The Kartoss Gambit (The Way of the Shaman: Book #2) (26 page)

T
he day after Kornik returned me to Beatwick I went to the mine to be alone and think over the hints the old ladies were meant to have given me. As I was banging away at the Tin Vein, I recalled our conversation word for word. Both with Mabel and with Patricia, beginning with '
Dearie, can you help out a weak helpless woman?
' and ending with
'won't give you any more assignments.
'

A couple of hours later I managed to set aside several sentences, which allowed me to mark out at least a rough path forward or which seemed to run contrary to the general logic of the conversation:

You're walking around like some Red Riding Hood who just brought pies to grandma.

'You've been running between us half the day almost — probably done twenty miles by now';

'...you've always had a weak spot for stubborn fools';

'But you kept delivering them, without even looking inside';

'...some wandering tramps to be loitering by the threshold'.

The old ladies didn't say anything else out of the ordinary. The socialization twaddle that was rammed into my brain each time I delivered a letter wasn't worth bothering with. It was hard to believe that any directions could be coded into it — deciphering it would be just too difficult in that case. So it looked like I'd have to try to make sense of these five sentences.

It could be immediately surmised that the scroll was within a twenty-kilometre radius of Farstead. One thing wasn't clear: the direction in which these twenty kilometres should be counted. Should I just walk around the circumference? There must have been a reason they mentioned stubborn fools. But I shuddered to think how much time it might take to do that. I had to narrow my search.

Could this be linked to the Red Riding Hood? What did she do? She was bringing pies to her grandmother. Where did the grandmother live? As far as I remember, in a forest, or beyond a forest where the Grey Wolf lived. After finishing another vein and throwing the ore into the bag, I opened the map and looked up which side of Farstead had a forest. Damn. There was a forest. A lot of it: practically a thirty-degree sector immediately outside the town. The teleportation scroll to Beatwick wouldn't work in that area — I would have to go back to Farstead and get to the village from there. Or find what I needed very quickly and return to the town.

So, it seems that the scroll is located twenty kilometres from Farstead in a forest. You have to be stubborn to find it. Because the forest is big and the scroll is small.
'Without even looking inside
' and
'some wandering tramps
' didn't fit the logic of the search so far, but I felt that they would come in useful as well. When I make it to the right place, I'll figure it out. Another vein flickered and disappeared, leaving five pieces of Tin Ore behind. I smiled. Today I increased my Mining to level 18 — two more levels and I could look for other types of mines. What if there are Marble or Iron veins around here? All quite useful for levelling up. But that's for tomorrow. Today I had to finish off the remaining three veins and get back home.

"Mahan, you're using the wrong spoon," Clouter shot me a glance and then stared back at his plate. After the incident with Tiny Tim we didn't talk at all. Clouter did all he could to avoid me. Our paths only crossed during the compulsory dinner, to which Elizabeth started to invite me after I completed the wolf quest. At the dinner the lad, who was known to the entire village as an irrepressible talker, turned into a mute, only dropping a rare phrase on what an uncouth and uneducated person I was. In some sense I agreed with him. Elizabeth always served a dinner consisting of at least three courses, which were followed by a desert. 'She's not a rich woman...' — yeah right! Whatever the truth may be, each person at the table was faced with three forks and two spoons. At my first dinner, when I started to eat fish with an ordinary fork with four long prongs, everyone stared at me in great surprise. I began to feel uncomfortable.

"Mahan," Clouter told me off for my unacceptable table manners for the first time, "you eat fish with this fork," he pointed to one with four shorter prongs. Somewhat surprised, I changed the forks. What's the difference? Both have four prongs, only with slightly different lengths. It seems I just don't get certain things...

"Avtondil, it is impolite to reproof adults at the table," Elizabeth corrected her son.

"But mum! He was using the wrong fork! Why was I forced to learn what each of them was for, but no-one's correcting him," he nodded in my direction. "Tiny Tim still squeals a little when he sees Mahan."

"Mahan is a guest and you are my son! That's the end of it. Each time you correct him will land you cleaning the pigsty."

"That isn't fair!!! What if he starts eating with his hands? Can't I say anything then either?"

"Avtondil!"

"I'll do it, you'll see," he replied stubbornly. "It's better to be with pigs than eat with someone like this." Clouter threw his napkin on the table, "I'm going. The pigsty awaits."

"Oh dear," sighed the landlady, when Clouter left. "I'm sorry Mahan. Clouter is trying to be a grown up. After all, he's the only man in the family. But he's still small and doesn't understand some things."

From that day on Clouter always corrected me, despite the punishment. I was either sitting wrong, or using the wrong fork or passing the knife incorrectly — and so on. The daily dinner turned into a struggle with my own nerves — not to lose my temper with the little NPC. He had a strange program in him, very strange.

"Clouter, I need your help," today I decided to break the vicious circle of my uncultured behaviour. Elizabeth and her daughter gave me some very surprised looks and Clouter sat there staring at his plate, same as always. "You are right, it's just unacceptable to be this uncivilised. Thank you for constantly correcting me, but I want to do more. Can you teach me all the subtle wisdom of forks, knives and the correct way to be at the table? It just so happens that no-one taught me this. Will you do it, or shall I ask Mariana?"

"Why won't I do it? Mariana doesn't know anything," he fired off. "She herself eats the salad with a fish fork instead of a salad one."

"We have a deal then? We'll start tomorrow first thing in the morning. An hour a day and I'll learn it all in a week. Once we succeed — the present's on me."

"What is it?" Clouter lifted his head and stared at me with interest.

"It'll be a surprise. If you teach me all this table wisdom in a week, it'll be a good one."

"It's a deal. I will drop by tomorrow and wake you up. Mum, I'm off to the pigsty. Have to say good-bye to the piggies. I'm not going to be visiting them anymore. That place just doesn't smell very nice," a gust seemed to rush through the room and the lad disappeared. A smart kid.

From then on I had a rather busy time of it. The mornings were given to Clouter. He would run to my summer house, shake me awake and then dump a small mountain of various cutlery straight in the bed and start teaching me what to do with it all. As I listened to the lad, I grew more and more surprised. Where would an eight-year-old village kid learn all this?

After the lesson I went to the mine. Hellfire, Plinto and other heroes hired by the Heralds have cleaned out the surrounding area pretty well and I didn't come across any more goblins. Aside from the Tin mine, there were also Copper, Marble and Iron mines in the neighbourhood of Beatwick. Although I couldn't tackle Iron Veins yet, I took the opportunity to level up my skills through Marble Veins every day. It wasn't all that useful, however, since Marble wasn't used in Jewelcrafting and I didn't have the Sculptor profession. So I ended up saving up the Marble for sale.

The second part of my day was dedicated to levelling up in Jewelcrafting. I had a good supply of ingots and Malachite, so I made rings and cut stones. It was monotonous and repetitive, but I had to busy myself with something...

"You're quite deft at this stuff," said the Smith in his bass voice, after I finished forming another Bronze Ring. "But I just don't understand why you need so many rings and gems. Are you going to pickle them or something?"

"I will sell them to free citizens when I go to Farstead or to the Merchant when he passes by here again. I have no need of the rings myself, but I must get better at my profession," I threw the rings in the bag, left the smithy and sat on a wooden block by the door. Tonight Tisha and I will be hunting the Night Monster, so I had to get some rest.

This week turned out to be quite productive. I raised my Mining to 25. Eleven more levels and I would be able to go to the Iron mine. Mining wouldn't get any higher because I only managed to increase my Jewelcrafting to 19. Smithing did not go up that much, just to 14, but I got sixteen pieces of Malachite as I was making the ingots. With my gradually diminishing supplies this was handy. However, the one thing that levelled up the most during this week was Cartography. Each day the damned ziggurat that operated in the area erased my map and all I had drawn there the previous day. I had to draw it in again, but for a Cartographer a repeat drawing was same as a new one. This resulted in level 29 in almost four days...

In the evening, there was a meeting of the monster hunter strike-force at the Headman's house. There was me, Tisha, the Headman and the two Vagrens from the painting — Tisha's brothers whom I met in person for the first time.

"If I'm not mistaken, the monster is rather fond of Mahan. That's no laughing matter, Tisha," said the Headman. "Mahan, you task is simple. You have to lure the Monster out to open ground, the square would be best for that. These two," he nodded towards his sons, "will be waiting for it on the roof. When you get the monster there — dive under the porch straight away. You'll hide out there while Lloyd and Treyl will be catching him. The main thing is to spot it — then we won't let it get away. Now go, we'll meet exactly at midnight."

After I came back home, I cooked some food to give at least a little boost to my stats, came out of the summer house and sat on a bench. Just a couple more hours remained until night time and my cue to go to the centre of the village and make myself very visible on the main square. We figured that the mist beast would come after me itself. I set up a warning message to stop me oversleeping, leant against the wall and closed my eyes. With such a busy timetable there was barely any time left to rest.

The quiet squeaking of the front door made me tense up. Pretending I was still asleep, I half-opened my eyes and watched how Elizabeth carefully closed the door and went to the gate, constantly looking back at me, and then, quiet as a shadow, slipped into the approaching night. My landlady's hands held the same bundle as a week ago. Where could she be going? There was still plenty of time — two whole hours so I decided to follow this lady for a bit. Even if she was going on a date, something wasn't right here. I had a gut feeling that my landlady was connected to the monster's appearance. And if I had a feeling, it needed checking out.

I let Elizabeth put about fifty meters between us and silently followed her. I was afraid to come closer, since I lacked any stealthy tracking skills, unlike Hunters or Rogues, so I moved like an elephant on tiptoe.

Elizabeth's behaviour was becoming 'curiouser and curiouser'. She kept to the side of the street, staying in the shade of the houses. Constantly glancing back, as if afraid of being discovered, the woman moved purposefully towards the village square. Could she be visiting the Headman after all? If that's true, this guy had it all sorted — just sent off his daughter and sons to hunt the monster, himself staying at home to receive a lady friend!

I stopped and watched from afar how Elizabeth came up to the square, looked around and instead of going to the Headman's house, turned into the neighbouring street. What the...?

Moving as fast as I could without making any noise I sped after my landlady. My suspicions that she was connected with the monster now transformed into certainty.

After a couple of minutes Elizabeth came up to the stockade and stopped. Glancing back just in case, she pressed something and two logs of the fence lifted, as if they were threaded through by a pole. Bowing her head, the woman left the village, pressed something again and the logs returned to their places. That's just nuts! The fence has a secret door and my landlady is using it. Where could she be going?

Although I saw well enough where Elizabeth pressed the lever, I couldn't figure out how to use it. Or, rather, there wasn't any lever there. Realising that if I tarried much longer I would lose sight of her, I disregarded stealth and jumped over the stockade. I grabbed the top ledge, lifted myself and dropped on the other side. It was just as well that they decided not to sharpen the top of the stockade in Beatwick — these were just simple logs. Otherwise I would have been in for an unpleasant experience. I dropped to the ground like a sack (-25 Hit Points, but this was currently irrelevant) and just had time to see the blurry silhouette of my target heading in the direction of the temple.

Damn! Could she be visiting the Priest instead of the Headman? Vlast didn't seem to be too hung up on chastity. And here's me suspecting the poor woman of all kinds of vile things. But my inner worm of doubt completely chewed through my certitude of Elizabeth's innocence, stating: trust everyone, but always cut the cards. When I see her go into the temple I can relax and go back to Beatwick.