A Song of Shadow Read online

  “I think ‘immolated’ might be out of my league,” I sighed. “I just don’t have that Wrath-of-the-Almighty edge to me. But we can experiment with my Shadow spells. They are pretty deadly.”

  “And you’re just sitting there calmly?” The orc even sounded indignant. “I’m over here working up a sweat like a salt-of-the-earth proletarian, laboring for our common bright future—and she’s just sitting there. Pasha, do you happen to know if biota are at times cats? Like maybe they can’t help because they have paws instead of opposable thumbs? Although it’s strange: You have paws but you’re giving it all you got...Maybe you’re not a cat?”

  “Whatever it is, you talk too much,” the pirq called from the fire. “You should use your tongue for good. Then we wouldn’t need power-plants or other sources of energy.”

  “What’s true is true,” Bogart the Base stuck his knuckles into his hips. “I ams what I ams.”

  Meanwhile, I opened the manual to the cartography section. I still had never tried to master the creation of scrolls or songbooks. The songbooks that I received as a result of composing didn’t count—the system had generated them automatically. But the process turned out to be fairly simple. Take a blank sheet from the cartographer’s set, select the desired spell and start mapping. The only problem was that, instead of drawing a map, my hand produced mysterious symbols and runes, while my mana dipped twice as much as it should have for casting this spell.

  You have created a scroll of Shadow Transform Level 22.

  “Not a bad outcome at all,” I squinted, looking at the damage in the properties of the scroll, and then handed it to Bogart. “My spell’s exact damage has been transferred to this scroll. It’s fair to assume that the scroll will ignore level difference like the spell does too.”

  “Hell yeah,” the orc’s voice sounded beside my ear.

  With his pleased mug, Bogart looked like a cat who’d just been let loose in a supermarket’s poultry section. A special trait called Ingenuity allowed him to use a variety of skills—from carpentry to enchantment—to fashion elaborate traps. He used everything he could think of in the process: weapons dropped by monsters, logs, stones, nails, jewelry wire, scrolls with spells...Snegov knew how to turn any pile of random junk into devices of slaughter.

  “Just what the doctor ordered,” Bogart continued. “Custom made for someone like me! Straight slaughter in terms of power, and a level that’s low enough for me to use it without having to run and ask my friend to help me. Especially since it’s damn near impossible to run around here. Kiera Khan, you’re a genius! I’d kiss you right here and now but I am already in my pajamas.”

  “First try to use the scroll. Who knows—maybe shadow spells don’t work for non-Shadow players.”

  Bogart immediately snatched the scroll from my hands and darted over to his worktable like green lightning. A couple of minutes later he was already in full swing in a corner that had been given the dramatic title ‘QC Department.’ Having cobbled together something that resembled a rickety cobweb, he attached the scroll to it and ran off to find a target dummy.

  “Kiera, let’s get out of harm’s way,” Chip suggested, cautiously observing the orc’s revelry. “He’s dangerous to be around when he gets like this in meatspace—here, I wouldn’t put it past him to slap together some nuclear warhead and then happily push the button. For the sake of shits and giggles.”

  At that moment, the object of discussion himself rushed past us with a joyful howl, and, yelling, “Fire in the hole!” hurled his contraption at the canvas dummy.

  The device popped. A shade flashed and the mannequin burst into a cloud of rags and straw.

  “I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” said Bogart and turned to us with a beaming face: “Did you see that?”

  The orc was practically jumping for joy.

  “All right, Kiera, start scribing. I’ll make a whimsical little music box in the meantime.”

  He rushed to his workbench, which had been hastily assembled from some boards, and held up an eerie construction: A wooden frame, with two rollers of spikes inside of it.

  “What the hell is...” I did not finish the question, struck dumb by the idea that came to me.

  A musical...Hmm...Why that’s an idea. I can create musical spells. I can create songbooks. Could I also create a scroll with a spell that will also double as a songbook?

  I tuned out Bogart, who was babbling as he worked, sat down and began to think, looking at my cartographer’s set. How can I make a songbook instead of a scroll? How do you even create a songbook?

  I dragged the Vengeful Flame spell I had created to the quick access panel and then cast it onto the blank sheet from the cartographer’s set.

  Would you like to create a scroll or a songbook?

  Hmm. I didn’t get the same prompt for Shadow Transform. Let it be a songbook. My hand seemed to draw a sheet of music by itself and began to write down the song I composed.

  You have created a songbook with the Vengeful Flame spell.

  This songbook cannot be transferred to another player.

  Yeah, we’ve been here before. A songbook is way to teach NPCs your tunes. But what if I make a scroll out of it now?

  To create this scroll, additional resources are required.

  Speak to the cartography instructor.

  Well that’s unexpected. Okay, I think I get the gist. When inscribing a scroll with a spell, the magic incantations are incomprehensible, but when inscribing a songbook, good old notes still work fine. And if you combine the two?

  I created a new scroll of Shadow Transform, turned it over and manually inscribed a musical staff onto it. If manual charting works for maps, why shouldn’t it work for a songbook? To begin with, I recorded a short musical phrase from Bach’s famous requiem.

  You must record a performance of the musical fragment.

  I stared dumbly at the button labeled ‘start recording’ that had appeared, then picked up my eid, activated the recording and played the required passage in the bass clef.

  The recording is complete. The performance corresponds to the notes. You have created a ‘Musical Scroll of Shadow Transform (Level 22).’

  New recipe created: ‘Musical Scroll of Shadow Transform.’

  “Saaasha,” I called to the orc. “Look what I have for you!”

  “What?” he jumped up over instantly. “Tell me!”

  Instead of answering, I selected one of the training dummies as a target and activated the scroll. An impact shade went flying into the mannequin to the accompaniment of Bach’s immortal music.

  “Cool!” the orc rejoiced. “We need to figure out where we can stick it to make some fun happen. Maybe on a ‘snake bite?’”

  The orc fell into deep thought until Chip, whom we had forgotten about in our experiments, spoke up:

  “Here’s what I’ve cooked up,” he boomed, showing us a cake made in the form of an ancient castle.

  Bogart the Base whistled admiringly, while I merely asked, stunned:

  “How high is your culinary skill?”

  “Eh, over fifty now,” Chip admitted. “Grinding without you was boring, and I can eat whatever I like in here without any restrictions.”

  He joyfully snapped at me with his powerful jaw—large enough to snap the femur of medium size mammoth.

  “Now we need an inscription that will get the people to buy it and send it to their enemies,” Bogart grinned merrily. “Oh. Do you remember Sapkowski? Zoltan the dwarf with the inscription on his sword?”

  “‘Death to the whoresons?’” I recalled. “That’s more fitting for weapons. And who knows whether the filter will let it slide. We need something about the razing of a castle or the ruin of a guild. We’re trying to be personal here.”

  “‘Burn ye with the blue flame?’” Bogart immediately suggested but encountered Chip’s objection:

  “This isn’t a rum cake that you set alight! No, we need something...more epic. Something that invokes ruin and utter destructi
on.”

  “Come tomorrow, the worms shall turn you into the shit you’ve always been?”

  “It’s insulting, sure, but it won’t get through the filter,” I objected.

  “May all who you love transform to fetid cloaca?”

  “It’s got a ring to it, but what’s it got to do with a castle? What about...?” I walked around the castle-cake and proclaimed: “‘Now you can have your castle, and eat it too!’ It’ll make a good double entendre if one guild is giving it to another.”

  “That’s right!” Chip approached his masterpiece and began to administer the final touch with a piping bag. When he had finished, he stepped aside, giving us the opportunity to admire the inscription made of frosting.

  “You’re a mean one, Mr. Chip,” Bogart summarized. “A real psycho chef from a horror flick. A half hour of your fussing will bring your customers a week’s worth of despair. I want to be as good as you too.”

  “What’s true is true,” the pirq puffed up proudly. “By the way, I got a new recipe and without any registration process. Earlier it was a ‘Holiday Cake,’ but now it’s a ‘Funeral Cake.’ And its list of buffs has changed too.”

  “I suppose variations on basic recipes don’t require additional registration,” Bogart reached the logical conclusion.

  In the meantime, I opened my questlog and regarded my list of incomplete quests sullenly.

  “Pasha, how’s the seed quest going?”

  “Why my head is full of holes!” Chip knocked on his forehead and reached into his bag. “I only have one so far. Those misers pile on a hell-full of quests for each one. Tomorrow, when I get back from the hospital, I’ll come up with the second seed.”

  As soon as the fairly large seed, the size of a baseball, fell into my hand, a quest update popped up:

  Quest updated: Creating a Cicerone. Step 2. Read Cypro’s Journal.

  Damn it...I still had two days’ cooldown on my soul summoning spell. How am I supposed to read the journal without Salamander’s help?

  “Thank you, Pasha.”

  I tossed the currently useless seed into my backpack and looked sadly at Geranika’s kill count. It was where it had been and I only had a little more than three days to complete the quest. I wish more of Oto’s hapless friends would come let me part them with their existences. I’d rather avoid fragging random players.

  “All right, I’m glad you two are doing so well, but the Sith Lords don’t take disciples just like that,” I announced, getting ready to head out. “I’m going to go kill some young Padawans to prove my loyalty to the dark side. I still need a hell-full of frags, as you put it. I need to seize the moment, while we still have such a surplus in gear and lethal force. The big boys will come with the embassy and make a salad out of me.”

  “You hear that, Pasha?” Bogart started. “Our little sundew is growing up! She’ll be a triffid before we know it!”

  “Yup. Looks like progress,” Chip nodded.

  “Listen here, you dark apprentice,” the orc shook the parchment in front of me. “How about postponing the genocide of the Jedi and doing a little to help your friends add to the heap of skulls at the foot of the throne of skulls?”

  I sighed dramatically and picked up my cartographer’s kit:

  “What shall I play next?”

  Chapter Ten

  What can you do when there are dozens of enraged players from a powerful guild bent on hunting you down? Advertise your whereabouts as loudly as possible! I cast my Shadow Shield, and insolently, basking in my superiority, went straight to the border of the blighted ground. The players were leveling up somewhere nearby. And very soon they would have a new target.

  The sound of an electric guitar—entirely out of place in this fantasy world—roared throughout the forest, kindly tipping off anyone who wished to find the Bard of Shadow.

  The tempo gradually increased, the distortion grew stiffer and more aggressive, and anger waxed in the vocal part. A Forest Sentry appeared ponderously from among the trees and stopped as per custom at the border with the blight, incapable of overcoming the alien magic.

  Not long thereafter, the curious faces of player biota appeared from behind the trees and yet not a single one bore a name familiar to me. Despite the nature of the quest, I did not want to be the one to attack first, so I continued to sing.

  The nearby players gathered around for my impromptu concert and by the end of the song there were already a dozen of them. A few even started dancing, enjoying the unexpected entertainment. Then one particular clown named Tusken Radish took out his bow and began to make a porcupine out of me. Despite the ten levels that he had over me, Radish couldn’t dish shit. Hardly had his arrow scratched my shield, when I, without interrupting my performance, one-shotted him with an impact shade.

  Quest updated: Way of the Apprentice. Step 1.

  14 of 30 biota killed.

  This made an impression on my audience, though everyone reacted in their own way. Several immediately activated all the defensive spells and camouflage available to them, while others cheerfully whistled, hooted and clapped their hands.

  There were no further would-be assailants and only the music lovers remained. It turned out that I could level up my Fame stat with players too. Thus, I had raised this stat to 32 when the PKers finally showed up.

  “I see dead people...” someone whispered into my ear and the system notified me that I had been stunned. Immediately about two dozen players popped out of camo and fell upon me all at the same time.

  I just grinned to myself. In five seconds I will send these jerks back to their grandmas’ basements. But after the five seconds expired, a hunter shot an arrow at me, stunning me for another five seconds—and then again and again. The well-coordinated team of players just did not let me out of their control, negating my advantages of equipment and new spells.

  It took them just under three minutes to kill me, without allowing me to shoot off a single shade. All I could to do was be angry at myself and my epic naïveté.

  Consolation came from an unexpected source.

  Like most people, I did not read the standard system messages, and just kept swiping them aside in irritation. Blah, blah, blah, you may reenter the game in 12 hours. Always the same.

  But not this time. I found myself looking at two virtual buttons: “Yes” and “No.” A bit stunned, I read the message:

  You have died. You may continue playing in the Gray Lands. Do you wish to move to this location?

  So that’s the other way that a bard can enter the world of the dead! I could simply die!

  My irritation gave way to curiosity. Yes, I wish to move to the new location.

  The world faded, losing its colors, smells and sounds. My perspective skewed, the bright sunlight gave way the diffuse and lifeless glow of the dead sky. I was back in the Gray Lands.

  Your time in the Gray Lands after dying in-game cannot exceed four hours. After this time period, you will be disconnected from the game for the standard time.

  “You free citizens sure are a curious bunch,” said Eid’s voice.

  The instrument’s soul stood next to me in the same guise he had taken when I assigned him the role of tank.

  “To visit the Gray Lands, Cypro had to make his way through the Intermundis. All you have to do is die in Barliona and wander around here until your revival.”

  “What can I say? I guess instead of a cereal killer, I’ll have to live as a cereal suicide,” I bowed theatrically. “Why haven’t you shed your guise like last time?”

  “You assigned my permanent appearance in Barliona and now I will shed it only in the Intermundis and only temporarily.”

  I nodded silently, taking note of the information, sat down on the dusty earth of the world of the dead and took Cypro’s journal out of my satchel. Since I’ve managed to ‘survive’ death, I had better keep working on my quest chain.

  Vitus—vitality—life energy—flows throughout Barliona. In land and water, in plants and ani
mals, in mortals and even in gods. I do not understand this subject deeply, but I have learned one thing—vitus is not homogeneous, it is different in properties and structure. And not all vitus is suitable for living beings. Plants and we, the biota, are nourished by the vitus of water and earth. Animals and sentients are nourished by the vitus of plants, other animals and other sentients. I do not have an understanding of what kind of vitus nourishes the gods, but I am certain that there is one. Sometimes it seems to me that memory and the feelings of sentients, capable of sustaining souls in the Gray Lands, are also a special kind of vitus. Someday I hope to penetrate the arcane knowledge of the true order of the world. But for now, I must impart something else on you.

  Vitars are special plants related to the Tree itself. The vital force concealed in the vitar is not capable of accepting the soul of sentients, but under a number of conditions it can accommodate the souls of beasts. Summon the chosen soul into the vitar seed and sow the seed in the Land of the Hidden Forest. To bind the soul of the cicerone to yourself, nourish the seed with the sap flowing in your body. The power of your vitus will bind you with an unseen and inviolable thread.

  But this is not enough. The cicerone is by nature a beast, and in you there is no animal essence. To help the vitar seed sustain an alien animal soul, it will require animal blood. You can ask for some blood from one of our pirq brethren, or representatives of other intelligent races who have a similar vitus. Do not dare use the blood of zombies or other undead! And remember that it is your vitus that the cicerone must know first.

  Quest updated: Creating a Cicerone. Step 2.

  Summon the animal’s soul to the vitar seed.

  Reward: Next quest in the chain.

  I put away the journal, took the ghostly egg in my left hand, and the vitar seed in the other. I wonder whether uniting the two here and now will work...There are no restrictions in the quest description, but I realized that being in the Gray Lands was not a normal thing for the Tenth.