The Way of the Shaman [06] Shaman's Revenge Page 9

  “No it still does,” I assured Elizabeth and made up my mind. If Anastaria had written this letter, let her squirm before the High Priestess herself. I’ll deny everything and insist that I love my wife with all my heart, and claim it’s she who wants to leave me. “I propose we check—I’ll summon Anastaria right now and she will explain the letter herself.”

  “Indeed!” Elizabeth brightened up again. “Why play a guessing game when we can ask her directly?”

  “Are you there, my beauty?” I asked Anastaria telepathically.

  “I am, my sun. What did you want?”

  “Could you drop by for a visit, dear?”

  “I’ll still respawn in time for the divorce, silly. There’s no point in ambushing me. But since you miss me so much, summon away.”

  “The Ying-Yang still works!” Elizabeth exclaimed when Anastaria appeared in the office. It took Stacey only a second to assess the situation and a forced smile spread across her face. The girl hadn’t expected this move on my part. “You are mistaken, my daughter. Your husband could not have stopped loving you. Otherwise your abilities would not work. Mahan loves you and you love him. Explain to me please what prompted this letter as well as your desire to get a divorce.”

  “One-zero to you,” came Anastaria’s thought, after which she sank to her knees before Elizabeth.

  “Forgive me, holy mother. My mind was confused and I made a terrible error. I beg you to please destroy that letter and punish me—I admit my falseness and repent. When I had to return to my father’s clan, I spent too much time thinking about how my spouse would react and I mistook my imagined fears for the truth.”

  “You deserve punishment,” Elizabeth concluded without a shadow of doubt. “Eluna shall decide your main sacrament. I’ll say personally that I find your disunion with your spouse unpleasant. It doesn’t do when two people who love each other spend time apart from one another.”

  “The High Priestess cannot compel us to change clans. One’s membership in a given clan is not related to our relations or feelings,” Anastaria replied immediately, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. I have to admit that the High Priestess’s words had surprised me a great deal too—was she really about to force us to be in the same clan? That would contradict the game rules and the players’ free will. And that’s impossible.

  “You are correct. I cannot,” Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders. “I was merely expressing my thoughts on the matter—I don’t like the fact that you two are living apart while still loving each other. And that has nothing to do with your clans—each sentient is free to be where he is most comfortable. What is odd to me is something else—the fact that you don’t spend time together. When the full falseness of the letter came to light just now, I was very upset. I have nothing left to do but cancel tomorrow’s ceremony and assign you a punishment. Well, it’s not even really a punishment—but more of a request. You are free to ignore it, since as a Paladin you do not serve the Priestess. And the same goes for Mahan—Shamans are entirely unrelated to Eluna and her Priests. However, that which I will ask you to do will be impossible to perform on your own. It requires teamwork from both spouses. Over the course of a month, you must spend no less than one hour with each other, questing, raiding, exploring or even simply speaking. The main rule is that you must work together, not separately—otherwise, the time you invest won’t count. This is the only way I’ll be able to ensure that you’re both a single whole and capable of further deeds. Are you prepared to accept my wish?”

  Quest chain available: ‘Tight-knit family. Step 1.’ Description: Meet up 30 times over the course of 3 calendar months, spending at least 1 hour together in questing or speaking to one another. Quest type: Unique, family. Reward: +2000 Reputation with the Priests of Eluna, +1000 with Goddess Eluna and the next quest in the chain. Penalty for failing or refusing the quest: -2000 Reputation with the Priests of Eluna, -1000 to Reputation with Goddess Eluna.

  “I bow before your wisdom, mother,” Anastaria replied with a bow, “and I accept your wish. I will prove to you the strength and endurance of our family.”

  Two pairs of eyes fixed on mine, each pair expressing utterly different things. If Elizabeth was looking at me like a loving and caring mother looks at her child after having solved some problem and now awaiting the correct words from her child, then Anastaria’s expressed only one thing—triumph. I was getting the impression that I had once again made some misstep that turned out to be beneficial to the girl. The sensation that I had been used yet again was so evident that it took enormous effort not to push the ‘Decline’ button. And yet any way you look at it, an increase in my Reputation with Eluna and her Priests would be very useful to my character. A single unique item that I craft grants me 500 points of Reputation, and it’s not like I make one item each day or even each week, so I suppose I’ll be able to tolerate Anastaria being next to me for an hour. And besides, this is a quest chain with several steps. The important thing was to smother the hate in my chest for the girl standing beside me. Since, after all, we’re a loving and inseparable family.

  “I accept your wish, oh High Priestess,” I said, pushing the ‘Accept’ button.

  “A very wise decision, my children,” Elizabeth replied, illuminating us with the sign of Eluna. “As soon as you complete my assignment, I will personally meet with you. I will always have a quest or two to strengthen a family and make it indestructible. In the meantime, you’re free to go…Although wait! Mahan, you had some business for me!”

  “It’s no longer important,” I parried, noting the curiosity in Anastaria’s eyes. There’s no reason she needs to know about why I came to see the High Priestess. Then again, I guess Stacey could figure it out on her own.

  “In that case, I will now leave you. You should spend some time alone together…”

  “I suggest a neutral option—an hour’s worth of conversation over dinner at the Golden Horseshoe,” Anastaria proposed as soon as we left the temple. The girl was behaving as if nothing had happened between us and we were still in love as before. I didn’t feel like playing that game.

  “All right. An hour at the Golden Horseshoe will suit me fine,” I replied in what I thought was a calm voice but which in fact was more hissy and unclear than I had imagined. I guess my patience was rapidly running out. Another minute and I’ll throw myself at Anastaria with my bare fists, and the hell with fines and jail.

  “Okay, since you’re back to your old self, it’s time we part,” Anastaria immediately replied with the same smile. “We can begin our meetings tomorrow, around 2 p.m. server time. I’ll call you. Didn’t you drop my amulet?” Mockingly, Anastaria stroked my cheek. “Of course you didn’t. One doesn’t throw away items like that…Until tomorrow, Harbinger. Sweet dreams.”

  Anastaria took a quick step, embraced and kissed me and then vanished into thin air, once more performing her favorite little trick of signing out to reality. That stupid Ice Queen. Well whatever, let her have her fun—I’ll have the last laugh. Although I was sure that Clutzer remained a player of Phoenix, there was some sense to his plans. I just needed to consider it and adapt them to my purposes.

  EXIT!

  My first voluntary exit from Barliona was so unusual that I spent a few moments lying in my capsule enjoying the sight of my ceiling. Say what you will, but a year in a fantasy world really does leave its mark. Understanding that I wouldn’t really get any sleep in the turned-off capsule, I activated the ejector and toppled over the edge of the capsule. The time had come for dinner…

  The phone call caught me at the critical moment of deciding why I shouldn’t have to wash the dishes today. It was only two plates, a cup and a couple spoons, but I simply couldn’t force myself to rinse the remnants of the food and salad. A hundred reasons raced through my mind—from the need to distribute labor among people to the recognition that I never even liked these plates and could safely toss them instead of washing them. I might as well buy new ones.

  “Speaking,” I pi
cked up the phone, deciding finally that the dishes would remain unwashed and it’d be the caller’s fault. Whoever he was, it doesn’t do to distract me in the evenings. Like it or not, it was already midnight.

  “Good evening, Daniel, could we speak?” said an unfamiliar male voice, clearly tinged with metallic notes. I got the impression that this wasn’t a human but a computer, speaking to me through voice modulation software.

  “We already are,” I said carefully, realizing that I couldn’t really blame a computer for my dishes going unwashed.

  “I am calling you about our offer regarding Phoenix. We have received your response and wish to discuss the details. Could you come see us right now?”

  “At one in the morning?” I asked caustically.

