The Kartoss Gambit (The Way of the Shaman: Book #2) (6 page)

You transferred the received pain.

The pack leader, whom I was leaning on, yelped in surprise and jumped aside. Just as well that he decided not to attack, I'm just not ready to battle a wolf pack here and now. But that doesn't matter right this second. What does is that I'm already holding three arrows out of twenty.

I summoned a Healing Spirit on the leader, and gestured him to a place next to me. No slacking off now. I'm not going to do all the work for him.

After the eighth arrow the pack leader was done. Each time he jumped aside, but proudly came back, until, after the eighth hit, he simply lost consciousness. At least he was breathing — I was beginning to worry I had left the pack without a head. Now just ten arrows needed to be pulled out, but where would I get another volunteer?

As if by magic, an ordinary wolf wandered into the cave. 'I wonder, would the transfer work on them as well?' The wolf came up to me, sniffed the unconscious leader and then stared at me. So, shall we try it? I touched the wolf and then the wounded she-wolf. It worked! Though the wolf was finished after just one arrow. He yelped, jumped aside, his legs gave way and he slumped to the ground. I healed him, just in case, and left the cave in search of a new victim. And why not? These weren't real wolves, but Imitators, let them suffer for their leader. It's not like I should be the one doing all the work.

I had to pull out the last arrow by myself. I ran out of wolves in the pack. I did not dare invite the she-wolves, who had less Hit Points than the damage caused by the arrow. They were women, after all, even if they did have tails: how could you put them in harm's way? So, I had to simply take the pain.

Update of the quest 'Saving Grey Death. Step 1': 20 of 20 arrows pulled out.

Quest completed. Experience gained: +250 Experience, points remaining until next level: 751.

After I got up from the ground, where I fell when the pain hit, I got my breath back and summoned three Healing Spirits on the she-wolf. Now I could consider the quest completed. Grey Death is alive. She opened her eyes, lifted her head, looked around and immediately jumped to her feet. I did not quite understand what happened next. First an angry growl shook the cave. All the wolves came to themselves and jumped up. Then the she-wolf's eyes began to go blood-red and she lunged at me. At the same time the pack leader tried to jump in front of her. She crashed into me, taking off half of my Hit Points, but immediately her mate flew at her, pulling her off me and not allowing her to finish me off, while the rest of the pack ran from the cave, out of harm's way.

The she-wolf got up again and was about to attack me, but the pack leader stood in her way. The wolves had a growl-chat between themselves, with the tone of her growl being higher and accusing, and his calm and reasonable. Just like an experienced husband talking to a wife who's having a bad day. I felt myself out of place in their family dispute and tried to quietly follow the example of the rest of the pack and sneak out of the cave, but then a message popped in front of me:

Quest available: "Last Hope Step 2. Freeing the wolf cubs".

Step 2 description: Free 10 wolf cubs taken prisoner by the dark goblins. If you complete the quest chain the wolves will leave the lands surrounding Beatwick forever. Quest chain class: Rare. Reward for completing Step 2: 550 Experience. Reward for the quest chain: Hidden. Penalty for failing/refusing the quest: None.

Both wolves went quiet and stared at me. Both. Are they waiting for me to make a decision? Of course I'll accept the second Step. I would be getting more experience from it and would do some levelling up fighting the goblins. I just had to get an idea of where they are.

"Settled down now? Time to show me where those green bastards set up camp," I said at last. In normal life saying something like this would sound ridiculous, but Barliona is not the real world and here even wolves, if the occasion really calls for it, could easily have a chat with you. The pack leader growled something in reply, came out of the cave and trotted off in the direction of the forest.

I gathered some green branches, made something resembling a shrub out of them and saw a fairly predictable message:

Attention, a new stat has become available to your character: Stealth. Stealth allows you to camouflage yourself in your surroundings. You become difficult to see both for mobs and other players. Once you reach the maximum level of stealth it will be almost impossible to spot you. There is some chance that you would be able to completely drop out of combat.

Do you accept? Attention, you will not be able to remove an accepted stat!

If I was still playing my Hunter I'd go for this stat in the blink of an eye! I liked roaming around Malabar forests alone, so I had to run away from mobs quite often. Having this stat would have meant quite a different ending to my trip to Kartoss. But by the time I started to read up on the advice of veteran raiders, I managed to reach level 33 and fill up all four of my free stat slots – though, admittedly, the stats I picked were also quite useful for a Hunter. I had no desire to reroll my character, so I camouflaged myself by using special elixirs. Their property of running out both in terms of time and supply was something I learned in a hands-on fashion — at the most inappropriate moment. Well, no point digging up the past. But I would not be picking Stealth for my Shaman — the last slot had to be filled by something focused on attack. All my stats were either crafting or defence-based. I could end up with a poorly balanced build if I wasn't careful.

After disguising myself as a piece of shrubbery, I was lying just a few steps from the edge of the mine, which was, in fact, a great big hole. However, smoking the goblins out of this hole was not going to be a simple matter. Those guys dug themselves in quite well — the only entrance to the mine was closed by enormous wooden gates and from below spikes were stuck into the ground all along the perimeter, preventing you from simply rolling in. Four hastily-made wooden watch towers stood around the mine boundary, with two lookouts in each — level thirty goblin archers. About a dozen green-skins got on with the everyday task of gathering Tin Ore. A separate tent, standing right in the centre of the mine, belonged to some big boss, since its entrance was guarded by a warrior. Near the tent there were about ten cages with the squealing cubs inside. It was just as well that we didn't take the she-wolf with us — she'd run right to them and try to free them. A few meters from the cages lay the bodies of the ten dead wolves. The goblins didn't even bother clearing them away — they'd disappear by themselves in a couple of days. I suppose it was possible to take the tails off them, which I needed for the quest. At least I'll get it half done: perhaps the Headman would accept it, even without Grey Death's tail. By the way, I first thought that to be the name of the pack leader, but the truth turned out to be quite different.

I immediately discarded the idea of a heroic surprise attack on the mine and systematic clearing out of the goblins. The archers on the towers wouldn't let us get even close to the gates and jumping down on the spikes was a guaranteed respawn. So, once again, I had to do everything from ass backwards.

I crawled back to the forest, took off the shrub camouflage and went to read the manual. What did it say about dark goblins?

A Dark Goblin. A humanoid race that lives only in the Kartoss Dark Empire. It is one of the few races that cannot be chosen by players. Race characteristics: +(Level) to Agility, reduced Hit Points and Strength. When they see an orc female, they completely lose their head and do everything in their power to seduce her. The appearance of a Dark Goblin is provided in the illustration.

I didn't bother looking at the pictures of Dark Goblins, and immediately started to search for the appearance of an orc female. I found it. Oh boy! How could this two-meter green hulk with bulging muscles and a bone pieced through the nose be the object of passion for the meter-high pointy-eared munchkins? It's a pity that I don't have any friends with orc characters or I'd ask them to help me seduce this green rabble. As it stands, I might as well paint myself green… Painting!

A light bulb lit above my head! There is only one trader in Beatwick and although he doesn't have that many wares, he must have some green paint. It's a completely standard item. I would borrow or buy a skirt off Tisha. I'd pad out all the right parts with dead grass, paint myself the right colour and would look just like a female orc from afar. A wig would come in handy too. That's it, then. I would return to Beatwick and buy everything I would need.

Having assured the wolves that I would return very soon, I ran back to the village. To my surprise the trader didn't have any green paint. I prepared myself for being completely disappointed, but the trader suggested that I should approach the merchant that came to the village just a couple of hours ago. I ran as fast as I could to the central square, where a large crowd of people had already gathered.

The first thing I did when I got to the merchant was sell all the junk made up of the skins, tails, meat and claws. I had to clear out my bags, and my Greed Toad wouldn’t allow me to simply throw away even useless things. After giving it some thought I added the goblin’s bow and arrows to the pile. The merchant, a dwarf judging by his personality, but a human by his outward appearance, quickly fingered through my pile, seeming to barely give it a thought, paused for a couple of seconds over the bow and arrows, even lifting his eyebrows in surprise. Judging by his reaction he knew very well who dropped such unusual items.

"Four gold,” he said finally, "there is absolutely nothing of use to me here – I'll have to resell it all. Is that all right with you?"

I nodded, agreeing to the price.

"Do you wish to buy anything?"

"I do. I need green paint, a lady’s leather skirt, a lady’s leather tunic, a dark wig with long hair and a portal to Farstead," I fired out in one go. I had no time for any extra politeness at this point.

“The paint costs two coppers,” said the merchant, entirely unsurprised at my strange request. “The tunic and skirt – two gold each, the wig – twenty, and the portal to Farstead — a thousand gold. Payment upfront, I don’t do credit.”

Instead of shocking the merchant with my request, it was my turn to be surprised. Where would an ordinary merchant get all these things? All right, the paint and the clothes I understand. These are saleable goods that many would buy. A wig, willy-nilly might also be lumped in with saleable goods, but a portal scroll – certainly not! A thousand gold for players and NPCs under level forty is really a lot of money. Until you are able to go through Dungeons, money is usually in short supply. The quests handed out by NPCs bring little profit and low level items are hard to sell. As if reading my mind (or just seeing the surprised expression on my face) the merchant laughed:

“Don’t worry, there isn’t a catch. It really is a scroll of teleportation to Farstead. I bought it long ago for myself, as a backup in case of a bandit attack. I’ve been riding around with it for two years now and never had the need to use it. I’m even beginning to regret investing so much money into it. I’m selling it almost at the asking price — the mage sold it to me for nine hundred and fifty gold, so my mark-up is quite small.”

“Fifty gold a small mark-up? Are you trying to ruin me?” I recovered from the initial shock and started to bargain furiously. Those who knew me before prison would have never believed that a quiet and modest programmer of security systems, always buying things for the price asked by the merchants, would fight so hard for each copper. And I would, as well! My Trade stat says I must. “Take off forty gold and I’ll take it straight away.”

“Ah, a grown man who still believes fairy tales about discount!” The NPC wouldn’t give in. Of course it wouldn’t since it was programmed to rip off players as much as possible – the maximum cost of the item plus a half. Players are obliged and must spend money in Barliona, rather than take it out into the real world. “The most I’m prepared to reduce it by is five gold. Just think about it, I kept the scroll safe all this time – in the rain keeping it dryer than myself. Did I suffer all these hardships just to make a profit of some measly ten gold? Forty five and not a copper less!”

It took me five minutes to bring the price of the scroll to nine hundred and seventy gold. The crowd that formed around us started to hand out advice on how to get the wily merchant to stop being so tight. And when it was the merchant’s turn, they’d advise him not to make a deal with such a greedy buyer. Such good people lived in Beatwick, so sympathetic and neighbourly. I’d be quite happy never to have set my eyes on them.

After I paid the needed total and increased my Trade by a whole level, bringing it now to 7, I was about to leave, but remembered the strange Spider Eye. I had to identify it anyway and that wasn’t something I could do by myself. Perhaps the merchant would manage it.

“Dear Sir, I also have this thing here, would you mind having a look? Is this in any way useful?" I asked, taking out the eye, horrible and unpleasant to the touch, and handing it to the merchant who suddenly became as still as a statue. Dumbfounded, he looked at the item in my hand and a couple of seconds later a message flashed in front of me:

Item identified: The Eye of the Dark Widow. Attention! The owner of the item has access to a quest. Do you wish to look at the description?