The Kartoss Gambit (The Way of the Shaman: Book #2)

by Vasily Mahanenko

  I took out another piece of Marble and made use of the 'Essence of Things' ability. I wanted to see what this piece of Marble wanted to be. At first there was silence, which many stones had when they didn't want to be anything other than a stone, but then I was engulfed by a wave of hatred, disgust and revulsion. And all of this came from an ordinary piece of Marble. So it looked like this piece of stone wanted to be a Cursed Object — it mattered little the actual shape it took. But why?

  After coming to a decision, I opened the Spirit summoning mode, cleared one slot and started to summon Spirits. Right now I needed a Spirit which would allow me to contact Kornik. He was the only one who could explain to me what to do with all this.

  I waved away messages telling me I had access to various types of Spirits and stubbornly summoned one Spirit after another. No, not that one. It's a different one I need. It grew dark outside, but I continued to summon, looking for the Spirit I was after. Am I a Shaman or what?

  Do you wish to add the Spirit of Air Communication to the free slot?

  Finally! I almost despaired and wanted to stop the summons, but my inborn sticktoitiveness would not allow me to quit this hopeless business.

  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%.

  +2 to Spirituality. Total: 3.

  That 5% wasn't much of a worry. I cannot die in any case, even if I will be summoning Kornik for eternity. So here we go: I have to find out what's going on here.

  Kamlanie continued for exactly a minute, up until the point the first 5% of Life dropped into oblivion. The pain was so great that I gave an involuntary shout, interrupting the sending of the Spirit. Hm. Getting in touch with Kornik was going to be no simple matter. Not at all how I imagined it. After catching my breath and restoring my Hit Points, I returned to my exercise in masochism.

  From my sixth attempt I was able to fully concentrate and ignore jolts of pain, as well as register the percentage increase in my Endurance. Five minutes, ten, twenty had gone by, but Kornik remained out of reach. Did he fly off to the Dragons again?

  "WHO?" a desperate scream of pain, anger and suffering sounded in my head. Contact!

  "Teacher, this is Mahan. I have a question..."

  "RUN, YOU FOOL! RUN! N-N-O-O-O!" Kornik's choking scream struck me like a bolt from the blue.

  "Teacher?!"

  "Greetings, Mahan. I really have heard so much about you," a suave male voice barged into my conversation with the Teacher. "Let me introduce myself, my name is Geranika. Right now Kornik is my guest, so he's not really free to speak. And I will do my best to make sure he is unable to do this in the upcoming eternity."

  "Kornik is with you?" I asked, stunned, continuing to concentrate on the summoning, as another pang of pain hit me.

  "Of course he is. I always finish what I start. Remember this. Mmmm. I sense pain. What a pleasant feeling. Suffering, hatred, fear... Soon we shall meet and I will show you all the beauty of Kartoss. But right now you deserve to be punished. No-one should dare to break into my fortress in such a stupid manner. Good bye Mahan. I think you will understand that it is better to join up with me — after you feel this slight discomfort."

  Geranika said something and I was surrounded by another wave of pain. For crying out loud! My Endurance had already reached level 132 and I was supposed to be feeling 26% less pain, but what I was going through now was quite unimaginable! I immediately remembered the 'Little Turtle' chewing me. This pain was on par with that and for some reason my eyes were really burning too! At last I mercifully sank into darkness as I lost consciousness.

  "Mahan, wake up," Elizabeth's voice was like a ray of light in endless pitch-black. I didn't feel the pain anymore, so I lifted myself on my elbows and looked around. I don't get it... Why are my landlady's words the only ray of light? Why am I surrounded by darkness? Although no, it wasn't total darkness — symbols for the buffs and debuffs didn't go anywhere, shining brightly in their usual place. Right, I don't think I've had this particular debuff before:

  Blindness. Debuff duration: 3 days.

  Three days in darkness? Great. Could this debuff be taken off somehow?

