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

  The Kartoss Gambit

  a novel

  by Vasily Mahanenko

  The Way of the Shaman

  Book#2

  Magic Dome Books

  The Kartoss Gambit

  The Way of the Shaman, Book # 2

  Copyright © V. Mahanenko 2015

  Cover Art © V. Manyukhin 2015

  Translator © Natalia Nikitin 2015

  Published by Magic Dome Books, 2015

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is entirely a work of fiction. Any correlation with real people or events is coincidental.

  Other LitRPG books from this and other authors:

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

  by Vasily Mahanenko

  Start the Game (Galactogon Book #1)

  by Vasily Mahanenko

  Edge of Reality (Phantom Server Book #1)

  by Andrei Livadny

  The Outlaw (Phantom Server Book #2)

  by Andrei Livadny

  The Lag (The Game Master Book #1)

  by Alex Bobl and Andrei Levitsky

  Sector Eight (Perimeter Defense Book #1)

  by Michael Atamanov

  Table of Contents:

  Chapter One. At the Fringe of the Empire

  Chapter Two. Wolves and Other Things

  Chapter Three. Farstead

  Chapter Four. Swiftbel's Treasure

  Chapter Five. The Hunt for the Vagren

  Chapter Six. Kornik

  Chapter Seven. The Orc Warriors

  Chapter Eight. The Totem

  Chapter Nine. The Shaman's Mistake

  Chapter Ten. Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse...

  Chapter Eleven. The Mist Monster and New Discoveries

  Chapter Twelve. The Finale

  More LitRPG Books from this and other authors

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  At the Fringe of the Empire

  I boldly stepped into the portal and prepared myself for long struggle with the Governor. The three months I would be forced to spend entirely in his power were no cause for celebration, but I had no intention of surrendering, crawling on my knees or cowering like a kicked dog before this fumble of the developers. That sweaty toad can kiss my ass and forget about the Orc Warrior figurines, for all his attempted bribery: peace, love or lots of dough. Potential use of physical force against me wasn't much of a worry. I was sure that the freed prisoners couldn't be casually punished or tortured – we did have rights, after all, even if these were somewhat curtailed. It was worth bearing in mind that the system was fully aware that the sensory filters were disconnected, so I had little to worry about and... What on earth is this?

  To the player located in a prisoner capsule! You have earned 'Respect' with the Pryke Mine guards and are being transferred to the main gameworld.

  You have the option of taking part in the adaptation scenario: 'The Governor's Castle'. Time to be spent at the location 'The Governor's Castle': 2 months 26 days. Role taken: 'Castle craftsman'. Conditions: eight hour work day, a weekly salary, the results of the daily labour go to the Serrest province; every seventh day is a holiday, development of crafting professions (up to level 30 inclusive) – at the expense of the Governor.

  Reward for taking part in the adaptation scenario: Respect with the Serrest Province, two items of the ‘Rare’ class.

  Should you decline, you will be sent to a random settlement in the Malabar Empire and your reputation with the Serrest Province will fall to the level of ‘Hatred’.

  Do you wish to take part in the adaptation scenario 'The Governor's Castle'?

  Judging by the shimmering portal that surrounded me I wasn't going to be taken anywhere until I made the choice. If that's the case I had time to think about it, weighing up all the pros and cons.

  First. An adaptation scenario... How much more adaptation can I need? I get it already – I'm a loser and a wretch, who only gets handed truckloads of compulsory adaptation instead of the standard game and normal communication with other players. That is definitely a minus.

  Second. There's the close proximity to the Govertoad, even if just geographically. I’m sorry Mr. Digital NPC, our encounter was a mistake and mutual love is definitely not on the cards. You just wanted to use me... Right, my thoughts are getting in a mess again... In any case, the Governor’s personality amounts to two fat minuses.

  Third. I am a business-like person and should think things through rationally. It would be foolish to simply walk past such a pile of freebies: the salary, the development of an unlimited number of professions, the character level being my only limit. I could be learning Smithing, Alchemy, Enchantment, Cartography and level up in many other things at the same time, all justified by the conditions of the scenario. Definitely a double plus.

  Fourth. If I refuse, I'll get Hatred with Serrest. This is a clear minus or rather a plus towards taking part in the scenario. There are just forty provinces in Malabar and to lose access to one of them is a very short-sighted choice.

  I think that's it. I don't know about anyone else in my place, but for me the choice was clear. I didn't want to limit my freedom to one holiday a week. If that's the case, I'd say 'Good luck' to the Govertoad, who'd have to make do without me. I was all but crestfallen when I jumped into the portal with the flashing message that for two months and twenty six days I'll be stuck in the Governor’s castle. Things turned out a lot less dire – the system gave advance information of the scenario, naively thinking that I would go for it. After all, it came with so many freebies and big bonuses... They can dream on!

  I confidently selected the 'Refuse' sign, small as it was next to the larger 'Accept', and in an instant the world was filled with colour, sound and the fragrant scent of a pine forest.

