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

by Vasily Mahanenko

  “I need only one Spirit,” restraining my impatience, I answered no less majestically. “The Supreme Water Spirit!”

  “At last!” I certainly didn’t expect to hear such relief in the Spirit’s voice. “What took you so long?”

  You have merged with the Elemental Spirit

  “Halt!” I said, raising my arms. Nine green slimes resembling those we had destroyed back in the hallway were confidently crawling towards their boss from all directions. Stacey had asked me to slow down this hustle bustle and I was curious to see what would happen if I simply stopped them, instead of slowing them. It’s not difficult, after all…

  You have summoned a Rank 80 Supreme Water Spirit.

  Ragrid wishes to resurrect you. Do you accept?

  “Mahan!” Anastaria yelled at me as soon as I appeared in the boss’s room again. I had to give the Shadow Priests their due—they hadn’t unlearned how to bring things back to life. “Don’t do that again!”

  “I won’t,” I told the girl sheepishly through our telepathic link. How was I supposed to know that by merging with my Elemental Spirit, I would adopt the same Shaman Class as the Rank of the Spirit I had summoned? I had summoned a Supreme Spirit—and forced myself into a Supreme Shaman. There was no High Spirit of Water Pressure. There just wasn’t and that’s it. There was only one Supreme one. And naturally I’d chosen the highest possible rank too for this Spirit—Rank 80! The head of Legends of Barliona turned out to be a greedy toad indeed. Nothing is enough for him; he always wants more…The penalty for summoning the Spirit had wiped out my 45,000 Hit Points in one fell swoop.

  “Only a Harbinger can safely ignore the rank of a Spirit he summons,” the whirlpool glibly informed me when I paid him a visit again. “If you are prepared to suffer pain, then you must summon such Spirits on your own, without my involvement.”

  “And as practice shows, there are six Supreme Spirits altogether,” I muttered, recognizing one of the surprising aspects of Shamans. It turns out there are very few Supreme Spirits: four elemental Spirits and two more for communication and strengthening. There wasn’t a single one for attack or defense, nor for freezing or healing. So while there were about ten thousand Great Spirits for all kinds of occasions, there were only a handful Supreme Spirits…It’s kind of sad even…

  “By the way, thanks for dealing with the slimes,” Stacey added by way of encouragement. “You were of great help.”

  “You are always welcome,” I quipped and began to compare the ranks of the Spirits I could summon with the amount of Hit Points I had. Since I can only summon Great Spirits, then I will begin with the first rank, I guess. Where are you, oh Smidgen Gloop?

  At Rank 12, the Water Spirit allowed me to summon Rank 18 Spirits fairly painlessly. However, at Rank 24, the Water Spirit consumed almost half the Hit Points I had, so I didn’t risk going any higher and settled on Rank 20. Now, my work went steadily: Water Strike Spirit against the boss, Strengthening Spirit on Plinto, Healing Spirit on myself.

  B E W A R E!

  “Dive!” Anastaria reacted instantly. By this point, the boss had only 60% of his Hit Points remaining and I can say with confidence that I had accounted for 5%.

  The boss could only devour at close range. A circular icon appeared above Smidgen Gloop’s head and immediately began to count down sector by sector, a second at a time. One minute. The Devour ability lasts only a minute and our only job is to survive it. And as it happens, I have something to offer here!

  “Thank you!” yelled Plinto when my Spirit of Acceleration reached him. Even if it was only 30%, still the Rogue’s Speed went up, allowing him to run from the boss along the hall’s perimeter. The dumb Imitator didn’t pay any attention to me or Stacey, even as he crawled right past us—for Smidgen Gloop, Plinto was enemy number one, while the rest of us were mere scenery.

  Exactly a minute later, the running ended and the boss returned to the center of the hall—everything started all over again. A bit boring this. At Dolma Mine the bosses were a bit more interesting.

  Level gained!

  Level gained!

  Level gained!

  + 2 to Intellect. Total: 204.

  Free stat points: 435.

  At last! Tackling the boss on our own turned out to be a tedious affair—almost forty minutes of measured and painstaking work, including three laps running from the Devour ability. The slimes never did reach their boss, even when he would rush right past them, so I didn’t have to worry about them much after all. I’d need to establish what would happen if these pieces of slime had reached their destination.

  “That was much too easy,” I heard Anastaria say in my mind. “A very primitive boss. I can’t understand why Geyra couldn’t defeat him. She could have simply run from Devour the way we did.”

  “Something tells me that there won’t be any more bosses on this level,” the girl added aloud. “Let’s clear out the remaining two hallways…Mahan, pick up the loot…”

  The chest that stood right behind the boss contained fifty thousand gold and three items. Glancing at their properties, I couldn’t contain a smirk—judging by the levels and the class requirements, one of the items was for me, while the other two were for Stacey and Plinto.

  Shamanic Ring of Beckoning. Description: -30% to Spirit Summoning Cost. Restriction: Only for Shamans.

  I just love Dungeons tailor-made for specific players. Even despite the fact that the ring had a single ability and did nothing for my stats, I instantly equipped it. Considering the latest changing to the summoning mechanic, this ring would really come in handy.

  Clearing the level had really benefited us—about a hundred thousand gold, half of which had been in the boss’s chest. The two remaining hallways turned out to be only one that looped around and returned to the boss’s chamber in a hoop. As Anastaria had predicted, there were no other bosses in this hallway, but there were two secret areas with chests which yielded the remaining gold. There’s no point in even mentioning the enormous mob of various slimes that now occupied a tenth of my inventory bag—I’d sort them out when I had the time. The Eye of the Dark Widow had clearly demonstrated that even a pile of coal can yield diamonds…Uh, oh, am I starting to echo Cain? That’s not a good sign.

  “Geyra, take the left passage. Cain, take the right one.” I assigned the groups as soon as we reached the second level of the Dungeon. “Clear out everything and meet up as soon as we encounter the boss. On the double!”

  The second and third levels of the Dungeon only earned my avatar another Level, and only then thanks to my XP bar already being fairly full. There were no further bosses with the devour ability, so Geyra and Cain and their men had free reign to destroy anything and everything. To my immense chagrin, there were no further items for me among the loot. Sure, the loot that was there would make Magdey and Clutzer quite happy, as well as our rank and file—especially our Alchemists—but that didn’t suit me at all.

  “There’s the stairway to the fourth level.” Geyra pointed at the shimmering staircase. “That should be the last one before we reach the Glarnis throne room.”

  “YOU’RE COMING NEARER AND NEARER. I CAN SENSE YOU!” the unseen creature spoke into my head again. I would guess that this is none other than Urusai himself—who else could it be? Three times I tried to yell at him, and all three times all I got was Anastaria. It seemed like the telepathic link only worked in one direction.

  “Recon!” Cain barked at three of his men who instantly vanished into the shimmering glow. Having cleared three levels without suffering any casualties, with no Devourers in sight, the Necromancer was beginning to feel confident. Prematurely, as it turned out…

  The frames belonging to Cain’s three scouts first went dim, indicating that the warriors were between levels, then appeared green again as they entered the fourth level, and then vanished. And I mean vanished, as if they’d never been—instead of going gray from being killed. In one fell swoop, someone had just struck three Level 320 scouts out of Ba
rliona. It’s a good thing those weren’t Geyra’s boys.

  “Plinto?” I looked at the Rogue inquisitively.

  “I’ll go check it out,” the Rogue responded, casting Invisibility on himself and taking a deep swig from some bottle. “If I don’t return, I request a hero’s funeral,” the Vampire joked and dived into the passage.

  “Looks like a boss…jaws…” appeared in the raid party chat right before Plinto’s frame went gray. My Level 351 Rogue, who had no equal on this continent (nor would have one in the foreseeable future, Hellfire notwithstanding), had been killed in three seconds—even though he had used every spell he had to make himself undetectable …Wow…What is up there?

  “Give me a sec,” said Anastaria as her eyes glassed over.

  “It’s odd, but I cannot sense my warriors anymore,” said Cain anxiously. “Have we encountered another Devourer?”

