The Kartoss Gambit (The Way of the Shaman: Book #2) (3 page)

I had been sent for settlement to the farthest reach of the Empire, on the border with the Free Lands, which here took the form of impassable woods, bogs and mountains. There were no towns or villages. On the map, almost exactly by the spot labelled Beatwick, there were several icons indicating free mines in this area. I should go there and check them out. However, what really dampened my spirits was that the nearest Imperial town, Farstead, was a really long way off. Two days on a cart is not exactly next door, if I understood the scale of the map correctly. Considering that I cannot leave Beatwick for more than two days, a visit to Farstead was out of the question.

"Had a good look now?" inquired the Headman and then rolled up the map and put it back in his table. "We may not be in the centre of the Empire, but there's still plenty to do here."

"Do you have any assignments for me?" I asked out of habit, knowing full well that the red band on my head wouldn’t make me seem particularly trustworthy in the eyes of any NPC. I had to spend around a week in the village for its residents to get used to me and get less wary of me and only then start seeking out any quests. But there's no harm in trying.

"Of course there are, but I can't give them to just any stranger," replied the Headman, confirming my thoughts. "First live here for a little while, make some contribution to the village and then there'll be assignments for you. Although... there is one. Recently a pack of wolves has appeared in the woods. They've become bold and started raiding the herds. The shepherds said that they are lead by an enormous Wolf. If you do away with the Wolf, we can see about other assignments. In any case, it is high time for that pack to be culled, it's no good for it to be roaming the woods in such numbers. But bear in mind – I won’t take your word for it. I will need proof.

Quest available: "The Hunt for Grey Death."

Description: A pack of wolves lead by an enormous alpha wolf has appeared in the lands around Beatwick. Destroy 10 Wolves and the great Grey Wolf. As proof that you've completed the assignment bring back Wolf Tails, which have 100% drop rate from each mob. Quest type: Common. Reward: +100 to Reputation with the Krong Province, +200 Experience, +80 Silver. Penalty for failing/refusing the quest: -100 to Reputation with the Krong Province.

"I'll take it. I'll go after the wolves tomorrow, first thing in the morning," I said as I accepted the quest. "But I have a few more questions. How many..."

"Wolves first, questions later." The Headman cut me off in a tone that indicated that the matter was closed. "Now Tisha will take you to Elizabeth, to whom you must remember to give the letter. Go on the hunt tomorrow and after that we'll talk. Tisha!" called the Headman, and a couple of moments later the girl from the painting flew into the room.

"Let me introduce you, this is my daughter Tiliasha. This is Mahan, he'll be living in our village for three months. Take him to Elizabeth, he can stay with her."

"Just call me Tisha." The gentle voice of the girl was in tune with her beautiful appearance. "Let's go, I'll show you the village," she then moved gracefully to the door and gestured to me to follow her.

Quest 'Visiting the Village Headman' completed.

It was a large village. From the side of the hill I counted around seventy houses, but in actual fact there were one hundred and three households. Quite a lot, especially by frontier standards. The village followed a standard layout: the central square, where the Headman's house stood, and three streets: Straight, Crooked and Serpentine. The kids from these streets were always in the process of trying to establish who was the best and strongest, so fights were fairly frequent. Tisha also told me about the gates — a year ago her father carved three claw marks into them in order to put some fear into the kids, who were really beginning to get out of hand, making it look like there was a werewolf in the village. But the plan somewhat backfired: everyone was too scared to set foot outside their homes for a whole week. So he had to come clean about it. Then it became a tradition among the youngsters: if you wanted to prove yourself — you had to carve some claw marks into the gates. During the day the gates were guarded by a couple of drunkards, who were no good for any other job in any case, but at night the more serious guards took their place — either her brothers or hired hands, free citizens of the Empire, same as myself. The same in all but the red bands, that is. I couldn't stop myself from asking if there were any free citizens in the village right now, and was very disappointed to hear the answer that the last such person came through the village half a year ago.

Tisha's own story turned out to be quite interesting. She had come to the village together with her family just two years ago, immediately after the death of the previous Headman, Elizabeth's husband. Before that Tisha used to live in a large city. Her father held quite a high-ranking position, because a carriage use to take him away early in the morning and in the evening a large crowd of richly dressed people would gather at their house, lock themselves in the study and hold long discussions. Then something happened and father gathered the household and came here to the edge of the Empire.

"So the gates are guarded at night by your brothers? All three of them?" the thought of the painting with the smudge wouldn't leave me alone — something was amiss here. From the time of my initiation I had decided to put more trust in my instincts.

Tisha's face darkened, she fell silent and walked for a while through the village without saying a word. She then regained control of herself and said in a serious voice:

"No, not three, just two. But they only do it once a week. Never ask me about my third brother. I don't remember him myself, but we do not speak about him in the family. All that I know is that he betrayed our kin and our homeland and father banished him from the family forever. Not a word more about him. We're here. Elizabeth lives in this house," Tisha turned around and quickly vanished around the turn in the road. Oops. Looks like all my ambitious plans to seduce her have just been destroyed. Now I won’t get anything other than a mere greeting out of her until I increase my reputation. A pity. But, in general, she did share some very interesting information with me. Banishment from the family is a very serious act for an NPC. I can't imagine what had to have happened for a former high-ranking official to personally banish his own son. Once I level up my reputation to Friendly, I will certainly ask the Headman about the painting myself. I'd bet my life that the story behind the banishment is quite a complicated one and must have a quest attached to it. Assignments like these are exactly in Barliona's style — improving players' social skills by reconciling families.

"But you said you wouldn't tell mum anything about the wheel," an upset child's voice pulled me out of my thoughts. "You promised!"

"Firstly, I promised no such thing and, secondly, I have no intention of telling anyone anything. What are you doing here?" it took a little while for me to spot Clouter hiding under the porch.

"What do you mean? I live here. With my mum and my sister," replied the boy, crawling out of his hiding place.

"Then it's you that I've come to see. Is your mother home?"

"She's home, all right," Clouter looked around, gave it a thought and started to crawl back under the porch. "But I'm not going in there. It's buckwheat for dinner and I hate it. If mum sees me, she'll take me by my ear and sit me at the table. I’d best stay here for a while."

"How can I help you?" a low woman's voice made me look up from Clouter's hiding place. Judging by the squeaking of the floorboards the kid was trying to signal me that he wasn't there and that I really had no idea where he might be. With a wise mother's smile Elizabeth looked under her feet and then asked a completely unexpected question: "Excuse me, I wonder if you've see a ginger boy around here? I've baked his favourite pie, but it will get cold soon and won't be as tasty. I'll have to give it all to Dawnie, like the porridge."

"You gave the porridge to Dawnie? For real?" after hitting his head a couple of times on the floorboards, Clouter ran like lightning from his hideout and stood before his mother, eyes shining. "Is it a blueberry pie?"

"Of course, it's the blueberry pie, just as you like it. Run along while it's still hot, you rascal," Elizabeth ruffled his hair, as the kid ran past her and then turned to me again, "So, how can I help you?"

"I was sent to you by the Headman. He said that I could come and live with you for three months. Here are the papers," I handed Elizabeth the letter. If her behaviour with her son was so natural, I shouldn't have any major problems with this NPC.

"Three months, eh?" muttered Elizabeth, scanning through the paper. I couldn't help wondering what the Headman wrote in there. I didn't manage to have a look in his house and then was too busy talking to Tisha. What if it gave me a boost to Intellect? You never know. "The nights are warm at the moment, so I can give you the summer house. Is that all right with you?" my landlady looked me over. "Are you going to live here as a freeloader or as a help?"

Was there a quest in this for me? It may be for free, but a quest is still a quest!

"I don't like being a freeloader. If you need anything done, just tell me and I’ll do it: whether it’s fetching the water, chopping wood or digging the garden..."

"No, my labourers can do all that well enough. The Headman said that you aren’t new to cooking," Elizabeth paused and I froze in expectation. A profession-based quest! It's a dream for any player! You can't even imagine the kind of bonuses you can get there! Elizabeth hesitated, but then appeared to come to a decision and said: "I'm not a rich woman, so I can't feed another mouth. You will be completely responsible for feeding yourself?" she then glanced at my red headband and added: "I also ask you not to come inside my house uninvited."

Attention to the player! You have been denied access to the main house of Elizabeth, the widow of the former Beatwick Headman. If you breach this restriction, one violation of your parole conditions will be recorded. Have a pleasant game!

Elizabeth turned around and went into the house, leaving me on the porch in a state of complete depression. I had already gotten all excited about getting quests and a friendly attitude to me... How could I have forgotten my red-band status? With that any NPC will treat me warily and with suspicion. A former criminal, what do you expect? What if I start killing everyone left and right, or pickpocketing and nicking their money? Who knows with these ex-cons! So it looks like earning levels wasn't going to be such a simple task after all. And I had all these plans to gain a dozen or two in the coming three months by doing various quests... A pity. I'll have to do something about that, that's certain. And as soon as possible too.

The summer house, kindly provided to me by Elizabeth, was astounding in its simplicity and Spartan feel. Its entire collection of furniture consisted of one bed, which took up half of the free space. That was it. There was the earthen floor, which remained cold even in today's heat, grey wooden planks for the wall and narrow windows right by the ceiling, which had trouble letting even the moonlight through. Great place for spending the next three months. I threw myself on the bed and started to make plans, just to keep my brain occupied.

First. I'll have to do the quest with the wolves first thing tomorrow. Extra experience and reputation with the Krong province should help me win Elizabeth's trust and move into the big house. I had little desire to be stuck in this cage for three months.

Second. I had to solve the problem of how to visit Farstead. Getting there on a cart wasn't an option — it would take too long. So I had to find another way. The Headman said that a caravan travels to that town from time to time. I had to make an arrangement with its leader to buy a scroll of teleportation from Beatwick to Farstead. The return scroll I could buy there. Judging by the distance to the town, the scroll could cost around eight or nine hundred gold. It's quite a lot, but I had to get to the Bank of Barliona and get my hands on the possessions of my former Hunter character. There should be at least eleven thousand there just in gold, not counting all the leftover equipment. Even if all of it mainly had Agility bonuses, I could use even that. It would be like plate mail compared to what I had on now.

Third. I had to find out about the mines that I’d seen marked on the Headman's map. He did warn me, of course, that it's dangerous to go it alone there, but I really mustn’t let an opportunity like this get away. If I understood correctly, the closest deposits of something or other are located a couple of hours' walk from Beatwick. 'I don't really feel like sleeping, so if I left now I'd be back by the morning. This will also give me a better idea about what I can count on in terms of levelling up professions.

Fifth... there is no fifth, I'm done planning.' Now is the time for action — to go and look at that mine. But first I had to look through my bag, since I haven't really had time for it until now. After the Dungeon it was quite full of things I haven't even looked at. I threw the contents of the bag right on the floor, lit a rushlight, put it into a small hole in the wall and began the inspection. There were the chess pieces. It was a pity that each Orc Warrior took up an entire slot in the bag. The thought of having to drag all thirty two figurines with me left me somewhat stumped. Where on earth will I get a bag that big? Then there were seven rings with a +3 stat bonus and four rings with a +2 bonus. They were the ones I failed to sell at the Pryke mine and were now outdated. There was no point of keeping them for later for a potential sale at an auction. Junk like this wouldn't even sell for five gold. I'll have to offload them with a normal NPC merchant. I didn't even look at the chainmail gloves, dropped by the last boss of the dungeon. These belonged to the members of my future clan and I had no intention to turn into a rat. Why expose myself to extra temptation? What if I liked them and didn't want to part with them? Twenty three pieces of Malachite, one hundred pieces of Copper Ore and sixty eight Copper Ingots would all come in handy for levelling up my Jewelcrafting until I solved my ore supply issues. There was my old friend, the Mining Pick. And, finally, there was the large pile of various skins, tails, meat, claws and other junk, which had dropped from the rats and spiders of the Dungeon. I had to fight the impulse to gather it all up and sell it off without even looking at it — the first completion of a Dungeon gave quite a good chance to get a considerable bonus even from simple mobs, so I didn't want to throw away something potentially useful. As I sorted through it all, I set aside a Spider Eye, horrible in its look and feel. Its properties remained unidentified, and I did not have the Wisdom stat, which would help in this task. It's not like I needed it in any case. It was much easier to go to mage NPCs in any town and identify the object for a couple of gold. I also set aside twenty two Rat Tails with "Used by Alchemists" property and twelve Spider Mandibles, with the "Used by Armourers" property — I would go around the relevant shops trying to sell these goods later. Just look at my thoughts running ahead — 'go around the shops'. I haven't even sorted out the teleportation scroll, but I'm making all these plans for the town anyway. The rest turned out to be total trash, with only the Rat Meat being potentially useful for levelling up in Cooking.