  To the player located in a prisoner capsule! You have declined to take part in the adaptation scenario and were sent to the settlement of Beatwick. Time to be spent at the settlement: 2 months 26 days. Maximum time you can spend outside the settlement: 48 hours. If you are found outside the settlement beyond the allotted time, you will be teleported back into the village and a record of violation of the parole conditions will be made. Three violations annul your parole and you will be returned to the mines to serve the remainder of your prison term.

  Have a pleasant game!

  Compulsory quest accepted: 'Visiting the Village Headman'. Description: go to the headman of Beatwick to be allocated living quarters for the next three months. Deadline for completion: 12 hours. Penalty for failure: 3 violations.

  I made a few steps towards the village visible in the distance, but was stopped by another message:

  Your reputation with the Governor of the Serrest Province has fallen by 22000 points.

  Current level: Hatred. You are 12000 points away from the status of Enmity. Due to receiving a maximum negative value, your bonus for daily reputation gain is invalid.

  So they did land me with that after all. That’s right – I knew what I was signing up for: the maximum value in negative reputation. Although... A negative reputation is a reputation nonetheless. In Barliona there are four levels of negative reputation: Mistrust, Dislike, Enmity and Hatred. From Neutra
l reputation to Mistrust there are minus 1000 points and to Dislike another 3000. Then it's minus 6000 until Enmity and 12000 until Hatred. I was given the maximum in one go! When I played my Hunter, I managed to get Exalted, the maximum positive reputation, with only one faction and that only after playing for a couple of years, while now in just three months I went straight to Hatred! Yes, of course a Shaman knows no half-measures, with reputation it has to be at the maximum, with crafted items – only Legendary ones, and with girls only those who get you locked up in prison. Just one thing was bad: now Serrest was lost to me – as soon as I get spotted by the guards there, I’d be immediately sent to prison 'to assess the situation'. Then it's spending a day in the preliminary detention cell and then teleportation to the borders of the province. The next time I'd spend two days in the cell. After that it's three and so on without a limit. The most unpleasant part was that a reputation like that is almost impossible to improve — you need the personal intervention of the Emperor.

  Visions of the lost carefree life in the Govertoad's castle floated up on the fringes of my consciousness, but I quickly dispelled them and headed to Beatwick. At the first glance it was a pretty standard average village; judging by the chimneys it had at least seventy households. The wooden houses, roofed with wooden shingles, the barking of dogs, happy shouts of children running around after a madly screeching cat that had something tied to its tail — all of this was a picture of normal village life, which I remembered from the times I had gone to visit my parents. The enormous stockade of thick logs around the entire perimeter protected the village from the dark forest that stood about a hundred meters away. The strange expression 'forest of masts' involuntarily popped into my head — the trunks of the pines, as straight as spears, shot up into the sky, hiding the sun with their thick canopy and creating deep twilight in the forest. Fallen pines, shrubbery and hazel thicket, together with other kinds of trees, made the forest quite literally impassable. Only rare paths, probably hacked through by the locals, lead into the depths of this wonder of nature. Despite such surroundings, life was not restricted to the interior of the stockade – up until the very edge of the forest there rolled wide yellow fields of some kind of cereal crops, green meadows, where cows and sheep grazed and the hundred-meter-long vegetable patches that had villagers bent over them with their hoes. The village theme was played out to the full. Thick black smoke and the ringing blows of a hammer came from the smithy that stood near the road to the village. Great: there was a place here for levelling up. The only drawback for me was the red band on my head: without it Beatwick would have all but rolled out a red carpet for me as a free citizen of the Empire. Right now though, I'd be lucky not to get dogs and pitchforks.

  I took a deep breath in the fresh air and headed at an unhurried pace towards the village, looking out for any special aspects of local life. My main task was to find the local Headman and 'register' my presence in the village. If I only knew where to look for him. This was no Pryke mine, where the orc always sat behind his desk – here the Headman could be running around anywhere.

  As I made my way towards Beatwick, I tried to take note of every detail that could be of use in the next three months.

  I saw how the smith, large as a bear, came out of the smithy, lifted a small barrel of water and, breathing out a loud 'Eehh!', emptied it over himself, snorting and giving off a lot of steam. He stood there for a couple of seconds giving me an unfriendly stare and loudly breathing in the cool air, then he lifted the anvil from the ground as if it was a feather, shot me one more glance and disappeared back into the smithy. With that I felt my plans for levelling up in professions take a nosedive: I hate heat. For me it's better not to work at all than be sweating buckets, my tongue hanging out as I gulp in the sizzling air.

  A group of three bearded men were actively swinging the scythes and giving me extremely unfriendly glances. Their small foreheads, menacing and, at the same time, unintelligent eyes made them look very similar to Neanderthals, whose pictures I remembered from history lessons. They only lacked some animal skins on their backs, otherwise they'd be a spitting image of them. When I walked by them I could hear muttering that didn't sound at all like Barliona's common tongue. I could bet that these three had some kind of a quest connected to them: either they were the quest givers or they would provide some kind of related information. If I asked the locals, it would probably turn out that these guys weren't from around here.

