The Kartoss Gambit (The Way of the Shaman: Book #2) (21 page)

Pleased, I was about to leave, when the bone trap was smashed to smithereens and the angry irritated beast slid out of it. A moment later it was right next to me.

You have been poisoned and immobilised. You are losing 300 hit points every 5 seconds; duration — 2 minutes. Total Hit Points: 490 of 790.

You have been poisoned and immobilised...

The re-eyed beast stood next to me and was probably watching me die with great pleasure.

There was a flicker and I ended up by the entrance of the local cemetery. The bright sunshine made the message that appeared look somewhat pale:

Attention!

In connection with your death, your level of Experience has been reduced by 30%. Current Experience: 360; points remaining until next level 8040.

Right, let's look at what we have. A female Vagren, probably Elizabeth, is currently in my Bone Trap. Some kind of a beast, made of mist, claws and poison, has sent me for respawn for the second time in a row — right after it demolished a trap intended for a 100-level creature. What are the options?

I came to myself and ran towards Beatwick. The twelve hours it takes to respawn mean that now everyone would be walking around the trap and wondering what on earth it was doing in the middle of the courtyard. I was the only one who could look inside it.

“Tarry a moment, my son,” I ran just a few steps, when I was stopped by the priest. “I heard that you have caught the night terror of this village of ours. I already went to have a look. I admit that your plan was good. Let us go, you can hand over this troublemaker to me. I could not see inside the trap, try as I might.”

Update of the 'Night Terror of the Village' quest. The priest of god Vlast believes that the Bone Trap contains the Nigh Terror of the Village.

Oops. So now it looks like the priest would come with me, see Elizabeth and call her the Night Terror of the village. I would complete the quest and my landlady would be punished and sent to Farstead. Sure thing — Clouter and Mariana are all grown up and can look after themselves just fine. In any case, they are NPCs and there are no street children in Barliona, so they'll be fine. I once again considered the advantages I would get by completing this quest: +500 Experience, +400 to Reputation, a Rare Item from the Headman…

“You are mistaken, holy father. The Night Terror is a misty beast with red eyes. I saw it yesterday and that's what was caught by the broken trap. Last night I put up another trap by mistake and accidentally caught my landlady. But this is definitely not the night monster, because for that beast the trap was merely a brief annoyance” I'm not handing over Elizabeth. Just don't want to.

"What landlady?" The priest was surprised. “Elizabeth? She's been running around the courtyard all morning fretting and moaning. So don't feed me stories about the Night Terror. It's clear enough that there can be nothing else in the trap. There was no-one else that could have been caught in it. Let's go — you can show me. I'm just really eager to hand it over to the law-enforcers.”

This stopped me in my tracks. How could Elizabeth have been running around the court fretting and so forth in the morning? She's the Vagren! That is, she was meant to be sitting inside my trap. But… If Elizabeth is free, who did I catch?

“So, shall we go and look?”

“All right. I'm also rather curious who I may have caught by mistake,” I said, trying to give myself a potential future loophole by implying this was an accident, and we headed for Beatwick.

“There he is!” Elizabeth met me in the courtyard, nearly finished with tidying up. “Made a mess and ran away, did we? And I have to clean up after you? We should have let Tiny Tim out – he wouldn't have allowed for such outrage to take place here. What is this monstrosity?” My landlady pointed to the trap standing in the middle of the courtyard.

“Hold on, Elizabeth,” the priest defended me. “Mahan caught an evil-doer. Don't open it yet, I will put a defence around the trap. I’m certain the beast would try to escape.”

The priest made a few deft movements and the trap was surrounded by a green cocoon. My jaw almost hit the floor when I looked at its properties:

Movable Prison. Allows you to detain NPCs of level 250 and below for 24 hours and players of level 250 and below for 1 hour.

And it's not like the priest used any scrolls! He did it all by himself! Who is he? Out of habit I looked at the priest’s properties:

Priest of god Vlast. Level 1*N.

It was a standard description. Such obscuring of the level is in place for all NPCs, with whom reputation is lower than Esteemed. So what N could be in this particular specimen, was anyone's guess. But it was definitely at least 100. According to the manual, the Movable Prison could be made by mages of 120+ levels. I should have a chat with the priest about where he got an ability like that.

“What happened, my son?” The priest looked at me in surprise. “Do get on and open the trap. I put a thorough defence around it, no-one would be able to get out!”

I selected my trap, went to the settings and chose deactivation. He's wrong about no-one being able to get out of it. Someone like Hellfire and Anastaria wouldn't even notice it.

The trap fell apart and there were sighs of surprise from everyone present.

“What on earth are you doing now? Not only did you fill my yard with junk, but put Tisha in a trap as well! That's it! My patience has reached its limit! This very day I will go to the Headman and he can find a different place for you to live. I don't want to see your face here anymore…”

Elizabeth started to give me a proper dressing down, but I didn’t care. I looked at Tisha with wide surprised eyes, as she smiled shyly at those present and tried not to look at me.

“Looks like we have our villain,” the entire courtyard fell silent from the priest's simple words. Even Tiny Tim who was running around the enclosure, froze, trying not to make any noise. Everyone looked at me and at Tisha in surprise.

“My goodness…” was all Elizabeth could utter, covering her mouth in horror. “How could this be?”

Tisha finally looked at me with her green eyes, full of hope and pleading. ‘Don't give me away’, those eyes seemed to say. ‘I beg you’. We stared at each other for a little while and suddenly a message appeared in front of my eyes:

Attention! If you give up the Vagren to the priest of Vlast, the ‘Night Terror of the Village’ quest will be completed. If you refuse to give the Vagren up, the ‘Night Terror of the Village’ quest would be altered and your reputation with the representatives of god Vlast would fall by 1000 points.

