The Secret of the Dark Forest ( (The Way of the Shaman: Book #3) (43 page)

Update to the 'The Making of a Dark Shaman' quest. Should you successfully complete the quest, your reputation with the Supreme Spirits of the Higher and the Lower Worlds will change to Hatred.

A flash of light!

"Now the dark mist is coming off your hair too,"
Anastaria immediately reported as soon as we reappeared in the Castle of the Fallen.
"While you've been running around bumping off NPCs, Ehkiller sent me a message. The United forces of Malabar – around forty thousand fighters – have been transported by our Mages to the Dark Forest. According to 'Killer they'll arrive in the vicinity of the Castle in about ten minutes, so get ready for things to get rough. 'Killer took a scroll of Armageddon with him, so very soon this place will get a visit from the fluffy northern beastie, as Clutzer would put it. They have only one aim – to destroy the player called Mahan and prevent him from completing the trial. It looks like they didn't get the quest update like we did."

"The next task, my future apprentice," continued Geranika, "is to have you completely sever any ties with your Shamanistic past. When I found my new source of power, I had to destroy my Totem, which was the essence of the Spirits of both worlds. You cannot keep your Totem! Prove that you are fully ready to become one of us! Destroy your Dragon!"

Supreme Spirits of both worlds! If I remain a Shaman after all this madness, I'll be sure to give you some proper gift! If not for the penalties that you’d slapped on me for the explosion in the Astral Plane, I would have failed Geranika's trial for sure. I wouldn't let anyone destroy Draco!

"I can't …" I started to say, but was immediately interrupted by Geranika:

"Are you again refusing to take your place by my side?"

"No, I do want to be your apprentice, but destroying my Totem is beyond my power right now. It needs to be summoned, but the Supreme Spirits placed a penalty on me. For the next week and a half I will be as powerless as the Shaman of the old school. I'm sorry I've let you down, future teacher, but destroying the Totem is impossible right now ..."

"Old school ... an excellent expression – worth remembering! But how could you … Who on earth is that?"

A battle horn seemed to sound right outside the gates. Such sounds put a series of beneficial buffs on a group or a raid and served as the signal for attack.

"'Killer's here."
Anastaria played the part of Captain Obvious.

"Phoenix will break through the gates!" came Hellfire's shout. "Legion," – they’d brought the Dark Legion with them too! – "lay siege to the towers! Azures and Heirs – the support is on you. As soon as we break through, everyone must try to destroy Mahan! He's the main target, not the Dark Ones! Battering rams and ballistae to the front! Attack when ready!"

"I've thought of a different trial for you," Geranika turned to me with a playfully malicious smirk. "We can leave the Totem for later – it isn't going anywhere.” With these words my potential teacher disappeared and the entire forest descended into a frightening silence. Even the sounds of the battle horn had died down, not daring to disturb the stillness of the forest.

"Daft hero wannabes
," summed up Plinto:
"Geranika froze two hundred players near Beatwick – did these morons think it would be any different here?"

"YOU DARED TO ATTACK MY CASTLE WHILE I'M TRAINING MY APPRENTICE?!" The Lord of Shadow was up in the air, towering a few meters above the wall. Judging by the total lack of lightning strikes, arrows or curses flying towards him, the players were affected by the 'Stun' debuff and were lying scattered around the ground in quiet bundles. Forty thousand bodies ... how on earth did they all fit in the small glade in front of the castle? Or were most of them still in the forest?

"I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO INTERFERE WITH MY PLANS! APPRENTICE!" Geranika turned around and some unknown force lifted me off the ground. Smoothly, with impressive precision, I flew to the gates and beheld an epic spectacle: a field strewn with high-level players. They were covering everything – the small glade before the gates, the forest and the tree tops were decorated with the heroic hulks of the frozen saviors of Barliona – from poor old me. "NOW I SHALL TEACH YOU A LESSON! WATCH!"

Several dozen players flew up in the air, like weightless feathers picked up by a gust of wind, and floated over to us. Hmmm ... Rick from Phoenix, Etamzilat from Heirs of the Titans, and many more players I didn't know ... all of them had turned up here, hell bent on sending me for respawn. Maybe I really should just ditch the lot of them and start playing for Shadow? However today's meeting would go, forty thousand players – if Anastaria wasn't embellishing the truth – would become very hostile towards me.

"The first thing you should remember," continued Geranika in a normal voice, "is that a Shaman's chief aim is not to be paying tribute, but making full use of his opponent's Life Force. Spirits cannot be summoned without receiving a sacrifice first, which is why it is a given that they are weak. Now watch my actions and then tell me that you’ve understood."

Dark phantoms flew out of Geranika's hands, surrounded the floating players and in a few moments vanished. The players vanished with them, while a handful of gold (it turned out that not everyone goes for the upgraded purse option) and several items dropped to the ground: a jacket, a belt and boots of some kind. All legendary items that have a 10% drop chance. ... No, the players won't just rail at me, no ... I'm a goner, plain and simple.

"What do you make of it?" Geranika asked me.

"These dark entities, which I call phantoms, were summoned and have seized their victims," I hazarded a guess. "At the same time they exact a payment, but they take it from the victim ..."

"Don't repeat my words," interrupted Geranika. "I want to hear your thoughts. Do not disappoint me, apprentice!"

Apprentice? No longer 'future apprentice'? Right, it seems that I've reached my aim, now I just need to make good use of it.

Ding! You've received 3844521 new messages. Do you wish to view them?

Will they quit with the 'fan mail' already? Where did all these letters come from?? Bah! Never mind, I'll sort through them later. ...

"The phantoms came out of your hands, teacher," I started saying the first thing that came into my head. Like an ancient tribesman, who makes a song out of what he’s looking at: “ They don't appear in the victims, like Spirits, they ... they live in you. So it appears that in order to learn how to summon them, you have to go through an initiation, invite the phantoms within. ... You spoke of a source, so there must be some object, a shard of which will be implanted, inlaid, engrafted – I don't know which word is appropriate here – into me. Why a shard? Because you're taking on an apprentice, which means that the object has not been absorbed by you completely. I'm certain that a similar shard is inside Midial. (Where is he, by the way? I haven't seen him around the Castle yet.) The phantoms do not return, which means that they die ... but then, if I'm right, one would no longer be able to summon them after a certain point. So this means that the phantoms do not die. They ... I don't know, teacher."

"You will make a worthy apprentice," said Geranika thoughtfully, looking pleased. "You are right and wrong at the same time. When those that you call 'phantoms' have had their fill of a victim they return back to the source. Watch my next summons and try to describe it."

Players once again floated into the air, but this time there were a lot more of them – at least a hundred. ...

"The next summons that I will show you is the complete opposite.” The Lord of Shadows continued his demonstration. "Look!"

The bodies of the levitating players twisted and phantoms began to fly out of the avatars’ chests. One, two, three ... soon the flying hundred was surrounded by dark entities, which vanished a few moments later. Just like the players. Another hundred less ... another light shower of gold and just one Legendary item.

"Do you understand what happened?" Geranika asked me.

"No, teacher," I admitted honestly. "What happened just now completely breaks with the logic of my first theory. The phantoms didn't come from you, but from the victims. ... Forgive me, teacher, but I don't understand ..."

"Honesty, Mahan, is exactly what I value the most in my subordinates. Ask if you don't know, but don't be weak. I have shown you something only I, as the master of the source, possess. None of my apprentices would be able to learn this by themselves. You've passed the test. Now you have some work ahead of you: you will have to personally destroy all these uninvited guests, now so abundantly scattered in the vicinity of our castle. Take the knife." Geranika handed me a black blade streaming with mist, which sported a wooden handle. It was almost the twin of the knife that was sticking out of the Throne of the Malabar Emperor. "I made it safe for you, so it shouldn't take you too long to send everyone to the Grey Lands. Time to act, apprentice!"

