popped out into reality and sold everything he stole at an auction…”

  “That’s exactly what he did!” Stacey said with a grin. “He put the entire haul up for auction under his own name and with a note that read ‘exclusively from the Heirs of the Titans.’ Supposedly Etamzilat bellowed so loud and so long that he almost lost his mind and that was when this idiotic idea of revenge occurred to him. It’s hard to bear a blow like that one. But okay, we’re not going to talk about Reptilis forever, are we? There’s nothing for us in this swamp, so I suggest we go check the other location.”

  “Hold on. Let’s go stand in the spot the coordinates point to once again.”

  “And?” said Stacey when we had returned to the point in question.

  “Do you notice anything strange?”

  “Should I be?”

  “Check the map.”

  “Hmm…Indeed…”

  “I only just noticed when you were telling me about Reptilis. If I recall the arrangement of the coordinate grid properly, when we teleport somewhere, we appear in a 3D cube, one of the ‘tiles’ in the grid? If a teleport is not possible—that is, if the tile is occupied—then the system should warn us beforehand. But in this case…For whatever reason, the portal took us not to the tile we wanted, but to the one adjacent to it. Why didn’t we go straight when we were looking around?”

  “Because we saw a bog straight ahead of us. And no player in his right mind would wade into it—that’s just reflex. Mahan, you’re a genius! Can you swim and dive?”

  “Not very well,” I confessed. “My Diver skill lasts only 18 minutes.”

  “Then I’ll go,” said Stacey and transformed into her Siren Form. “If anything happens, pull me back out…”

  “I can see a labyrinth!” Anastaria said telepathically after diving into the dark and scary bog water. “Don’t say anything, save your Energy. According to the description, there are several levels here. Level 60 mobs—I’m just going to pass them by. Boss…Well, there was a boss…Okay, second level…Level 120 mobs…Uh-oh, they saw me. Boss…No wait, two bosses…Third level…last one…There’s only one boss here…Dan, I’m going to need you to come down here…I won’t manage him on my own. This boss has mind control. I can’t solo him. Shall I pull you over? There’s air down here.”

  “Go ahead. What else can we do? I’ll have to help out.”

  “Uh-huh…as you like to say, ‘As if!’ The ability cooldown is one day long, and I pulled you out of Narlak earlier. I’m coming back up and killing everything along the way! We’ll have to dive back down together!”

  An hour later, the brackish bog water began to bubble and a terrifying monster appeared beneath Barliona’s setting sun—the Siren all decked in slime, dirt, leeches and some other gunk, and clutching her trident in her hand. Had I not known that this was merely my wife’s other form, I would have fled in terror over the hills and far away.

  “The way is clear. I found two air pockets. You’ll be able to catch your breath,” said the beast and dove back beneath the surface. Banishing another tick with my Spirit, I sadly thought about how I would never wade into this morass on my own. Why, I haven’t the strength to dive into this dark sludge, much less fight monsters along the way.

  “Are you coming or not?” Stacey nudged me mentally, so I shut my eyes and took a step forward. Welcome to the unknown!

  A counter immediately appeared before me, counting down the time I had in my air supply. 17:55…That’s not very much, yet it only took Stacey about half an hour to clear all the mobs.

  “Follow the light,” her thought flashed in my mind and I saw a pale light several meters ahead of me. All right—follow the light means follow the light. This doesn’t seem like a dark tunnel…

  “The first air pocket is here. Catch your breath,” Stacey told me, tearing me away from the very important activity of picking up loot. Why would a Level 343 player bother to pick up the junk that Level 100 mobs had dropped? Never…or rather, never if it were up to her, since each slug and unspecified bog monster only dropped about 2–3 gold pieces. On the other hand, they also dropped a wealth of lovely ingredients! For alchemists, for necromancers, for…for practically every profession! Why buy it all, when you could grab it here? Furthermore, one of the humanoid bog-dwellers had dropped a rather interesting and mysterious item that resembled a claw. What if it’s like the Eye of the Dark Widow? I’d guess that there had never been any other players here before us, so this was loot that no one had ever seen before.

  “There he is,” whispered the Siren when we emerged in an enormous cavern filled with air. Right ahead of us stood an unusual boss—he wasn’t too big, about a meter tall, with a large, green, slime-covered head that accounted for about half of his height and three small, thick legs that made him resemble a tripod with four arms. The barrel-shaped body covered in a net, or perhaps a special armor, was constantly heaving, reminding me of the chest of a runner trying to catch his breath after sprinting a hundred meters as fast as he could.

  Bigeye. Level: 1. Hit points: 1. Abilities: Mind control, Diamond 10.

  “Fill me in here, Stacey. He’s already down to 1 Hit Point…”

  “Diamond 10 means he will block ten attacks. Even if I throw a flurry of blows, I won’t have time to do one damage before he casts mind control. Then he’ll plunge me into the water and hold me there until I drown.”

  “I thought a player couldn’t be controlled for longer than a minute…”

  “Oh yes he can—if the mind control is done by a boss like this one or a mob, and not another player. Here’s the plan: You’re going to step out and get mind controlled. I’ll step out and kill the boss. Then we gather the loot. Questions? Comments? No? Okay, let’s go. We don’t have time to crawl around swamps.”

  “Stacey…” I had almost stepped out into the open when the feeling that something was amiss stopped me in my tracks. Hello, premonition—where have you been?

  “What?”

  “Something tells me that attacking head on is a bad idea…I can’t put it in words, only…We’re not doing the right thing. We shouldn’t kill him.”

  “Dan, if it’s his single Hit Point that’s bothering you—forget it. I’ve seen plenty of bosses like this in my gaming career. I’m more worried about how many players he can mind control. One, two, a dozen, a hundred? The fewer Hit Points they have, the harder it is to kill these creatures. The developers are really fond of this trick…On an unrelated note, I didn’t want to upset you by telling you earlier, but my dad called…He’s made a deal with Undigit. We’re going to be facing a coalition of both Phoenix and the Azures tomorrow. Dad refuses to say what they tempted him with, but it must be something pretty crazy for him to oppose us like this. And it’s not even a matter of leveling up…There are only about two to three thousand phantoms and they respawn only once a day, so there simply isn’t enough of them to go around for both clans. There’s something else at play here—something big enough that dad is willing to sacrifice his relationship with our clan as well as with you and I. Everyone knows the time of the attack—Barsa and Leite are recruiting mercenaries. At any rate, my uncle has also refused and inquired whether he should order our headstones for us. We don’t stand a chance against the two top clans.”

  “So it’s like that? Okay, we shall see,” I said, reaching for my amulet. Phoenix sure had a nerve to get involved like this.

  “Speaking!” Stacey’s dad answered my call.

  “Greetings, Ehkiller! This is Mahan troubling you. Stacey just regaled me with a very curious tale about how Phoenix has allied itself with the Azure Dragons and decided to oppose my clan tomorrow. Could you explain why, please?”

  “And please no fairy tales about the grinding opportunity, dad,” Anastaria interjected. “You’d never be tempted by that!”

  “Since we’re speaking so informally, then Daniel, allow me to offer you my sincerest condolences. However, clan interests dictate that we bar your people
from capturing Altameda before the clan competitions. The Azures have granted us five hundred phantoms per day to accelerate our leveling, but you are correct to assume that this is not the main reason for our alliance. I am very sorry, but if you show up in the environs of Altameda tomorrow, you shall be destroyed or sent to jail—as luck determines. It’s business, nothing personal. Stacey, there’s no sense in calling the Heralds. We are defending the territory of Glarnis per the request of the Narlak Council. You can look up Article 746, Item 4 in the laws of Barliona. That statute details an analogous example—Urusai is not real estate but personal property with a certain aura and therefore enjoys no prerogatives over the original castle. Urusai will fly away, while Glarnis will remain, even if it’s only its ruins.”

  “You seem to forget that, pursuant to Item 5 of Article…” Stacey and her father locked legal horns, the amulet between them filling with citations to various paragraphs and statutes, and I quickly lost the thread of their conversation. The one thing that was clear was that Phoenix was now against us and it would be useless to summon the Heralds and complain that I was being stripped of my property rights. All they’d do is spread their arms in helplessness.

  “I realize that you’d prefer not to lose a castle like this, but that place near Sintana isn’t so bad,” said Ehkiller, hinting that the conversation was reaching its end. “Let me reiterate—stay away from Altameda or Urusai, whether it’s tomorrow or the day after or indeed for the next three months. By the way, which is the correct name?”

  “Altameda,” I grumbled.

  “Well then, stay away from Altameda. We won’t allow you to approach it. This very day, seven thousand of my warriors will take up positions around the castle. Another ten will arrive tomorrow. Five hundred Level 300 phantoms granting experience only to whomever does more than 50% damage to them, is too useful an opportunity to be overlooked. Stacey, Dan—find yourself another quest…Over and out…”

  “At least now we understand why Plinto was the only one who gained XP from killing the phantoms,” Stacey said distractedly.

  “While the XP that Geyra’s people earn will go only to the clan or to the castle, but not to individual players,” I added, staring mindlessly at the boss before us.

  What the hell was going on in Barliona anyway?!

  “Stacey, stay here,” I said, stepping out of our hiding spot and heading toward Bigeye. The time had come to put an end to this caper.

  You have been mind-controlled. This is a game mechanic…

  “I’m coming!”

  “No! Stay where you are! This is my boss and no one else’s!”

  My avatar had been mind-controlled in less than a second. Perhaps only Plinto could take on a boss like this—and only then thanks to his amulet. Whatever—have I come here for nothing or what? Focusing on the boss, I sent him a thought as I would to Stacey:

  “Greetings! I am the creator of the Karmadont Chess Set. A riddle from the pieces has brought me here! Can you help me solve it?”

  “Dan, I’m going to attack!” Anastaria again butted in, once I’d been dipped headfirst into the bog’s dark waters.

  “Don’t you dare!” I managed to yell telepathically as Anastaria rushed at the boss.

  “Oops!” The girl’s next thought ‘pleased’ me as her mind-controlled avatar began to move my way—the boss was sending her to be my company as I drowned.

  “That’s quite an ‘oops’ indeed,” I told her and concentrated again on the boss, trying my utmost to ignore the timer counting down the time I had left before drowning: 18 minutes and 40 seconds. “Help us! We need to solve the riddle of the ogres! Rorg and Gragza wouldn’t want us killed!”

  “THE KEY!” Despite his short stature and unimposing constitution, Bigeye’s voice could have been mistaken for the Guardian’s. It was just as hefty, oppressive, and demanding of respect and deference. So basically like that of any boss in any dungeon!

  “Stacey, what could be the key?”

  “Anything! From some crystal to a bedtime fairy tale and everything in between! How much time do you have left?”

  “Sixteen minutes.”

  “Then hang on while I pop out and look up if there’s any solution. I have 25 minutes.”

  What could be the key for a boss whom we’d never even heard of before? Only something related to the chess set; otherwise, the riddle couldn’t be solved at first try. Was there something about the ogres that could help…?

  “Even as the sun with purple-coloured face…”

  Shakespeare. William Shakespeare. Back in school we would translate the original text of Venus and Adonis to modern English. Shakespeare’s English is no joke! Every word of his has several meanings, and at times we would have to hold a meeting to decide which meaning the author had in mind. Given the situation, I would probably need to read the verses I found in the chess pieces in the order I found them in, but I felt like wagging my tongue a little. My Energy faded to zero by the fourth stanza, but my mental monologue went on. Or I figured that I’d go on sending some kind of mental signal to the boss, reciting Venus and Adonis from memory. I could remember all of it up to and including the young hunter’s lament at believing he had killed the goddess—the rest had been translated by my colleagues. But I knew the beginning by heart, and it wasn’t looking like I would go on remembering it for the rest of my life.

  “KEY ACCEPTED!”

  You have been released from mind control. You may control your avatar once more.

  Uh-huh, considering that my Energy is gone and the bog water won’t do much to revive it, I’m probably well-advised to take a light nap. I wonder what the actual key was—my recitation of the entire poem or my mentioning of the verses from the ogres in the correct order? I doubt the developers would make knowing Venus and Adonis by heart the solution to the riddle. Although, who knows those guys? As I was considering all this, I heard Bigeye recite:

  Birthing and nurturing the fire like a virtual mother

  The source of danger, evil, doubt and fear.

  Your way lies through five warrior-giants,

  The only one who craves a quaff of brackish waters.

  “The giants will tell you more,” he added and simply evaporated as if he’d never existed. I looked at my stats bitterly and made my way to the surface—I still had six minutes worth of air. It’s a good thing that my Energy regenerates rapidly: Only a minute later, it was already up to 70.

  “Dan, you have to read the verses in the correct order,” Anastaria said, diving out of the water. Glancing around herself and instantly grasping the new situation, she asked: “What did he say? Did you record it?”

  “No. He recited some verses like the rest of them. Though, the other ones recited eight verses and he only recited four.”

  “What were they?” Stacey instantly asked, striking a pose.

  There was no point keeping anything from her, so I confidently declaimed the verses I just heard.

  “Got it…Okay, let’s get back to our current cares—what are we going to do about tomorrow’s attack?” asked Stacey, lying down on her back beside me. Despite my Energy having been restored, I had no strength to get up and do anything. Nor any desire, for that matter. “Should we call it off?”

  “As if! Tomorrow we make an assault on Altameda. We attack at 6:30 p.m. and no one will stand in our way. Not even Phoenix.”

  Mulling things over a bit, I got out my amulet and called Leite.

  “Listening,” the Warrior greeted me.

  “Leite, I’ve got a new assignment for you. Make an announcement that tomorrow, at 6:30 p.m., the Legends of Barliona will do battle against Phoenix and the Azure Dragons. Anyone who wants to join us, should notify you and Barsina. We’ll assemble ourselves at 5:30 in the central square. Then we’ll pop open a portal and step into the fray.”

  “I’ll get on it,” Leite replied with some surprise. “Is Stacey aware of this?”

  “I’m aware,” the girl replied. “Write it the way Mahan tol
d you.”

  “So it’s like that?” I smiled at the girl as soon as I hung up. “Is Stacey really aware?”

  “You bet! To make a move like that, you’d need brass…hmm…well, you understand me. There aren’t many who would dare oppose Phoenix.”

  “You don’t know the whole thing,” I smirked bitterly and made another call on my amulet.

  “Speaking!” came Ehkiller’s voice again. Stacey looked at me with astonishment, unable to understand why I would call her father again, so I got down to business:

  “Greetings again! This is Mahan.”

  “Was there something we overlooked?” Ehkiller asked, just as surprised as Stacey.

  “Nothing as far as Altameda is concerned. But I have a favor to ask. I’m reckoning on doing battle tomorrow—I’m defending my property, you see—and I need a battle group of 300 players of at least Level 200—as per our agreement. By 5:30, they need to be equipped and ready to jump to the coordinates I’ll send you later. Ah! I forgot. I will ask the Heralds to make sure that your warriors will perform their duties properly as our agreement stipulates—that is, without any goofing off or deserting. I expect them to perform as they normally would, given their levels. Despite the fact that in our contract it states that I only need to ask you 30 minutes ahead of time, I decided to ask you well in advance. What if you might have some local conflict of interests? Who knows when it comes to Phoenix, after all? And please note that I only need this force to defend my own castle, which was granted me by the Emperor. There’s no talk at all of capturing anything!”

  “A nice turn—I didn’t expect it,” came the answer from the ‘other side of the line.’ “Three hundred players of that level is a fairly significant force indeed. But it won’t be enough to hold the castle.”

  “If we don’t manage, no big deal. Please don’t worry about your reputation with Narlak. Under our agreement, any negative effects will fall to my clan, so…Well, look, we’re in agreement then: Tomorrow, at 5:30, Barsina and Leite will send you the destination coordinates for the warriors you’ll send to defend my castle. Ehkiller, you understand naturally that there’s nothing personal here: It’s just business. Over and out.”