  “It’s looking like it…” I replied unwillingly. If Plinto and three scouts could fall in a matter of moments, it’s probably not a good idea to set foot on that fourth level, without making preparations, at any rate. I needed to mull this over…

  “Okay, here’s the situation,” said Anastaria upon returning back into the game. As I assumed, she had spoken to Plinto by phone. “As soon as you reach the fourth level, you find yourself in an enormous maw with hundreds of sharp fangs. The boss’s level isn’t clear, so it must be higher than Level 381. Free Citizens are sent to the Gray Lands, while locals vanish forever. The maw removes them from Barliona. Plinto will respawn in six hours and reach us in another five. Any ideas?”

  “We wait,” Geyra and Cain replied in unison. “If those jaws annihilate everyone except for Free Citizens, you should be the ones to deal with it.”

  “I agree. In that case…”

  “Stacey, when I give the order, cast a bubble on me,” I said, merging with my Elemental Spirit and casting all the buffs I had at my disposal on myself. The important thing at the moment was to keep the girl from speaking—something told me that I needed to go have a look at this boss on my own, despite his insanely high level. “Plinto will be 50% weaker by the time he returns, since Geranika’s buff will expire by then. It’s expired for me already…Okay, I’m ready…At the count of three. One, two…”

  “If you die, I’m gonna kill you!”

  “Three!” without doubting that the bubble had indeed been cast on me, I stepped into the shimmering field separating the levels. Let’s see what kind of mouth this is…

  Greenery…greenery and teeth. Many teeth and much vegetation, interspersed with a pale white palate and a pink tongue…A mere second went by before the jaws snapped shut and began to chew noisily, making repulsive noises and trying to flatten me.

  The bubble saved me…

  I didn’t even have time to consider how large this creature must have been, if it had such a maw—nor how it had managed to situate itself under Glarnis. Losing invaluable seconds, I shut my ears against the terrible roar of the monster—the bubble that Stacey had cast on me prevented the jaws from tearing me apart, yet the force of their compression against the indestructible sphere around me was so intense that I had simply punched a hole in the boss’s jaws. The enormous jaws swung ajar again instantly as a pained bellowing filled everything, deafening me. Black slime gushed from the two circular wounds and, reaching the pink tongue, the slime began to smoke like acid, dissolving the muscle…I glanced at the bubble’s timer—4 seconds. Understanding that I wouldn’t have time to do anything else, I turned and dived back for the staircase.

  Ragrid wishes to resurrect you. Do you accept?

  “What do you think?” asked Anastaria as soon as I returned.

  “I think that hurt a lot,” I shuddered, recalling my last sensation before dying. The bubble vanished and the slime that had coated it had fallen on me. The pain had been so hellish that I couldn’t even scream—I simply didn’t have the strength. It seemed to me like the pain was eternal, but my logs showed that the black slime required only two seconds to send me off to the Gray Lands.

  “Okay, but if we return to the boss—how are we going to beat him?”

  “I think that we need to…”

  Level gained!

  Level gained!

  Level gained!

  Level…

  Ten notifications announcing that I had gained a level flashed past my eyes, forcing me to collapse to my knees in elation. All this time I’ve been in Barliona, I’ve grown accustomed to the jolt of pleasure I get from leveling up, but never have I ever gained ten levels at once…For someone as conditioned as I was, this was just too much…

  “Dan?” Stacey said somewhere at the fringes of my consciousness. “Dan, wake up! You’re scaring me!”

  Oh God! How amazing this feels! Leave me alone!

  “YOU ARE NEARLY THERE! A SINGLE OBSTACLE REMAINS!”

  It was Urusai’s words, not Anastaria’s, that brought me back to myself. It looks like we’re already expected. As soon as we emerge from Glarnis, an entire host of phantoms will fall on us. I’ll need to warn everyone, but first, I need to find out who Urusai is and why Geranika is so unhappy with him…

  “It’s clear,” concluded Cain after sending another one of his men into the shimmering barrier. “The beast has destroyed its own self…Anastaria, if you don’t mind, cast another couple bubbles on my men—they need to cut a way through the maw…”

  “Plinto already had his boss, the one that stopped the mercenaries. And this boss, who stopped Geranika’s squad, was designed for me and my bubble,” said Anastaria after I told her what had happened. “So it follows that there is only one boss remaining—for the Shaman. Get ready, Mahan. It’ll be your turn soon. Let me go warn Plinto that we’re about to revive him.”

