Survival Quest (The Way of the Shaman: Book #1) (9 page)

In the evening I witnessed another set up. When the food was handed out Bat came up to one of the prisoners and saying “Hello, sweetie”, started to grope him vigorously. The prisoner, more than surprised by Bat’s behavior, pushed him away and showered him with choice swearwords. But he happened to push Bat in the direction of the Smithy, where picks were leaning against the wall. Pointing upwards. Bat fell on them and screamed at the top of his voice, his Health Bar was reduced by about 20 percent and the prisoner that pushed him fell and disappeared in about a minute, leaving a pile of gold pieces in his place. The governor turned up, watched the hologram of the incident, glanced over Bat, who was looking pleased with himself, turned around and left without a word, Bat gathered the pile of coins and walked away, with a prisoner entourage in tow. So, that’s how dirty tricks are played in our mine… Slick bastards!

That's how things went on for four days. I healed Kart, killed nine Rats a day, after dancing for them, worked at the veins, and every day raised my reputation with the guards by 19 points through selling the surplus and Rat tails to Rine. I was now very careful with anyone standing close to me, so nothing bad happened to me during this time and no-one attempted to get all huggy. What really cheered me up was that I gradually began to save up money. It wasn’t that much – only coming to 22 silver in the five days – but it was a start.  If I get money things will start looking up for me. These thoughts filled my head each day as I left for work in the mine. What other good things happened in these four days?  I’ve increased my Strength to level 4, my Intellect to level 3 and my Stamina to level 6, so I was on top of things as far as levelling was concerned. Around 50 Rat skins collected in my bag, but I was in no hurry to sell them – who knows what materials I might need for Jewelcraft? What if I needed a skin after I sold them all? I had to unlock my profession first and then decide what to do next.

Today was a significant day for me: I decided to see what Rine had for sale, so, after handing in the quota and selling the rest, I waited until Rine was less busy. What if I managed to get my hands on something useful? Didn't I have plans for a change of clothes? I did. And plans should be carried out.

"Good evening, Rine," I began, as I walked up to the dwarf. The vital necessity of making progress towards the status of Friendly with the mine staff only reinforced my habit of being polite to NPCs, which I developed over the years of playing in Barliona. After all, they could give you a quest or give you a trade discount or do something otherwise nice or useful. You never know with NPCs.

"And to you. You've done your quota and sold me everything else, so what can I do for you?" asked Rine, somewhat surprised.

"Well, I've saved up some money and decided to have a look what such a remarkable dwarf might have for sale. Maybe I'll buy something."

"Oh, in that case — my door is always open!" So, it looked like Rine was quite a salesman too. "Take a look: I have scrolls for various professions, 10 silver each, but you still have to pay me 20 more silver for unlocking a profession. I have all kinds of scrolls: Cooking, Leatherworking, Smithing and Jewelcraft. I've got any profession you want! All only 10 silver apiece too. How many would you like?"

"None, I'll stick to something more essential for now. An outfit or a new pick, for instance. The pick that you gave me is a bit of a pain to work."

"Yes, of course I have some picks. Quite a selection, to suit any taste, color or smell... Well, maybe not smell. Anyway, take a look," Rine began displaying different picks. "Here's one dealing 11 damage; this one does 12 and that one does 13..."

Rine showed me 10 picks in total, all with different levels of damage... If I understood things correctly, the higher the damage, the faster you destroy the vein, so I should choose the one with the highest – and still stay within my means, of course.

"Is 20 damage the maximum for your picks? Do you have anything higher?" I continued to test the water with the dwarf.

"Of course I do, but there's no way you can afford it. I can show it to you, if you like," Rine rummaged in his bag and took out another pick. He turned it over briefly in his hands and then handed it to me.

Well I'll be... If only I had a pick like this from the start, I'd have finished off all the veins around here!

Miner Rine's Pick. Damage: 25. +1 Mining. Energy loss when mining ore is reduced by 10%. Item class: Uncommon. Level restrictions: none.

I was all but drooling.

"And how much is this baby?" was all I managed to utter.

"Like I said, you don't have enough money for it. It costs 30 gold and you won't scrape together even one yet."

"You're right, Rine, such a pick is beyond me for now. All right, how much for a simpler one, with 20 damage?"

"That's easy enough, it comes to 10 gold," said Rine, looking at me slyly.

"Rine! This is daylight robbery! For a pick that does only double the damage of the one I already have you are asking 10 gold?"

"What did you expect? You'll work twice as fast with this pick. If you don't want it, don't take it, no-one's forcing you," Alt was spot on when he said that the moment you touched the subject of money the dwarf transformed into someone you didn't really want to deal with. What a shark.

"Rine, this is too much. Let's see the one with 15 damage. It can't cost that much.

"Of course not. It's just 3 gold. I'm practically giving it away for free here."

"And what can you sell me for 20 silver?" I could see that it was pointless to approach Rine with so little money.

"For 20 silver I can only offer you a pick with 12 damage. That's it. Here you go," Rine was about to hand me one of the picks.

"Hold it, Rine. Just hold on. Let's say I take the pick with 15 damage for 20 silver, but will tell you straight away that I'll start saving up for the pick worth 30 gold. And then buy it off you for 40. For me it's simply a must-have. You don't have much to lose: you give me a discount now and make extra profit later and I'll have obligation to you which I'll be fulfilling. I'll save up the needed sum in two months' time. Also, when I buy the pick for 40 gold, I'll return the one with 15 damage to you for free. What do you say?" I quickly blurted out, surprising even myself.

"Obligation, you say? And what if you fail to meet it?" the dwarf looked thoughtful.

"It's not like you're risking anything. If I don't keep my promise, you can take this pick back in two months' time and start selling everything to me at a triple cost and buying things from me at half the price."

The dwarf seemed to be thinking it over, weighing up the pros and cons, scratching his chin and mumbling something under his breath. I stood there, keeping my fingers crossed that he would agree. It would be very good to speed up my work by one and a half times. With that earning 40 gold in two months looked quite possible.

"All right, take it," Rine gave up, and gave me the pick with 15 damage. "And hand your money over here."

Skill increase:

+1 to Trade. Total: 2

Item acquired: Miner's pick: Damage: 15

Hurriedly giving Rine the money, in case he changed his mind, I went off and sat by the wall of the smithy. That's it, now I can take it easy for a bit. I wonder if Rine would have agreed to give me the pick with +1 to Mining right away? Hells, I should have asked for it in the first place. Bad move on my part, a real miss. What's that? I noticed that another timer had became attached to me in the meantime and took a closer look at it.

Obligation to Rine. To provide 40 gold to Rine in order to buy a pick. Duration expires in: 60 days.

No forgetting this, even if I wanted to — the system will bring it up and remind me.

There was nothing else to do, so I leant back on the wall and closed my eyes: 'Soon I will gain a second level. My reputation is growing slowly but surely, so I'm moving in the right direction. I should make an estimate of how soon I could leave the mine. I get 19 Reputation every day. At the moment I already have 99 of the 1000 needed for the status of Friendly, so that's fifty more days of work ahead of me. Altogether, that's not too bad. But then to get from Friendly to Respect I'll have to gain 3000 points, which is 160 more days. This means that in just over half a year I should be in the main gameworld. It's strange that Kart mentioned only one prisoner who left the mine. If gaining reputation is so simple, why is no-one here doing it? Or does everyone really like this place? I have to ask Kart about this.'

Kart... If we hadn’t become good friends during this week, we were at the very least friendly. Kart told me many interesting things about local laws, customs and habits and in the process now just levelled up in his profession (in the space of a week it went up to level 20, which made Kart veritably ecstatic). He also advised me on how to act in any particular situation and how to behave myself around Bat and his gang.