Dear player,

We are warning you that if you carry out this instruction, after completing the 'Making of a Dark Shaman' quest you will either be transported to the Pryke Copper Mine (Reputation with the Malabar Empire Neutral or above) or to the Groll Copper Mine (Reputation with the Malabar Empire below Neutral), following which you will be brought before the court. The decision whether to complete the quest remains with you. Make the right decision.

Yours sincerely,

Barliona Administration.

The surrounding world stopped. In complete disbelief, I kept re-reading the message from the Game Administration, trying to find a single loophole. The very fact of the Game Administration addressing a player directly was nonsense, something completely unheard of. But to give me such a savage choice – either get sent to the mines while finding out the source of Geranika's power, or abandon the quest, and get huge penalties for killing Yalininka and Almis. ... To hell with this! I knew what would be waiting for me when I chose this path, so it's too late to change my mind now. The mines? Seven and a half years? Like I give a damn!

When I finally made up my mind, Geranika lowered me to the ground. Oooh! So it looks like these days Imitators also monitor the player's resolve and act in response to that. ... All right, off we go – I have a lot of hard monotonous work ahead of me. ...

The first player I came up to turned out to be Hellfire. The Dwarf was lying on the ground like a broken doll and only his living eyes indicated that he was aware of what was happening. If the game could provide the ability to kill with a stare, I would've been incinerated on the spot. … Hesitating a moment, as if still uncertain I wanted to go to the mines, I abruptly lowered the dagger, which entered Hellfire's chest right up to the hilt. Something flickered and a shield of some kind was all that was left in place of the dwarf. Just as I was looking around the glade, thinking about how much work I had in front of me, all the players who’d rushed here to kill me were lifted up into the air and floated in the direction of the castle. Judging by Geranika's pleased smirk, it was his doing: he’d decided to give his apprentice a hand. ... There was little else I could do other than wave the dagger intensely left and right, sending a player to the Grey Lands with every blow. I dreaded to even think what was going down on the forums right now ...

"STOP!" Geranika suddenly roared. I turned around and saw Plinto standing, or rather already lying, a few feet away. "HOW DARE YOU TRY TO INTERFERE WITH THE TRAINING OF MY APPRENTICE?!"

"You are mistaken," rasped the Rogue, whose Hit Point had started to melt rapidly. "I intend to stick with Mahan whatever happens, with or without you, but ..."

"Teacher, stop! Plinto doesn't wish me any harm!"

"Then why did he leave the Castle?" asked Geranika calmly and I typed a 'thank you' to Barsina in clan chat for restoring half of the Rogue's Hit Points.

"Those who came for our death deserve what Mahan is doing to them now," said Plinto, getting up from the ground, "but it would be foolish to leave their gold and other items just lying around. Free citizens can return from the Grey Lands, so after some time they will return for them. They will again grow strong and bold ... why would I want that? No! No way I'm letting a prime looting opportunity like that slip by!"

"Ha ha ha!" Geranika's pleased laughter echoed through the forest. "When I finish training Mahan, you'll become my next apprentice! Go, get your loot!" After that the Lord of Shadow turned to me and said, "you have the right kind of subordinates, apprentice! You shall all aid me in bringing Barliona to its knees. Let us continue!"

The floating players once again started to move, so I had no time for thoughts other than: 'hit to the left', 'slash to the right'. I had to make almost forty thousand hits ... yeah. ... How did that classic writer put it? "Thus striking blow after blow, the warriors' hands did weary grow …"

"Apprentice, you have proven your readiness to carry out my orders without question," said Geranika about an hour later. The flow of players did not abate, so I had to keep up being the butcher for a good while yet. ... "There's little sense in losing all this time, so I'll take care of the rest." Geranika made a gesture with his hand and the scene instantly cleared – in the sense that the forty thousand players were simply no longer there, but a real shower of gold descended to earth.