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

by Vasily Mahanenko

  “Mess?”

  “The launch of Kartoss, the creation of a third Empire, the Vulstor cataclysm, the forthcoming…well never mind that. I am also responsible for your Chess Pieces, which in the end have been handed over to my management. In general, all of the new updates to Barliona are going through me. Fear and tremble before me, oh lowly mortal!”

  “Oh! I know now who Geranika was based off,” I smiled in response.

  “Excellent. I expected no less. Now, my boys are reporting that everything is ready, so we are prepared to send you back. Of course, we could have simply turned off your consciousness for several minutes, but I wished to make your acquaintance.”

  “Turn off my consciousness?”

  “I knew you would latch onto that,” James pursed his lips.

  “But, still?”

  “Generally speaking, each time a player begins to make trouble in the area that I’m in charge of, we have a specially-trained Imitator watch over him. When the player finally formulates his thought, and tries to realize it, we enter the world and do our best to introduce this item to the world. Ordinary players are incapable of creating an item until they’ve obtained a license from the masters’ guild. Players like you, who are more or less behind bars, simply switch off temporarily—or go to sleep as we like to call it. No—let’s call it dream. That’s more accurate. When you wake up, we have already devised a history for the item, its place in Barliona and its role in the current lore. We also draft a license for it. That’s why you never had to go anywhere to do that—and, by the way, you owe me a drink for all that. That was my work!”

  “I don’t even know how to express the gratitude I feel for such benevolence,” I muttered in reply.

  “Ah!” the man waved his hand, “we’ll call it even! And so! You see, I wasn’t in charge of the Chess Set initially and unfortunately there’re some bugs with it. Part of the functionality is entirely handed over to the player. We can’t make changes to the current scenario any more, otherwise we’ll have continuity issues down the line, and yet you’re currently trying to do what we never anticipated—you’re trying to communicate with the figurines. Somehow, that possibility wasn’t considered when the Chess Set was being created. It’s simply not possible at the moment—even though all the Imitators around you do nothing but push you to try. I mean the whole thing is such a tangle of algorithms that good luck figuring it out later…Well, my people have applied the patch by now and adjusted the story. There’s nothing too complicated here to fix. So now the essences will be accessible to you and you can go ahead and speak with them all you want. As I said, we could have done all this without brining you here, but I couldn’t refrain from asking you: How do you like Altameda?”

  “You too about that?!” I exclaimed. “How much of this can there be?! You’ve cooked up god knows what and now you’re asking me how I feel about it? Well, I like it just fine! What’s my opinion to you anyway?”

  “What do you mean ‘to me?’ Altameda is my creation and I’m curious to speak to my chief lab rat, especially when the opportunity has presented itself so naturally. Beta testing doesn’t paint the whole picture, and the things that have been happening at the moment…Do you want I share some strategically vital info with you?”

  “Will it drastically change my understanding of the meaning of life, the universe et cetera?”

  “Bingo!”

  “All right! Seems like lately everyone’s trying to astonish me. Here’s your chance.”

  “The more players there are fighting outside of Altameda, the stronger the phantoms will be. We’ve launched an experimental type of mob who know how to level up on their own. Each phantom gains as much experience, as Hit Points lost by players located in a radius of 500 meters from the castle. And it doesn’t matter whether the phantoms killed them or not, or if the players killed each other. The phantoms get the XP either way. A curious property, don’t you think? You’ve got a slaughter scheduled tomorrow at the walls of Altameda, so…Well, anyway, I’m told that we’ve reset the system and adjusted the lore, so it’s time for you to be getting back. Oh! I forgot the most important thing. Thank you! I’ve made so much money betting on your adventures, that I can’t find any action anymore! They say that I’m conspiring with you! Hah! I don’t even need to conspire with you—you’re better than a random number generator! Good luck.”

  Darkness again with a loading bar, returning me, in the end, to the swamp. Hmm…Draco was right—it really does reek here.

  Acquired item: Rocking chair. Description: Fashioned from the stoutest Imperial Oak, this rocking chair will serve you well as you while away the long winter evenings sitting before the fire and reliving your past exploits. Item class: Unique. Restriction: Player must be aristocracy.

  Following the update, summoning the little ogres turned out to be a cinch. The devs had built a button right into the chess pieces: ‘Summon Essence.’ They didn’t bother to tool around with unnecessary, cryptic algorithms…The two kids showed up, recited the same exact verses as the boss and dissolved into thin air, leaving me with this rocking chair. Summoning the ogres, orcs and dwarves again didn’t earn me any extra chairs, so either Stacey or I will have to remain standing. I completely agree—the chair was indeed very comfortable, pleasant to the touch, and fit snugly in my bag—and but yet give me a break! A CHAIR! What was I going to do with it?! I’m particularly fond of the description—‘reliving your past exploits.’ Is that to say that I’d be spared any new ones henceforth? Bunch of clowns those guys…

  “Mahan, we’ll need more teleport scrolls,” Barsina announced the good news. “Otherwise it’ll take us several days to send everyone to Altameda. 10,373 players from Malabar. Evolett sent a garbled message, but as I understand it (and these are rough numbers), he has another seven thousand coming. One or two portals won’t be enough! We need at least ten—and twenty would be optimal. Let’s get Leite on it!”

  “How much does one scroll cost us?”

  “Seven thousand.”

  “Hmm…Warring ain’t cheap, is it? All right, I’m approving the purchase of extra scrolls. When do we jump?”

  “I decided to begin it right away. The bulk of our forces will show up at the advertised time, and then we’ll have a jam on our hands. Has Magdey already shared with you everything he thinks about the coming battle?”

  “Yup,” I nodded, recalling my morning conversation with the Hunter. Actually, it was less a conversation and more a monologue recited by my Raid Leader. And if you censored all the bad words in it, all it’d be was him standing there, staring at me and every once in a while uttering exclamations and conjunctions. If I were to paraphrase his gist, he very much wanted to know whether I understood the difficulties involved in managing ten thousand players. But what organization, what management, what leadership? All it was, was a dumb mass of meat animated by the single desire to momentarily appear in a movie. No one had any doubts that the Corporation would be filming our attack. The suits would never let such a massive battle pass unrecorded…So, in the end, after much cussing, Magdey asked me to sign a contract with all the players that they wouldn’t attack any other players until either he or I gave the order. I had no choice but to accommodate him.

  “Then,” Barsa went on, “let me add on a personal note that—Mahan—this is dumb. Picking a fight with the top two clans of the continent—and as I hear, the Heirs will be helping the Azures as well, so, in effect, with the three top clans of the continent—is not a very intelligent idea. The mercenaries are just mercenaries…they show up, fight a bit and then go their way. It’s we who’ll have to deal with the consequences.”

  “Barsa, I understand all of this perfectly well. But as the head of the clan, I have made my decision. Buy the scrolls. In five hours we have to be at Altameda.”

  * * *

  The evening of the battle turned out surprisingly clear and sunny. The sun shone gently, giving no hint that it was even considering setting for the night. Butterflies fl
itted from flower to flower. A pair of rabbits darted between two trees, utterly oblivious to any possible danger: that is, the four armies that had assembled in the environs of Altameda. On the one side stood the guards and a host of warriors from the top clans, while facing them stood players from all over Malabar and Kartoss, along with three hundred warriors from Phoenix. Twenty thousand against seventeen thousand. The numbers were not in my favor, to put it mildly, but what can you do? Use what you have. Otherwise, what’s the point of having started this whole thing?

  “Mahan, we are ready,” Magdey called me when he had finished arraying our army. I had decided to place the exit portals two kilometers from the castle—beyond the radius of the guards and the defenders, so no one had meddled with our deployment. “We are ready to go!”

  “Let’s start then, little by little!” I agreed and a message from my Raid Leader appeared before me:

  Attention everyone! We are beginning to move! Attack only on my command! Do not stray beyond the markers that I will place before the castle—otherwise you’ll be attacked by the guards!

  Watching fifteen thousand players set out for the castle, I couldn’t help but wonder at the massive power of a mob! In the Dark Forest, where there had been forty thousand, the scale hadn’t been so evident—the forest concealed the majority of the players. But here, in this empty field…The most interesting thing was that the Scroll of Armageddon that Evolett had offered me could wipe out almost everyone. The radius of this spell was 300 meters from its epicenter. And it would destroy not only all life, but all the equipment as well—with the exception of the players’ bags. Any item with a Durability stat would evaporate in a flash, leaving the players in their diapers. It was this particular side-effect of the spell that made everyone wary of using it. ‘The Last Word’—as the players liked to call Armageddon—destroyed foe and ally alike. Along with everything they had.

  Magdey didn’t over-complicate our tactical plan—all the players were divided into three groups—a center with two wings. He placed the highest-level players in the left wing, including his own people and the three hundred warriors from Phoenix—angry, unhappy, and yet taciturn and focused. They understood perfectly well that they had a job to do.

  The right wing consisted entirely of Evolett’s troops, with him in command. Magdey left them alone. The center was our weakest point—it contained everyone below Level 150, players who wanted to find out what a pitched battle was like. This crowd wasn’t likely to accomplish anything anyway, but at least it would distract some part of the enemy’s forces, which isn’t anything to sneer at. If they do contrive to send someone to the Gray Lands, they’ll have recouped their cost in full.

  Prior to assembling the players, I announced that during the battle, I would give the word, at which, everyone had to drop everything and either die in the next ten seconds (and thereby save their items), or flee as fast as their legs could carry them. That announcement alone had cost me almost two thousand players, but, surprisingly, also gained me another three. People are strange after all—few believed we would be victorious, but there were plenty of those who wanted to see Armageddon used in a PvP battle for essentially the first time ever. Even if they risked losing their equipment in doing so.

  We were forced to advertise our Armageddon plan quite loudly—I had to publicize the scroll’s properties, since many refused to believe me. It was too bad that the scroll had one limitation—it couldn’t be used outside of a battle, and even then, it was inaccessible during the first minute of battle. In fact, it was too too bad because I had thought of teleporting straight in the center of the enemy army and casting the scroll. Poof—and that’d be it. I could peacefully take my castle without worrying about enemies. But no—the scroll had these stupid restrictions, so now we had to figure out how we would survive that first minute.

  Several hours before deployment, the trio of us—Magdey, Evolett and me—got together and came up with a very cunning plan that would allow us not only to hold out for a minute, but also nullify all the disadvantages of having to respawn. And it would be our new friends from Phoenix that would help us in this…

  “Speaking!” I answered the vibrating amulet with only about 800 meters remaining to the castle. Wall upon wall—that is a weak description of what was going on before us—our opponents had managed to swell their ranks with about twenty thousand men. At least, that’s what the status display was showing me. Not only are they stronger, but there’s more of them.

  “Mahan, this is Geyra. As I told you, we don’t take part in battles between players, so I would like to terminate our agreement.”

  “Just wait a little, Geyra!” I restrained the overeager girl. “The attack is just a diversion. Our real goal is to sneak me and your warriors into the castle. That’s priority number one! Wait just a little, please!”

  “Okay…I can give you two hours! If we don’t make it to the castle, I’ll leave. Keep in mind that I won’t fight against Free Citizens!”

  “I understand—I have two hours. We’ll reach the castle!” I shut off the amulet and glancing at Magdey, grinned and said: “Go! Go! Go!”

  All raid party members! Kill everyone who’s not with us!

  Then all hell broke loose.

  Wings—advance! Center—hold your positions! Archers and spell-casters—fire at will! Healers—cast domes! Let’s go boys!

  “Are we going to place bets, Mahan?” my Raid Leader smirked, stopping beside me. As a persona requiring protection, I was placed in the left wing under the steady watch of our clan’s raid party. According to our plan, Evolett’s kamikaze was under similar protection—he was protected by thirteen Paladins who’d be casting a perpetual bubble on him. This player could not be allowed to die; otherwise, our entire campaign would come to nothing.

  “The center just lost three hundred people. The right wing has gotten too close to the castle—the guards have entered the fight. The left wing is stuck, but isn’t suffering any major losses,” said one of my players, whom Magdey had designated as the scout. “Forty-five enemy players have been destroyed. Forty-nine…Our losses are…”

  “Mahan!” Evolett called, sounding happy. “Sorry that I baited the guards on purpose, but now we’re at Hatred with Narlak and got the pirate quest too! The guards can’t stray more than five hundred meters from the castle, so we’ll just retreat and get back to the fight. Signing off!”

  “The center lost another three hundred. The left wing’s down two hundred. The right wing has pushed back the enemy and killed twenty guards…”

  “Do it, Magdey!” I commanded and we began to set our plan into action.

  Attention all raid party members—fog incoming!

  The Raid Leader’s message appeared before me and our army was blanketed by thick clouds of fog cast by our Mages. When I had met with the Phoenix mercenaries, I had to warn them that at my command they had to either take off their equipment or lose it (even though they had shown up with the most basic gear possible). If I hadn’t done so, Ehkiller could have had grounds to claim that I had destroyed a million items belonging to his players—and I wasn’t about to risk that kind of liability.

  Each wing had a special squad that was responsible for casting fog in order to conceal our forces from the enemy as well as cover us while we erected damage-mitigating shields before the fog dissipated. Furthermore, the players closest to the Phoenix mercenaries (and it so happened that these were my own Raiders) had to remove all their armor and sit down on the ground as if awaiting some mass annihilation before the fog had faded. Psychology, what can you do…

  It stood to reason that the Phoenix mercs would now warn their people that there’d be some big boom in a few seconds, at which point the enemy would remove their defensive shields, since keeping those up required the Healers to wield their staffs—and those could vanish at any moment. Besides, if we get lucky, the enemy players wouldn’t only hide their weapons, but also take off their armor in the hopes of saving several thousand g
old. And at that point Evolett’s boys would be free to do their dance…

  Armageddon is a very scary spell and there’s basically no defense against it. An instant wave spreading at the speed of sound and annihilating everything in its way, including equipment. Only a bubble or the ‘Denial’ spell—which itself costs a pretty penny—can defend against it. And yet ‘The Last Word’ had so many minuses to it, that it was almost never used in practice. In battle, players preferred to use miniature substitutes of ‘The Last Word,’ such as the ‘Meteor Shower’ spell. The idea here was simple—a dozen Mages would form a circle while everyone around them channeled their mana to them. Upon casting ‘Meteor Shower,’ a doorway to hell would open up over the enemy and enormous chunks of lava would begin to plummet from the sky, causing immense damage in a concentrated area. Each second of the spell, exhausts a Level 200 Mage’s mana pool, so there aren’t many who can afford to keep this spell going for a sustained period of time. Furthermore, even a slight shove of a single Mage is enough to interrupt the spell, making it a very unprofitable and mana-hungry battle maneuver. Yet, we were fighting a non-standard battle with a practically limitless number of players who could channel mana…so…

  “The enemy has removed its gear! Their domes are down!” our scout reported calmly.

  “Your turn, Evolett,” I instantly ordered into the amulet with a mean smirk. There are times I guess when it doesn’t hurt to have the enemy among your ranks.

  “‘Meteor Shower’ has been cast,” the scout went on. “Enemy losses amount to one hundred…one hundred eight…domes are back up…three hundred forty…fifteen hundred…twenty-two hundred…there are no more survivors in the spell area, we can stop casting…”