  "Mahan, your eyes!" I heard Elizabeth's surprised voice.

  "What about them?"

  "You don't have any!" my landlady was trying hard not to let her voice slide into screaming, but there were notes of panic breaking through.

  I felt the empty eye sockets with my hands. Crazy stuff! There's no removing a debuff like that. I'll have to spend the entire three days in darkness.

  "Don't worry. I'll be back to normal in three days' time. Can you tell me what happened?"

  "We were getting ready for bed and then heard your scream. It was so full of pain and agony that we ran straight to you. Then the scream stopped, as if you were smothered by it. I entered the house and saw you on the floor. I called you and you woke up... Ah! You face is all covered in blood..."

  I just about managed to calm my landlady down, wash my face and go to bed. Three days in darkness is just too much. I was hoping to spend them productively, but now it looks like I'll be stuck in the room the entire time. Damn! If I ever catch Geranika, I'll give him a piece of my mind. With that thought I drifted off.

  The next morning I could think clearly again and tried to analyse recent events. Kornik was Geranika's prisoner. My teacher was out of the picture. A pity, he was one funky goblin, despite all his foibles. Geranika knows about me and promised that we will meet again. I'm really not liking this. I'm not a great fan of the idea of meeting up with a mentally unstable NPC, who could resort to using force at any moment. Why on earth has he turned up? It's not like I don't have enough problems of my own to be thinking about this creep as well. The other bad news was that the Spirit that I summoned took off a lot of Hit Points and that Geranika used it to blind me. Even if this was temporary, it was far from pleasant. To put it plainly, my attempt to find out why the resources gathered in Beatwick produce cursed items led to my being blinded. A total fail.

  After spending half the day in bed, I realized that if I continued like this I would go mad. The darkness with burning pictograms and the hushed silence of the courtyard, where everyone was trying to be quiet so as not to disturb the sick, were not exactly cheering. I had to keep myself busy somehow or I would start to howl out of frustration. I tried to summon Spirits and contact Almis to tell him about Kornik, but that came to nothing. I simply couldn't see the panel with the Spirits. Could my eyes work in the design mode at least? Let's check it out.

  Praise be to all the game developers — the design mode came with its own vision. That meant I had a way to keep myself busy. I grabbed a piece of something at random, really hoping it was either Malachite or Lapis Lazuli. As I recreated the object, I was glad to see it was Lapis. It was sent to me by Hellfire, so I could easily make something of it, without worrying I'd turn out another piece of evil junk. Only one question remained — what could I make? The Dwarves? Why not? Someone will have to make them anyhow. Might as well be me.

  I decided to use Eric as the prototype. I could have used Hellfire too, especially since his image had already been created, but I didn't like this Phoenix clan member. And if I didn't like him, the probability that I would come out with something horrible was quite high. I needed the Dwarf Warriors.

  Eric. The dwarf who didn't betray me in my hour of need, didn't fall for Phoenix's bribes, gathered everyone together and is stubbornly waiting for me to get to Anhurs. Honest, loyal and level-headed. A real dwarf. He popped up in the design mode of his own accord. Now I could modify him.

  A sword, a shield, a helm... Argh. That's not it. The great Dwarf Warriors didn't look like that. Why didn't I ask Hellfire for their appearances and the descriptions of their feats? It just wasn't working with standard weapons. I needed help.

  "Mahan, I brought you some food — you should eat," Elizabeth brought me bac
k to the blackness outside by touching my shoulder. I quickly glanced at the debuff timer — it's been ten hours! Time sure ran fast in the design mode!

  "Yes, thank you. Elizabeth, can I ask you something?"

  "You can call me Beth, no need to be so formal. Do ask, of course."

  I almost choked, getting a muffled laugh from my landlady. Eliz... Beth decided to switch to familiar terms... This could only mean one thing — the level of Attractiveness has reached the coveted eighty points. I better watch out or she'll start making them advances...

  "Do you know the stories of the Dwarf Warriors from the Karmadont Chess Set?"

  "Of course. Do you want to know them all or some particular one?"

  "Any one would do. I need to understand the logic of how they made it into the history books."

  "Then I will tell you about Brarn Goldhand. His story is the most exemplary."

  I got comfortable and turned into one big ear. Listening to bedtime (or whatever time of day this was) stories is always interesting. Only one thing bothered me — as soon as I get my sight back, I'll have to catch Beth and stop her from summoning her demon. A pity: just when we started to get on so well.

  "All of this happened very long ago," my landlady began the tale. "When the dwarves lived in the cramped caves of the Rurat mountain...

  * * *

  'Brarn, sledgehammering damnation, where are you going?!' a stocky, practically square dwarf, his eyebrows in a frown, watched Brarn going down into the depths of the Black Maw chasm. In the many centuries of his people's history no-one had yet succeeded in descending below the level of darkness. To the place where the thrown torches could not drive back the black and show what the gloomy haze concealed. The daredevils who went below this fateful threshold never returned. Those who went down on a rope were lifted back up with eyes full of terror. Dead eyes. And now another young fool decided to explore the secret of the chasm — without a rope, trusting only in the strength of his hands and innate agility of the undermountain people.

  "Father, I'll be quick! I have to find out what is concealed by the darkness. What kind a chief would I be if my subjects end up laughing at me my entire life? Our people need knowledge and I will gain it for them!"

  "Fool, if you make it back, I'll give you one hell of a tawsing, even if I don't know what that is exactly," although he was very worried for his son, the Chief was a proud dwarf. For three thousand years now the dwarves had to reconcile themselves to the fact that their mountains had an incomprehensible area where no-one could go. And now his son and only heir, dared to do what even the bravest dwarven warriors were too afraid to do: descend into the Black Maw.

  "Father, if I do not return, tell Talisha that Brarn Sergenius is afraid of nothing in this world," giving a farewell glance to his father, the young dwarf disappeared in the impenetrable dark.

  "Argh, the hells!" the chief threw his axe down in anger, but immediately picked it up. A dwarf without an axe and a pick is no dwarf at all. This would mean shame for the rest of his life. But that Brann was something else! Got his daughter to egg his son on to go down into the Black Maw. Right to his death. And how did he come to allow this? He thought the youngsters were just playing around and that their fathers' problems didn't bother them, but no they saw and noticed everything, those sharp-eyes kids! Could it be that this stupid hundred-year dispute now lost him his son?

  Two hours went by, but the gloomy veil of darkness remained undisturbed. His son did not return. The father flicked away a tear and headed back to the settlement. He was the Chief and it was his duty to look after the people. He had no right to show any weakness or he would face an immediate challenge from his rivals. But why were his feet so treacherously weak and tears kept trying to come back to his eyes?

  "So where is our weakling?" at the entrance to the settlement the Chief was met by Brann's mocking grin. Compared to his peers, Brarn really did look more of a gnome. Almost a head shorter than the others and narrow-shouldered, he ate less and was constantly busy thinking or doing something. He even started to visit the smith outcasts, trying to fathom their secrets. Brarn was interested in everything, with a sole exception- he was not a warrior. Everything that was connected with weapons, blood or killing fell outside his sphere of interests. "So he finally decided to go the way of dogfood, eh? Ha-ha-ha!"

  Only his willpower, forged in his many years of ruling, stopped the Chief from attacking Brann. He was right after a fashion — there was no place for weaklings among the dwarves. The fact that Brarn survived until he was twenty, could only be called a miracle and his own will as the chief. Sooner or later he was going to run out of luck, and that black day finally came...

  According to tradition, the wake for his son took place five days after his death. It was not a very big gathering — Brarn didn't have any friends, only close relatives. To everyone's surprise Talisha came, dressed in white, the color of death, as a sign of solidarity.