Do you wish to name Vagren Tiliasha as the Night Terror of the Village?

“You are mistaken, holy father,” I said once again. “Yesterday Tisha was taking a walk nearby, I invited her over. And the rest is simple: we quarrelled, I put up the trap in anger and ran off to the forest, to take out my rage on the wolves. But I did not come across any more wolves and it seems that Tisha fell into my trap. Tisha, please forgive me, I was a fool,” I looked at the Vagren, hoping that she was smart enough to confirm my words.

“I will think about it,” said Tisha, fixing up her hair, ‘We have a lot to talk about. I don't want a repeat of what happened yesterday. Agreed?”

“Agreed. We do have a lot to discuss.”

The quest ‘Night Terror of the Village’ has been altered. Go to the village Headman for further instructions. Your reputation with the priests of Vlast has fallen by 1000 points. Current level: Mistrust.

“What are you staring at?” Elizabeth was the first to regain her composure and started to order her workers around. “Can't you see that this was a stupid lover's quarrel? Off to work with you!”

The priest shot me a glance which was meant to dispel any doubt that I just made the biggest mistake of my life, removed his movable prison and went back to his temple. Yes, what I just did may have been stupid, but Tisha was no mist monster.

“Let's go to my place,” Tisha came up to me and again looked me straight in the eyes. “I think there is much I have to tell you about what's really going on in Beatwick…”

“Tisha?” the Headman looked up at up in surprise when we entered the house.

“Daddy, something happened… Mahan caught me in a trap yesterday,” I saw the Headman’s eyes narrow. “In my main form.”

“He knows?” the Headman’s commanding face turned into a frozen mask.

“Now – yes. And he refused to hand me over to the priest too. I think the time has come to tell him all the truth. What if he can help us?”

The Headman took a few minutes to think over his daughter's words and then said:

“Can you make us some tea please? This can take a while. And you sit down,” the Headman was addressing me now. “I did not want to get you involved, but it seems fate would have it otherwise.”

Like heck this was fate. That's how it's been programmed in you settings, I thought darkly. I didn't sell out your daughter – so I get a change to the quest. Tisha brought the tea, sat in an armchair and looked questioningly at her father, who seemed to be hesitating to start the conversation. Fine, if everyone is so hesitant, I'll start.

“Let me tell you what I know. So, a week ago the priest of Vlast gave me an assignment to find a certain ‘Night Terror of the Village’. I prepared myself, went on a hunt and saw two unusual creatures last night. Unusual for me, that is. A Vagren and some incomprehensible mist-covered beast. I managed to catch the Vagren, but I had no such success with the mist beast. In the end it turned out to be Tisha in the guise of the Vagren. For some reason the priest is convinced that the Vagren and the Night Terror are one and the same and was terribly offended when I wouldn't hand Tisha over to him. But I didn't do it because I saw the real monster with my own eyes. That’s all I’ve got. Your turn,” I looked at the Headman in question.

“My family has always been unusual,” said the Headman, having digested my words. “It’s just a fact of life that all of us are Vagrens. This is neither good or bad. It just happens to be the case. In our previous life, as we call out life before Beatwick, I held a very high position, but at one point everything changed. My colleagues and acquaintances turned away from us and set head-hunters after us. This was all because of my eldest son. He did not want to accept our way of life and crossed over to the enemy. When I was offered to move to Beatwick and make a new start I fully embraced this opportunity. You have to think about how to protect your family. But trouble had followed us even here.”

“This is all because of the mist monster,” added Tisha. The Headman gave her a stern look and continued.

“Yes, this is all because of the mist monster. Two years ago we moved here. At first everything was going really well – we were given a good welcome by the local people and established good relations with the Priest, who knew what we were right away. Trouble started a few months after my appointment. Animals started to disappear from the flocks. Every seven days either a cow or a sheep went missing from the village. And one time claw marks appeared on the gates. I thought up the story about a werebeast and our family went hunting….”

Tisha gave a fitful sigh, as if recalling unpleasant moments from the past.

“That was the only time when we saw the beast up close. It didn’t hide, feeling itself in control of the situation. It tried to attack us several times and each time we fought it off, inflicting considerable damage. In the end the beast started to run away from us and we managed to corner it. But even cornered, but we were unable to destroy it. It turned out to be too smart. Choosing the weakest among us, it attacked Tisha. And then I made an unforgivable mistake. Instead of attacking the monster, I threw myself in front of my daughter. The beast left me something to remind me of this for the rest of my life,” the Headman unbuttoned his shirt and I saw a terrible scar on his shoulder. “I have one exactly like this on my thigh. The monster started to hide from us and I was unable to walk for half a year. I had to receive visitors in my home. From that time our house turned into the local administration office. The previous house was demolished, the place where it once stood is now taken up by the square. Each night my sons went out on the hunt, but they haven't seen the beast since that time. Tisha is the first to see the monster this close in the last two years.”

The Headman paused, finishing his tea, and then continued:

“But this is not all. It turned out that the beast isn't resting in the six days after it eats an animal. It raids the neighbouring villages, appearing once a week in each of them. I made the decision that my family would destroy this monster. This is why my sons are hardly ever seen in Beatwick. They are travelling between the villages, hoping to catch or destroy the Night Terror', as the Priest calls it. He has a reason to think that we're behind this: he once saw my son kneeling over a freshly killed sheep. We haven't managed to prove that we are the ones hunting the killer. Nor does the Priest have any evidence that we are the Night Terror. We are maintaining neutrality, but the initial trust is no longer there. Until our Priest is presented with the real monster, he would not believe me or anyone else that we are innocent. For two years now the beast has evaded us and we need help. Don't worry about the reward — it will be considerable. Would you help us?"