  An interesting-looking tree caught my eye...

  "Watch out!" the clear voice of a child tore me away from contemplating the local sights. I turned towards the source of the sound and opened my mouth to ask what happened, when my forehead was struck with something large, hard and very painful. Bam! The peaceful county landscape was enriched by the image of a flying Shaman, sending curses on anyone and everyone. My flight came to a stop almost immediately – inside a fresh haystack. With some effort I dug my way out of the green entanglement, spitting out grass and brushing it off my coat. What the hell!? I habitually looked at my Hit Points, and cursed once again. 40% of my Hit Points were gone! What have I done to deserve this? The answer came soon enough, but left me somewhat perplexed. It was a huge cartwheel, tied around with a rope and framed with metal sheets. Riiight. Something like that could send you off for a respawn in no time!

  "Are you all right?" a small out-of-breath boy, his face red, flew up to me, barely older than seven, by the look of it. "I was... my tooth... the wheel! It's so heavy! And there you were! And it rolled the wrong way! Took my tooth with it! And then – 'Bam!' And you’re flying! Into the grass – 'Whack!' Did it hurt?" He was looking at me with such concern and guilt, trying to tidy up his messy ginger hair with fidgety hands, that I was totally unable to get angry at him. "You won't tell mum, will you? Our blacksmith is good at pulling teeth, but he's so busy all the time, so I have to do it myself," the little boy started to explain, fitfully gulping in air between words and flashing the gap where his tooth use to be.

  "Now I have no tooth, like Bald Bobby," the kid continued to chatter and it dawned on me that the wheel that sent me flying was the local replacement for a dentist, when the smith was too busy.

  "You really won't tell mum? Otherwise she'll not let me out by myself again, only with my sister! And she's such a bore – that's not allowed, don't touch that, keep away from the dogs! Yuck! How can you be so boring? I remember how we went to the forest..." It seemed like part of this NPC's settings stated that if silence lasted for more than a minute he'd immediately vanish from the face of Barliona. It didn't matter what the topic was or whether anyone was listening – he just had to keep talking. "Right, stop!" I interrupted his tale of venturing into the forest and gaining victory over the great vicious rabbit, "Do you know the village Headman? If you take me to him, I won’t say anything to your mum," I could use a guide at the start, and the boy must know each and everyone in the village.

  "The Headman? Who doesn't know him? Everyone does! Five coppers and I'll take you to him right away. He's always hiding, so you can hardly ever find him," the kid was grinning and stretching his small hand towards me, with an expectant look.

  "Here you go, you young extortionist," I threw five copper coins into his hand and they immediately disappeared, as if they had never existed. Of course, I could have made the boy take me to the Headman for free, but five coppers weren't going to break the bank and this way I might get some kind of a quest out of his parents (or a good hiding, if it turns out that one mustn't give the kid money under any circumstances.)

  "What’s your name, then?" I asked the young rascal, who was fussing around the fallen wheel and trying to decide which was the best side for getting to grips with it.

  "I'm Clouter," the lad replied quickly and started to redden from the effort of trying to lift the wheel.

  "Quit fibbing, there isn't a name like that. Let me help," I came up to him and put the wheel upright. It really was heavy. "Where will you roll it now?"

  "I'm Clouter
," said the little guy insistently, wiping his nose with his sleeve, "I don't like Aftondil. I won't be called that. Everyone has good names, only I've got a stupid one. I always get a beating for it from the Straighters. No need to roll it, just push it that way, it'll get there by itself." Aftondil... no, Clouter pointed towards the village, "with luck it won’t hit anyone on the way."

  "And who are these 'Straighters'?"

  "They are from the neighbouring Straight street, Al Spottino's gang. Watch out!" Clouter screamed after the rolling wheel and shouted to me: "We’ll meet down the-ere!"

  Clouter tripped up a couple of times, tumbling down the hill, but immediately got up and continued running after the wheel, shouting at the top of his voice. I chuckled at his goofiness and was about to follow him when I was suddenly turned around, lifted off the ground and thrust into the enraged bearded face of the blacksmith:

  "Why are you bullying Clouter, you thug?" before I could answer anything, the blacksmith took a good swing and sent me flying again. It's not like I was expecting a royal welcome, but this was too much. These flights were beginning to wear me out with their frequency! I got up from the ground and quickly glanced at my Hit Points. Oh boy! I only had 18% of Life left! A blacksmith's punch hit much harder than the wheel! I saw that I might not survive a second blow and started to summon a Healing Spirit on myself.

  "What's with the dancing? You're a warlock!" It was just as well that the Tambourine sped up the Spirit summoning – I managed to completely heal myself only a second before my next flight. This was some blacksmith! Strong as a bear. I tried to get up, but my feet gave way and I slumped to the ground, seeing a semi-transparent message appear: