A Song of Shadow Read online

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dirk responded enthusiastically to the idea of naturalizing his merry band by helping the local authorities spring the Guardian. Due to the aggroing Forest Sentries, the raid had to stay together and the search for the new dungeon was going very slowly. Permission from the Council to stay in the forest would make it possible to spread out and search the territory far faster, and the Day of Wrath did not intend on missing out on such an opportunity.

  So less than an hour later, the raiding party had surrounded the hill.

  “Hell of a mug you got there,” said Spiteful Chip, meeting Bogart the Base for the first time in-game.

  And at this point a new problem came up: The orc and the pirq spoke completely different languages. Although I understood both friends due to my language pack, in an odd way, I knew exactly which language each one was speaking. In this respect, the in-game linguistics was much more convenient than real life. At one time, I had studied early modern English and Russian, in order to expand my audience, but switching from one to another right in the middle of the conversation was not easy. There were no problems with this whatsoever here.

  Luckily, the Seventh spared me from the dubious joy of having to relate the blather of my two friends by calling over Dirk to act as an interpreter. The raid leader managed to find out that it would not be possible to buy a biota or pirq language pack for his raiders—as it was simply not for sale, like all language packs for the hardcore races. One could only learn them through gameplay.

  An invitation to join the raid party appeared in my interface. As soon as I accepted it, a torrent of incoming data transfixed my eyes. Without further ado, I concealed all this wealth, leaving only the raid chat.

  “I welcome the representative of the Council and sincerely apologize for the invasion of your lands,” Dirk bowed respectfully to Eben, waited until I finished the translation, and continued: “My guild arrived in the Hidden Forest with the intention of preventing Geranika from destroying the Dark Lord of Kartoss. Geranika has plunged his dagger into the throne of the Dark Lord, and if we do not find a way to neutralize it, our liege shall perish. According to a document we found, there might be an artifact on the territory of the Hidden Forest that is capable of destroying the accursed dagger.”

  I ogled Dirk with astonishment, but translated everything. The words of the raid leader surprised not only me; the raid chat exploded with questions:

  “Whaaaa...??”

  “We found a way to save the Dark Lord?”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  Finally, Dirk lost his patience and began twiddling his fingers barely noticeably, typing a reply on the virtual keyboard:

  “Everybody calm down. It’s the best excuse I could think of. Anyway, it *could* be true. We don’t know, they don’t know.”

  “I have heard about the Dark Lord’s unfortunate predicament,” the Seventh answered thoughtfully after a long pause, “but this is the first time I hear that the item of his salvation is hidden in our lands.”

  “This is only an assumption,” the priest hastily explained. “The instructions in the document are very vague.”

  “And because of, as you put it, such vague instructions, you dared to invade the Hidden Forest, fell several Forest Sentries and scour our lands without the Council’s permission?”

  Eben had not raised his voice, but his words sounded ominous. A debuff called ‘The Displeasure of the Seventh’ appeared on Dirk, temporarily reducing his crit chance by 90%.

  “Would you not yourself have gone to extreme measures in order to save the Guardian?” Dirk said, unflapped. “The demise of the Dark Lord risks granting victory to Geranika, who seeks to destroy all of Barliona. Even a fleeting chance to stop Shadow is worth a minor violation of the borders. I guarantee and swear that none of my people wish evil to the people of the Hidden Forest.”

  “You’re right, free citizen,” Eben said after listening to my translation. “Shadow must be stopped, but for the sake of the Guardian’s salvation, I am prepared to accept the help of outsiders. However, if you fail, I will destroy everyone and make sure that none of you cross the Arras ever again.”

  A strange discrepancy caught my attention. Despite the gravity of the negotiations that would decide the fate of the raid, many players were grinning and, every now and again glancing somewhere off to the side. Looking over, I saw my two pocket clowns trying to have a conversation in pantomime. At that moment, Bogart was portraying some episode of his adventure: Stamping on the spot, he put his fists to his temples with his index fingers stuck out (I think these were supposed to be the tauren’s horns), bulged out his eyes and stared in front of himself with the dull stubbornness of a bull who’d noticed the moon for the first time. The impression was so funny that even Pops, whom Bogart was aping, snorted with delight, stamped the ground with his hoof, and wiped his eyes. Qupip had already turned his back on Dirk and Eben entirely to watch the spectacle, giggling into his fist.

  Finally, the negotiations were completed, the raid received the quest and we moved to free the Guardian.

  “No more than six can fit in that hole,” Dirk announced, assessing the situation. “Pops, Fro, Elk, Soul, Huron and Lipo—you destroy the shades. Everyone else, remain at full readiness. Experience shows that it’s never simple with Geranika.”

  How right he was...

  Entering the cavern with the cage and the Guardian, the players set up some artifact that broadcast what was happening underground to the surface in the manner of a holoprojector, so that the raid could watch the first phase of the battle in real time.

  A dazzling radiance began to pour forth from the paladin’s hands, at once throwing the light and the shadows in the cave into sharp contrast. But when the aura faded and the dungeon again plunged into gloom, not all of the shadows were gone. The shades circling around the Guardian acquired density and volume, becoming vulnerable to the players’ attacks—which the players immediately took advantage of. Now the rogue’s daggers and warrior’s broadsword destroyed the embodied shades in a matter of seconds. My ears filled with the Guardian’s triumphant roar and I could hardly hear the words of Dirk beside me:

  “Seems too easy.”

  In the next instant the tree roots that permeated the entire hill came to life, entangling the players in a suffocating grip. Health bars began plummeting, but the immobilized players were unable to do anything. New shades grew from the roots ensnaring the Guardian who was just dashing to freedom. To top it off, the blighted tree on the hilltop twitched its twisted branches and, with a heart-rending creak, began to pull its own roots out of the hill. At the same time, the tree received a name and characteristics: ‘Blighted Ironwood.’

  “Nieta, get into the hill. You have to sever those roots,” Dirk reacted immediately. “Sylvan, try to draw the tree’s aggro. Everyone, spread out, so that the roots can’t do splash damage.”

  The players immediately scattered all over the hillside, shooting arrows and spells at the living tree. But in the cave, things were going quite poorly. Casting a bubble, Fro freed himself from the roots strangling him and was now hastily casting healing spells, restoring the health of his comrades. But he simply could not push through to the exit—there was no room. All that remained for the paladin was to wield his sword, freeing Huron, the druid beside him.

  “I’m caught!” Nieta reported suddenly, stuck in the corridor. Her little figure was rooted so tightly that even the top of her head wasn’t visible.

  “The wood is resistant to physical attacks,” Fro’s message flew through the chat. “The roots don’t have a lot of HP, but their armor blocks 99% of the damage dealt. I used an AoE scroll. But 99% of the damage was also absorbed. We have to focus each root with magic.”

  “Statimania, can you reach Nieta without having to enter the lair?” Dirk asked a mage in the chat.

  “I’ll try,” she replied.

  “Cut her free and pull her out. Fro, forget the roots and just heal the gu
ys. It’ll be faster to kill the tree up here than to set you free. Sylvan, what have you got?”

  “The boss won’t aggro individual players, he’s just whipping the entire raid with his roots and branches. If they hit, it’s a one-shot. The trunk is still invulnerable, we’re working on the limbs.”

  Everything happening around me, seemed like a light show. The air buzzed with spells and flying arrows, the creaking of twigs and the dull thumps of the roots against the ground. It was completely unrealistic to follow everything at once, but Dirk seemed to be coping with his duties just fine. All that I could do was already done: I buffed the raid and debuffed the enemy. My impact shades did no damage to the tree—they simply soaked into the blighted plant. Our common Shadow alignment made all of my better spells useless, so all I could do was stand and watch the high-level raiders ply their trade.

  At some moment the earth disappeared from under my feet, I was jerked somewhere, and a branch of the rabid tree whistled right past my ear.

  “Use your eyes,” advised Chip.

  He held me by the collar, like a kitten.

  “If you keep this up, you won’t be long for this game. And then you’ll have to sit in the kitchen waiting for us in anguish and anxiety. You should be more cautious, like for example this...”

  Bogart swept past us hollering joyfully and began to weave between the whipping branches, loping them asunder with his battle axe. For some unknown reasons, the strange hunter preferred his ‘Croaker’ to his crossbow.

  “...unfortunate example,” Chip finished his thought, dragging me to a safe distance.

  “I got Nieta out,” Statimania announced in the chat. “She tried to move forward, but the roots got her after a couple of steps. Fro’s caught again too. The roots come back after we move a meter or so.”

  “Forget the cavern and focus on the tree,” Dirk ordered, continuing to heal his raiders.

  “I’ll try to go enter the cave,” I told the occupied priest.

  “You’ll die, minnow.”

  “I am a creature of Shadow. Maybe the roots won’t aggro me.”

  “Try it then,” decided Dirk and I, trying not to lose sight of the branches that flashed here and there, ran for the familiar entrance.

  My assumption turned out to be correct: My shades didn’t do damage to the tree and in return the tree didn’t perceive me as an enemy. I ducked into the passageway and moved as fast as I could into the depths of the hill. Straight in front of me, blocking the passage, hung Pops’ immense body—immobile in the thorns of his coiled straitjacket.

  Machine gun

  Tearing my body all apart

  Machine gun

  Tearing my body all apart...

  The magic missiles slammed into the wooden fetters, blasting them with spectacular effect. Since I was still on blighted ground, one volley knocked 5% off the root’s HP, so I hoped to release the tauren in just twenty shots. As it turned out, seventeen was enough. Three of the magic missiles were fire and therefore dealt critical hits to the wood.

  “Move at least half a meter,” I asked the tank, and the tank squeezed himself against the wall as best he could, allowing me to squeeze through to the next cocoon. Fortunately, it contained Huron the druid who helped me cut through the roots.

  “What are we going to do?” Elk asked, when all the players in the cave had been freed.

  “I would try and kill those shadows,” suggested Pops and immediately echoed his idea in the raid chat.

  “Give it a shot.” Dirk granted the go-ahead after a few seconds of meditation.

  The cave’s earthen walls began trembling so violently that I involuntarily stuck my head into my shoulders and waited for the whole place to collapse at any moment. At least, the seasoned raiders were hardly affected. They again embodied the shadows and then artfully dealt with them, freeing the Guardian.

  The Guardian straightened himself to all his mighty height, squared his shoulders, raised his paw and began to bulldoze aside whatever pathetic little obstacle blocked his path. From somewhere above, apparently from the trunk of a tree, shadows appeared yet again, coiling around the ancient pirq. New roots shot from where the destroyed ones lay, punching through the earth, weaving upwards. And in short order, the players found themselves bound all over again.

  “I don’t know what you guys are up to down there, but I need you to keep doing it,” Dirk wrote in the raid chat. “Two of the roots plunged into the ground, leaving the trunk vulnerable. We’ve whittled it down by 20%.”

  For a moment I pondered whom to release first—Huron or Fro—but the latter again cast his paladin’s bubble dispelling both the roots and my deliberation. After that, we found our rhythm and began acting more or less in sync: The liberated druid destroyed the roots of the other fighters, they embodied another shade, the Guardian busted though his prison, wreaked havoc for a few seconds, and then everyone was restrained all over again. I had no idea what was going on upstairs, but judging by the cries of ‘second phase!’ and Dirk’s incessant commands—it was fun.

  At some point, once more freed from the shadows, the Guardian went completely berserk, smashed his cage to smithereens and with a wild growl surged up like a geyser through the soil and the tree trunk.

  “I AM FRREE!” he roared, smashing the blighted tree, which had by then been stripped of most of its branches.

  From his roar, I not only flattened my ears, but also received a bouquet of temporary debuffs ranging from stun to disorientation. If you ask me, the entire forest had heard that triumphant bellow and Geranika was no doubt aware that I had failed in my assignment.

  “Kiera!” Two mugs appeared in the newly-formed hole—one white and fluffy, the other green and bald.

  Remarkably, my name sounded the same in both languages. After making sure that I was all right, the friends exchanged glances and the shaggy one said reproachfully:

  “Nope, I just can’t take you anywhere without supervision. What have you done to make this ancient behemoth,” Chip pointed to the Guardian, “...croon like the rockers of old? If he keeps this up you’ll have no choice but to schlep him around with you on your concert tour.”

  “I would lose my mind from a vocalist like that,” I snorted, but the end of my sentence was again drowned out by the Guardian’s roar.

  “YOU OUTSIDERS HAVE PRROVEN THE WORRTH OF YOUR WORRD. I ALLOW YOU TO REMAIN IN MY FOREST, BUT I WILL WATCH EACH STEP YOU MAKE. DO NOT DISPLEASE ME!”

  While the Day of Wrath raiders were climbing out of the collapsed lair, Bogart tossed me a rope and as soon as I grabbed it, the guys hauled me up and out of the destroyed hill.

  “Listen,” said Bogart pensively, assessing the destruction caused by the Guardian, “maybe we can use him as an engineer? I don’t know about digging, but this boy can smash any bunker we set him on—why he’s got more effect than a good old Paveway.”

  The raiders, meanwhile, hastily resurrected the dead fighters, and the chat was already in full swing.

  “Manitou, what the hell did you stand in front of that whipping branch for?”

  “I was gonna jump it...you know, like a jump rope...”

  I didn’t keep reading and replied to Bogart instead:

  “Why don’t you shut up for like ten minutes? Otherwise your engineer there might bust your bunker.”

  The next moment I wanted to squint: One after another, blinding auras of light burst from Bogart the Base, announcing his new levels. Some of the raiders also began blinking like tiny supernovae. I guess they had earned a good deal of XP for this quest. Alas, Chip and I went unrewarded: Not being outsiders, the quest was unavailable to us.

  “YOU,” the Guardian’s meaty finger pointed at Chip. “DESPITE YOUR YOUTH, YOU HAVE PRROVEN YOURRSELF A COURRAGEOUS DEFENDER OF YOUR NATIVE FORREST. AND AS A DRRUID-DEFENDER YOU DESERRVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO CHANGE YOUR APPEARANCE.”

  “I serve! My native! Forest!” yelled the pirq, saluting with his paw at his temple.

  Standing next to him,
Bogart naturally didn’t understand a damn thing without my translation, but either by reflex or from sheer tomfoolery, he also snapped to attention beside his friend, thrusting out his chest and raising his chin. He did not salute, however. And yet, it was the strangest thing: Despite the absurdity of all this, the sight really was a solemn one. I guess, there’s a lot of time to practice this kind of thing in the army.

  Judging by the approving grin on the Guardian’s face, he liked it. The black pirq threw up his paw and his smaller, albino cousin (the three really looked like Yin, Yang and Wasabi) was enveloped in the familiar aura that signified that he had received some new trait.

  “Look for the bare necessities...” Chip suddenly began to sing and turned...into a bear. A big blond-brown grizzly bear stood in the pirq’s place, jumping and chortling cheerfully:

  “The simple bare necessities,

  Forget about your worries and your strife...”

  Bogart stared at a friend for a couple of seconds, and then, recognizing the melody, chimed in, in Kartossian:

  “I mean, the bare necessities

  Old Mother Nature’s recipes

  That brings the bare necessities of life...”

  The entire raid, the Seventh and the Guardian watched with astonishment as the pair began hollering a song from an old children’s cartoon, dancing around the pit that remained where the prison had been.

  “The bees are buzzin’ in the tree...”

  “To make some honey just for me...” bumping their heads and butts, the two sang incoherently, in two languages, loud enough for the forest to hear.

  “Are they clowns in meatspace or something?” Dirk asked me quietly, without taking his eyes off the wild dance. “I’ll pay one gold for a recording of this show.”

  “I think this dance is an example of a group concussion. And a contagious one,” I added, glancing at Qupip who had joined the dancers. “Should we quarantine them?”

  “If I’m given the ability to turn into an animal, which druids can only get by doing a long quest chain that’s only unlocked at Level 100, I’ll dance naked in quarantine with them.”