  “It’s only a few minutes after midnight,” the metallic voice corrected me. “We will send a car to pick you up. It will bring you back home too. The meeting won’t take long. You should be home by three. What do you say? Do you have time?”

  “You know, I always welcome a chat, but chatting with someone without knowing their name, or for that matter, being taken who knows where in the middle of the night without any guarantees of safety…This is all a bit too complicated for me, so I must politely decline such an enticing offer.”

  “You didn’t manage to reach the plateau, did you? Even the powers of a Harbinger don’t allow you to jump where Phoenix doesn’t want you to be—and you’re okay with this?” The voice lost its metallic edge and became an ordinary male voice. Judging by its timbre, its owner was well over fifty, as I could make out notes of age in the voice. At the same time, there was a confidence of power in the voice too. “Or have you changed your mind and decided to shelve the whole idea under the assumption that Anastaria still loves you? Do you imagine that you’ll make an inseparable couple? A strong family?”

  Well this is a little more interesting already! Someone still unknown to me can track my actions in Barliona. This someone seems completely familiar with what I wanted to do, what I did and whom I met. The conclusion is evident—this someone has some special relationship to Barliona. Even though the caller was clearly indicating that he had violated a term of use or even a law, I knew that I had to go and meet this person. What if he could handle Phoenix?

  “Send the car,” I decided. After all was said and done, if they wanted to hurt me, they’d have done it long ago. And if these people knew what I was doing in Barliona, then they wouldn’t have any trouble finding me in real life.

  “Go downstairs, it’s already waiting for you,” came the reply and the caller hung up.

  Maybe I’m no Julius Caesar—but still: ‘Alea iacta est.’

  “Please forgive me for such an unusual meeting,” said the older man whose appearance resembled that of a prim, ossified Lord of ancient England. A large checkered suit, a bow tie, a cane, dark polished shoes reflecting the starry sky…Seeing a man like this at the shore of the same city pond that had once suffered from my bet, was quite unusual. People like this typically sit around expensive restaurants and relate tales of their exploits with young girls in their youth. “This is my only opportunity to meet you without attracting undue attention to myself.”

  In view of the several bodyguards I’d noticed on my way into the park, the standing of my companion was quite high. As far as I understood the outward appearance of Barliona’s upper management, this person was not one of them, so I was becoming more and more curious.

  We took a seat on a wooden bench and began staring at the pond in silence like two lovers afraid of speaking the first word. I recalled the powerful voice of the old man—who still had not introduced himself to me—and decided that our rendezvous was all the stranger for it—if he had so little time, why didn’t he start talking?

  “Tell me, Daniel,” the old man finally began, half-turning to me and leaning on his cane, “what’s it like to be humiliated by the person you considered to be your second half?”

  “I doubt you brought me here to have a heartfelt conversation,” I parried. Whoever this guy thought he was, I wasn’t about to let him pluck at my heart-strings.

  “Don’t be angry with an old man for his tactlessness,” my companion apologized to my surprise, “It’s only that what the Phoenix leadership did with you, they once did to me. But in reality, instead of in the game. It was only through a miracle that I didn’t lose my mind and remained myself, so I decided now to begin our conversation with that tactless question. You have suffered from Stacey’s manipulations, while I have suffered from the one you know as Barsina.”

  The old man fell silent again, staring off into nowhere as if succumbing to the recollections of the past. A minute passed, then another, and the third one was already under way and we were still sitting there in silence enjoying the view of the nighttime park—stylized to resemble older days by its dusky lamps.

  “You wanted to speak with me,” when the silence became too tedious, I was forced to remind him of my presence, “and discuss something.”

  “Yes!” the old man perked up returning to reality. “I want to offer you vengeance for everything that clan did to you!”

  “Forgive me for interrupting, but before you explain further, could you tell me what you need me for? If you can carry out the revenge yourself, then I’m not sure what I can do that you and your people cannot. I’m just an ordinary player. I don’t have any relatives among the elites and any revenge I can even imagine would be a drop in the ocean for Phoenix.”

  “A reasonable objection,” agreed the old man, “I was about to address just that. Tell me, what do you know about the Zv---ky family?”

  “Nothing,” I admitted sincerely, making a mental note to dig around the internet to find out about Stacey and her parents. If I wanted revenge, I’d need to at least know against whom it’d be.

  “Hum…” the old man replied with some surprise. “You didn’t bother to figure out whom you’re dealing with?”

  “Not yet. I suppose it’s no secret to you that I’m a former prisoner, that today was the first time I entered the game as a free player and that I simply had no opportunity to look up these things until now.”

  “I am aware of your status, but I don’t understand one thing—you began to date Anastaria and didn’t bother to find out who she was in real life? Whether she has a husband, children, or all her limbs? What if she was the victim of some accident and her in-game appearance was all that remained from the way she was, while in reality she was a charred piece of meat?”

  “I don’t really want to talk about this right now,” I muttered, grimacing from revulsion. In a way this was a pretty good answer for why Anastaria had refused to enter the Miss Barliona contest this year. She would’ve been disqualified for the discrepancy between her real-life and in-game appearances. Ugh…However I felt about this girl, I’d never wish something like this on her. It was too much.

  “Don’t worry. Anastaria is in one piece and unhurt, but I was very surprised by your attitude toward it all. In our day and age, information is the greatest weapon and a voluntary refusal to employ it is…very odd.”

  “Let’s discuss oddities some other time,” I offered, avoiding this slippery subject. He did have a point—I could have asked someone—anyone—to find out whatever I wanted about Stacey, but for some reason I never got around to it. Guilty as charged and I apologize for it—but I won’t allow anyone to drag me around the floor like some naughty kitten.

  “In that case let me tell you a bit about them. You can find out the rest on your own. Victor Zv---ky—you know him as Ehkiller—is one of the wealthiest people of our continent. To be more accurate, he is number 188 among the continent’s wealthiest residents. However, unlike the majority of his colleagues, Victor maintains 80% of his assets in the game, making no attempts to transfer them out to reality. The Phoenix corporation, and at the moment this is a corporation, comprises the leading clan which in turn contains the management, the raiders and the best craftsmen, as well as hundreds if no
t more affiliate clans, like, for instance, everyone thought the Legends were. Phoenix is one of the few truly profitable clans in the game and has a financial cushion that protects it from any harm, including even the complete destruction of all of its castles. Naturally that would hurt, but it wouldn’t kill them…”

  “If what you say is true, then the only way to hurt Phoenix is to destroy the entire Zv---ky family,” I said, surprised at my own words. You can’t even think such things, much less say them out loud, and yet…

  “I like how you’re thinking but I must disappoint you—it’s impossible to destroy Victor. No one knows where he lives at the moment and all attempts to find him have failed. No! We must adopt a different approach. Given the particularities of Phoenix, we have to hit them in their most cherished place—their money, and now I’ll tell you how we’ll do this.”

  Slowly but steadily like a train gathering steam, the old man began to reveal his plan of revenge, in which I was designated to play no small part. In essence, the plan was based on me playing the most important role. With all due respect to my companion, it’s very stupid to concoct a plan that depends on another person. Who knew what was going on in my head really? Hell even I didn’t really know.

  The plan as the old man told it to me was as follows: First—I have to make it to the Angels and receive access to the Tomb from them. As soon as I manage to do this, Barsina will receive access to the Tomb too, the Angels will depart, and Phoenix will be able to enter at will. However, only I will have the ‘original’ key to the Tomb, which makes all of the loot in the Dungeon Unique or Legendary. If I receive the original key, Phoenix won’t enter without me—it just wouldn’t make any fiscal sense to do so. Consequently, a fee of one hundred million from each member of Phoenix is a very fair price of admission. Nineteen participants then is practically two billion gold…Even for Phoenix this’ll be a significant monetary blow.