A word about Bat. Judging by the fact that it has been four days now since anyone made any moves on me, some dirty trick of epic proportions was in the works. The happy looks shot in my direction did not bode well for me. Kart did not manage to find anything out, so all I could do was wait. I guessed that everything would become clear in due time. If Bat made an attempt to kiss me, I could try returning the 'affection' and see how he reacts to that.

"Mahan, watch out!" I opened my eyes as Kart’s shout reached my ears and saw a mining trolley full of ore speeding towards me containing Bat, who was making a frightened face and screaming something at the top of his voice. 'If this whole contraption hits me, I'm toast.' I thought. Realizing that it would be physically impossible to get out of the way of the trolley, I stared as one charmed while my first death in the mine headed my way. What did Rine say? 'A very unpleasant experience?' I bet it's far from pleasant to get plastered across a wall by such a mammoth. Good-bye skill points...

Suddenly with a wild scream Kart smashed himself into the side of the trolley, overturning it on its side and making the whole contraption - Kart, Bat and the trolley - tumble away from me. In a few moments this clump of mess stopped and I saw Bat getting up. And Kart? What happened to Kart? Hells! Didn't he just cause deliberate damage?

I sprang to my feet and glanced at Bat. The fall stripped off about 80% of his Hit Points. Resilient bastard. Kart slumped on the floor nearby. He urgently needed water, otherwise he wouldn't survive. Kart's Life bar slowly but surely diminished. Fecking copper! I summoned a Spirit of Healing and ran for water.

Skill increase:

+5% to Intellect. Total: 70%

Your Hit Points have been reduced by 1. Total: 49 of 50.

'Get lost, I have no time for this!' - I waved away the message.

I ran up to the watering hole in a few seconds, but discovered there was no bowl to get the water with. Those lowlifes thought of this too. The water seeped through my hands, so I took off my robe and, having drenched it in water, ran back. Sanitation misgivings can go hang. Life is more important.

A large crowd of people formed around Kart. I pushed myself to the centre and saw Bat squatting by Kart and telling him something with a smirk:

"... told you that I'll get you one day. And now no-one can say that I provoked you. Didn't lay a finger on the governor's favorite."

Kart wheezed something in response. His Life bar was already showing only 28%. The devil take you.... I quickly poured two healings over Kart.

Skill increase:

+10% to Intellect. Total: 80%

Your Hit Points have been reduced by 2. Total: 47 of 50.

‘Shut up! I'll switch you off to all the hells!’ I opened Kart's mouth and started to squeeze my robe straight onto his face. The water started to dribble onto Kart, but missed his mouth – it was as if some invisible sphere got in the way and the water bounced off it, missing Kart's mouth. Friggin' hell!

"Ah, Kart's sidekick is here. Well well, my friend, you are just prolonging his suffering. And you won't get any water to him. There's nothing to put it in," giggled Bat.

I looked at the people standing around us. Although calling them people was a bit much - just a crowd of malicious prisoners, smiling sweetly and staring at Kart.

"Bat, give the bowl back! He'll die!"

Bat shrugged, as if to say that we all die and if someone goes early, that's not his problem.

"Friggin' hell, Bat! I'll give you fifty Rat pelts and bring you nine pelts a day every day for a month. For free, do you hear? Free! Give back the bowl, you bastard!"

"My dear boy, I've been at the mine nearly as long as Kart and in that time levelled up my profession of Leatherworking to the maximum level possible when using Rat skins. I buy and take them only in order to process and sell them at a higher price, and exchanging what I'll now gain for destroying Kart for some cash would be plain stupid. The entire mine contains only three people who haven't died at least once: Kart, myself and you. So get ready — you're next. Although don't fret, there's not much point touching you until you’re at least level 2. But Kart's 11 levels are well worth it. He’s the highest level character in the mine and made such a stupid mistake. I might as well have won the lottery."