  “Mahan, I don’t know how you’ll be able to carry this, but we can’t just leave this,” said Geyra, pointing at a heap of flesh. A terrifying heap—looking at it, I felt like I was at the butcher’s shop, choosing a juicer tidbit. There aren’t many who enjoy such a sight, and I was not one of them.

  The boss had left a lot of ‘meat.’ Cain had lost the three warriors who had been in charge of cutting their way through the jaws—they had been dissolved by the black slime. The priests revived the fallen right away. Since the boss had already died, their essences hadn’t been devoured. The boss’s corpse occupied three immense rooms. He turned out to be a fascinating specimen—the black slime only oozed in the first room, where the jaws had been. And it seemed that the jaws weren’t controlled directly, but through some sort of telepathic link, since there was no connective tissue between the jaws and tongue in the first room and the creature in the next one. Effectively, the boss had been three separate creatures united in one whole. His third portion seemed to be responsible for processing the wastes that flowed from the second part, so we didn’t even bother to check it out. Even though there was a high chance of finding a unique item, remaining undigested from some unknown heroes of the past, none of us felt like entering the reeking room, not even Plinto.

  “What is this for?” I asked Stacey, pointing at the ‘Fillet of Pancreas.’ “Surely it’s not a Cooking ingredient?”

  “Basically. At the moment, twenty such fillets are known and each is worth its weight in gold, even more. There’s a unique Alchemical recipe called ‘Merlin’s Potion’ that boosts one of the main stats by 5. Permanently. To make such a reagent, you need this fillet and several other rare ingredients. I know where to get the other, so…Cain is right. We need to take this with us. I have an Alchemist acquaintance who’s familiar with ‘Merlin’s Potion’…Plinto stop making faces! We’re taking it all!”

  The Fillet of Pancreas was unpleasant to the touch as well as to the sight. Soft, slimy, wriggling…Blech! It’s a good thing that Barliona doesn’t take into account the size and weight of items in your bag—a third of the fleshy heap fit into my inventory without a problem. Leaving myself three empty slots just in case, I gestured at Plinto’s share of the heap, invi
ting him to gather it up. If Stacey manages to create Merlin’s Potion, then…Well, a potion like that will be a very useful thing to have.

  “If you tell anyone that I touched this, I’ll kill you,” muttered Plinto, stuffing the remainder into his bag.

  “Agreed. It’ll have a nice ring to it: ‘Vampire Adept Plinto the Bloodied collects pieces of meat for an elixir.’ It’s like the perfect title for a horror flick.”

  “Cain, Geyra—we’ve reached the fourth level, but we’re still at the very beginning.” Not wishing to intervene in Plinto and Anastaria’s verbal fencing, to which everyone had already gotten used to, I sent our people out to explore the rest of the level. My boss was waiting for me here somewhere…

  “Commander,” one of Cain’s scouts reported about a minute later to the Necromancer, “you should probably take a look at this…”

  “And what is it?” asked Cain, staring at the mysterious construction.

  “It looks like the labyrinth,” replied Anastaria examining the assembly hanging before us. “A three-dimensional one…”

  About twenty meters ahead of us, in violation of all laws of physics such as gravity and Euclidean geometry, hung a cube. It was not touching the floor, so we could assume that it was somehow suspended, and yet the cube was constantly spinning around all three of its axes. Like a piece of iron in a magnetic trap. The cube was fully transparent—I could clearly see the door on its other side, the exit from the level and the Dungeon as a whole. However, we were separated from this tantalizing goal by flashes of fire, blades, water and something dark and scary which intermittently appeared along the entire internal perimeter of the cube. A fanciful labyrinth occupied the inside of the cube. It was instantly clear that it would be impossible to pass through the labyrinth if the cube remained motionless—the paths through were too dispersed and chaotic. At first glance, at least.

  I should add that the dimensions of the cube were no less than thirty meters in each direction. And how this enormous machine found its way into Glarnis—is a question for the developers.