  "Today we have gathered to celebrate Brarn's return to our forefathers. Let us make merry and dance, showing how we mourn the departed," the Chief addressed the gathering. "Brarn was a good dwarf, even a somewhat unusual one, but..."

  "Chief!" and out-of-breath guard burst into the hall.

  "Why did you leave your post?!" the head of dwarves frowned.

  "Chief... Brarn is coming..."

  Not believing his own ears, the Chief ran out of the hall and immediately half-covered his eyes. The caves in which the dwarves lived could not be called dark, but there was never enough light there. And now, from the direction of the Black Maw a bright sun was moving towards the settlement, decimating the centuries-old twilight of the caves. When the Chief's eyes got used to the bright light, he saw that the sun wasn't moving of its own accord, but was carried in the hands of a painfully familiar-looking dwarf. Narrow shoulders, short stature... Brarn had returned. Losing his head for joy, the father rushed towards his son, but only a few dozen steps away he froze in his place. It was his son, but at the same time it was a stranger. The dwarf's once naive eyes now shone with great wisdom; despite the unsteady step of the tired-looking sentient, it was clear that a lord was now walking through the stone caverns; the black hair of a youth turned into silver locks of an old man and the bright sun in his hands turned out to be an ordinary hammer.

  "Father," Brarn's thunder-like voice echoed through the cave, "I found out what lay hidden in the darkness. We should not be afraid of it."

  "Son..." the leader didn't know if he should rejoice or not, so great was the change... Was it his son that returned?

  "Father, I have changed. We have to change if we want to survive. At the bottom of the chasm there lives... I don't know what to call it — there lives a something, very ancient and wise. It has been watching us for a long time. When a dwarf descends to it, it shows him what would happen to our people if we continue down the path of war and violence. Father, we will die out! We have to change! Those that dwell under the mountains have to become master craftsmen and I will do everything in my power to make this happen."

  "Ah, the weakling's back," Brann appeared next to the rejoicing crowd of Brarn's relatives.

  "Father, don't," shouted Talisha, but the old dwarf ignored her.

  "Turn off your flashlight, sonny boy! Or I'll shove it down your throat. You're disturbing my sleep!"

  "How dare you..." the Chief was incensed, but Brarn interrupted him:

  "Leave him, father. Those like him are dragging the dwarves back, into the jaws of anger and violence. We can be warriors, but we have to craftsmen first. He cannot understand this. He is too weak."

  "WHAT?!" roared Brann. "You called me a weakling? You?! In the name of our ancestors I challenge you to a duel! Right now! You won't come back to life a second time," not waiting for the youth to reply, Brann grabbed his axe and hacked at him from above. Or rather, he wanted to hack at him, because at the last instant the shining hammer flew up, blocking the hit, and then went down on the attacker's head, flattening it. A
silence filled the caves. The elvish armor, that Brann bought for a great heap of gold coins and which was considered the strongest armor in Barliona, was flattened with one quick hit of a weak dwarf.

  "Before a dwarf can become a warrior, he first needs to become a Master," Brarn's voice thundered through the caverns. "I became a Master when I forged this Hammer. The wise being helped me and from now on darkness holds no danger for those who want to take the path of the masters. But any who desire strength alone... It is best for them not to descend there. They would not return. From this day on, I, Brarn Sergenius, will lead the dwarves on the path of master craftsmanship...'

  * * *

  Brarn kept his promise. Just a hundred years later dwarves had turned into unsurpassed masters in Smithing, having far overtaken the elves in this art. All the ancient Great Masters of the undermountain people are represented in the Karmadont Set. Each of them created at least one shining object, all of which, together with Brarn's hammer, formed the Legendary Radiant Set. Eight shining items. A dwarf wearing it could become a paladin, irrespective of his class."

  It was a beautiful story! During Elizabeth's tale I felt myself standing next to the Chief when Brarn descended into the chasm, mourned the dead with the others in the dwarvish manner and squinted in the bright light of the hammer. But straight away I had questions: