“Forgive me, oh goddess…but…I cannot do that. Altameda will either be destroyed or become mine.”
“In that case…” the goddess said sadly. “Heed the advice of your Supreme Spirits—do not stray from the Way of the Shaman!” With these words, Eluna and Anastaria both vanished.
“Stacey?” I reached out telepathically but immediately received a system reply:
You may not summon your other half when she is in the Chambers of the God.
I see! Stacey is in God’s Chambers? That is, the Goddess’s Chambers? If she doesn’t let me watch the video in a week, I’ll gobble her up. Inventory bag and all. What is this Way of the Shaman anyway?
Granting myself a whole twenty seconds for self-castigation and contemplation of the eternal question of “wat do?”—I got down on all fours and began to collect the ‘Divine Pollen.’ Suffering may be enjoyable sometimes, but it’s seldom profitable.
Having filled my twelfth and final flask with the priceless ingredient, I sat down across from the ogre figurines and began to think. It’s odd—only a few months had passed since the clan’s founding, and I had already forgotten all about raiding Dungeons, collecting and distributing loot, or any attempts of leveling up my profession or stats. I’d even put the Jewelcrafting business aside, the ogres and our amulets notwithstanding (those were more presents from the developers than my own invention). It had been a long while since I had done anything on my own to be proud of. Again and again I found that there simply wasn’t any time for it. I simply couldn’t sink several days into my crafting. At the moment, I was turning from an ordinary player, which I liked being, to some kind of Ehkiller or Undigit—leading a clan demanded constant and tireless management of my players, forgetting all about my own character. All I saw anymore when I shut my eyes were Leite’s reports—and he, by the way, was surprising me greatly. Over the past two weeks, the clan had started making steady progress across all indicators. We were making a clean 1.5 million profit every week. Even if this is just the beginning, I still liked that fact that our fledgling clan had taken a positive financial path. A message from Magdey popped up in the clan chat. The raiding party had reached the last boss of the third Dungeon. The Hunter wanted to know if I wanted to join them. It’s like he had read my mind! I had to refuse him, however, despite my sudden urge to level up. The Bloody Scythe boss had earned me almost a level. All I lacked was another 10% to reach my next moment of joy. But yet again—there wasn’t any time! Nor did I want to leave this place, since I still held out hope of finding my reward. There simply must be one somewhere in this cavern! What else was bothering me? Ah! It’s already been several days since I last summoned Draco. I haven’t had the time for him either! Well, what’s keeping me from summoning him now?
“What’s up! Come over! We’ll hang out!”
“Coming.”
“Oh boy, what a place! You know how to swim?” asked my Level 54 Totem after appearing in the cavern and flying several circles over the water.
“No, the Siren helped me reach this place.”
“You’re still in cahoots with the foe?”
“What foe? How is she a foe? Here, let me tell you what’s been going on. I did this one thing…” Forcing Draco to land beside me, I sat down on the ground and reclining against him began to relate another fairy tale. One about princesses, dragons, the Ying-Yang stone and the unearthly love of two hearts. I also made sure to remind Draco that it was none other than he who had stood up to his own kin to protect us from their attack.
“Cool…So then she’s not the enemy but your wife? I would’ve never imagined that. Hang on, since you were in Vilterax, did you ask dad about our race’s history?”
“No. Stacey and I tied the knot and then were immediately thrown back into Barliona. I didn’t even get a word in edgewise.”
“Too bad…The thought that the Dragons were the scourge of the world is still bothering me. We couldn’t have…”
“We’ll figure it out. You just make sure to stick around.”
“Where would I go? Hey! Why’d you throw the ogre figurines on the ground?”
“I wanted summon their essences, but it turned out that the essences aren’t in the figurines, nor in the divine chambers, nor with the Spirits. Where they’re hanging out remains an enormous question.”
“Ah-choo!” Draco sneezed as naturally as if he were a real living creature and asked a bit sheepishly: “Say, do you mind if I go now? The stench and humidity here is tickling my nostrils. How can you bear this smell anyway?”
“Go on,” I released my Totem, glancing at Draco’s properties with some surprise: Although I had spent an entire half hour telling him the fairy tale, my Totem’s level had not grown even a tiny fraction as I had expected it to. Will someone finally explain to me the way his leveling is supposed to work?
“Thanks,” Draco licked my cheek, which he had never done before, and, before disappearing, added mysteriously: “Brother, I just can’t understand one thing. If you need the ogres’ essences, why try to summon them? They’re always with you after all…”
Draco vanished, leaving me cursing from befuddlement: How many more of these riddles would I have to solve? Instead of outlining some logical course of action, everyone I came across insisted on dropping hints. I should make a sign and nail it to my back so that it could stick over my head. Then I could write on it: “I don’t understand hints. Speak plainly please!”
I didn’t bother to summon Draco to explain himself and instead sat down in front of the figurines again. The Supremes had told me to forget my limitations. Draco told me the essences were right here. Forget my limitations…Hmm…that’s easy enough to say, but doing it…
Suddenly vibrating, the amulet jolted me from my hypnosis session with the figurines.
“Hi, Mahan! We’ve got some business!” said Plinto’s dreadfully enigmatic voice. As a rule, the Rogue preferred to resolve his questions through the clan chat, so there must’ve been a hefty reason for his call now. And I even knew what it was!
“Let me guess,” I blurted out, unable to restrain my emotions. “The Patriarch just showed up at your location and offered you a chance to earn some epic title among the Vampires? Like for instance—the all-sucking bloodsucker…”
“Eh…The title’s a little different, but you’ve gotten the gist of it right. He wants to take me for a few weeks, but, considering the battle tomorrow…”
“Hold on and hang on—both Stacey and I had our classes changed—not our race. Are you changing as a Rogue?”
“No, as a Vampire. I hit the Rogue ceiling a long, long time ago—when I became Master of Stealth. This time the offer is to develop in my race.”
“Hmm…What’s going to be your new title then?”
“The Patriarch said that he’d make me an Adept. After that comes Cleric, Bishop and—the last step—Patriarch. It turns out that I’ll be able to teleport anywhere in the continent once I reach that! As for Higher Vampire—that’s only the first level, the weakest one.”
“That progression reminds me of Priests somehow,” I muttered, hearing these familiar terms.
“Not quite, but maybe you’re onto something. So what do you say? I’m looking at two buttons at the moment. The Patriarch is right here tapping his foot. I need to make a decision.”
“Two weeks?”
“One-and-a-half, maybe less.”
“All right, just don’t hurt yourself,” I said in a voice stripped of all emotion. No more Plinto…All that remained was to wait for Kornik or Renox to call me, and that would be the end of tomorrow’s venture.
“Dan, can you still hear me?” Plinto had not yet hung up, and the Patriarch’s voice now addressed me.
“A bit,” I answered the Vampire, once more realizing that he was about to advise me to abandon Altameda.
“Wonderful. Make sure to heed this advice then—even in your Dragon Form, you won’t be able to fly into Altameda. The castle is under a very special curse. I m
yself helped the Dark Lord conjure it, so make sure to adjust your plans if they include even a single thought of flying. Next—the castle gates are made of Imperial Oak. Whole. As you understand, breaking them is unrealistic. It’ll be easier to pull down the walls. In fact, all the wooden items inside Altameda are made from this type of wood—stairs, doors, et cetera. And finally—before attacking, figure out why the castle left the Free Lands. Personally, as one of the authors of the castle’s curse, I have no idea what it is. We made sure to include a restriction that limited the castle to the Free Lands, where there aren’t any sentients. Right before it teleports to a new location, the castle is supposed to take into account the current boundaries of the empire, so it could not have made a mistake. Neither I nor the former Dark Lord ever included anything in the curse that could cause such an error to occur. Something has gone wrong, but it’s not clear what. There are no traps inside the castle, so you may move about freely. But remember: The phantoms can pass freely through the rooms’ walls, floors and ceilings. The castle’s walls are enchanted, so they can only leave the castle through the gates, but inside, the phantoms are free to move as they wish. Be careful. To dispel the curse, you must destroy the Crown of the Cursed One, which is worn by the Shame of the Past—a now nameless Earl. That is all that I know about Altameda. Good luck to you, Shaman.”
Finally! Someone of the higher authorities has deigned to say something about Altameda that didn’t involve a mere ‘don’t bother, you’ll die.’ Now, in addition to a frontal assault to demonstrate to Undigit that I don’t intend on reneging on my words—and which will commence tomorrow in either case—I will have to arrange an interesting visit to the barbarians to find out exactly why they had fled their ancestral lands.
Design mode greeted me with its customary dimness. A further half hour of dances and hypnosis sessions with the figurines had yielded nothing, and Draco, whom I tried to summon to explain what he had meant, simply thumped his tail and insisted that the figurines’ essences were always already with me and that he couldn’t explain this and also that it stank here and he had to go because mom and dad were calling him to dinner…the ungrateful reptile…Oh family!
So at this point, Design Mode was the last opportunity to get at the logic of what was going on. At the moment, I was even prepared to skip tomorrow’s battle if I’d suddenly go catatonic in the process of creation—as long as I managed to attain my overdue reward. The developers simply could not have overlooked it. Could not and period!
The two little orgres, Rorg and Gragza, appeared in the middle of the work space, glimmering with the “Unique” marker: I could not recreate these items.
Unique…Impossible to recreate…Once again—unique items that could not be recreated…My thoughts kept grazing something, but could not latch on, like a fish flirting with a hook, failing to take on their conscious form. I felt that I was on the right path, but some detail was missing…was missing…RIGHT!
The ‘Item Essence’ ability, which I had buried in the furthest corner of design mode reckoning it a useless and uninteresting tool, again appeared before my eyes:
‘Item Essence’: You can now feel the essence of a thing irrespective of its appearance. Attention! This ability does not enable you to feel the essence of things concealed by spells of ‘Hidden Essence’ Level 100 and higher. Ability level is determined by your current level.
What a fool I am! The ability that I had acquired at the very outset of my career as a Shaman, had at first glance, offered little or nothing. How would I benefit from knowing the properties of, say, a rock: Was this really a rock or some secret piece of a wall? What the developers had put in it is what it would be—but only from the perspective of an ordinary player. Now if we look at the same rock from a different vantage point, then suddenly we see an enormous wall of rocks. And moreover, some of these rocks flat out ‘refuse’ to be part of a wall, so that if I apply another shamanic ability—“Transformation of Essence”—and turn the rocks’ essences into water, for instance, then the wall before me will fall down on its own! Where was my brain this entire time? As a Shaman I have this enormous power and I don’t even use it! I glanced at the description of the second ability, associated with the essences:
‘Transformation of Essence’: You are able to change the essence of a thing. Attention! This ability only works with inanimate objects and does not permit a change of essence in objects protected with ‘Essence Shield’ Level 100 or higher. The level of the object whose essence can be changed depends on your current level.
Opening my eyes upon leaving design mode, I already knew what had to be done. First of all, entering the Spirit Summoning Mode, I located both abilities and equipped them in my active slots. From now on, I would be able to access them whenever I liked, not merely in design mode! Adding a Spirit of Strengthening to the ability, I was about to return to the chess pieces, when another idea illuminated the potholes in my way and I couldn’t help but cry in a fit of inhuman sorrow:
“Why is everything so crappy?!”
The world around me did not bother to answer me, so I tried to calm down and reason things through methodically—it had just occurred to me that there is an enormous aspect of my class that I never use. Obsessed with the notion that Shamans only summon Spirits and use them for various ends, I had completely ignored all the other specifics of my class. No doubt, besides working with the essence of an item, there is a whole ocean of various shields, auras, buffs and debuffs…Shamans, I bet, can even converse with trees—but I had never considered this. The Shamanic book mentions that we are spiritual mentors. Our goal is to ensure a balance in the world, arrange harmony in the internal and external worlds….Only now did I begin to understand that to arrange this very harmony requires a skill for working with essences that I still didn’t have…And never will have, if I go on worrying only about my clan as I have been.
It’s decided then! Once I’m done with Altameda, I’ll focus entirely on myself! I’ll throw it all away and go wander Barliona with Draco. I need to figure out who I am—a Shaman or a passerby!
The ogre figurines went on staring at me like at a madman, as if they couldn’t understand why they were still out here amid the rocks and not tucked away in their cozy bag, but before divining their essence, I decided to take a fatal shot. In my head.
Attention! The summoning of the Air Communication Spirit cannot be interrupted. Because this type of Spirit is beyond your rank, each minute your Hit Points will be reduced by 5%.
“Apprentice? Do you really require the assistance of this senile goblin?” Kornik’s wry voice sounded in my mind.
“I have a couple questions, oh teacher,” I replied echoing his tone. “Tell me please, what is your Spirit rank?”
Silence…Two painful blows struck me, increasing my Endurance by 1% per blow, but I continued to stubbornly await an answer. The link had not been broken, I could feel it, and yet Kornik remained silent. No big deal. I can wait. Too much hangs on this at the moment. At last came the pensive response:
“You’re the first…”
“Thank you, teacher. Now I understand everything…”
“When you get the opportunity, pay me a visit,” added the Harbinger and terminated the link between us. I used to wonder how he, Geranika and Kalatea managed to end my calls, but now I understood that there was nothing mysterious about it at all—it was an ability like any other. For them, a call was not some play with Spirits, but a simple mechanic of their class.
Quest received: ‘The Path of the Shaman: Step 4. Study.’ Description: Speak with Kornik. Quest type: Class-based.
Okay…if the expression ‘brevity is the soul of wit’ is accurate, then the author of this quest may as well be a genius. Why explain things, when you could simply send the player to his teacher? There’ll be explanations aplenty there. By the way—here’s a quest that should keep me from the battle tomorrow…Not!
“Barsa, how’s the recruitment drive?” I called the Druid.
> “Like I said, not many people want to fight for free. According to my Imitator, so far, 7,340 players have RSVP’d. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.”
“Seven and a half? Why that’s excellent!”
“Not exactly. It’s mostly players between Level 100 and 150. Rarely Levels 150–200. And there’s not a single one above Level 200. This’ll all be dog meat as far as Phoenix is concerned.”
“Even dog meat sometimes bites back, just remember Krispa. That worked out fine for us! Over and out!”
Replacing the amulet in my bag, I selected the two ogre figurines and activated the “Essence of Item” ability. It was time to meet the children…
Yet no sooner had I activated the ability, than everything around me went dark. A location loading bar appeared before me, which I had only seen once before in Barliona—before I had been booted out into reality. Accordingly, all my innards tightened up—was this another crash? Last time, I had a portal. But this time I had nothing of the kind. Why the loading screen? The progress bar reached 100% and I was mentally preparing myself to wake up and behold my capsule lid, when instead I found myself in a small square room with gray walls and neither a door nor windows. I was sitting at a simple metal table, on the other side of which sat my host—a wholly unexceptional man without any kind of distinguishing marks. He could as well have been a mannequin.
“Hello, Daniel,” he said in a glib, lively voice that in no way matched his appearance. “I will say right off that you have not violated any laws and your teleportation to the project area has been effected by the Corporation on its own initiative and with the permission of the juvenile authorities. My name is James and I am responsible for the recent mess that has been happening on our continent.”
The Phantom Castle (The Way of the Shaman: Book #4) LitRPG series Page 30