The Kartoss Gambit (The Way of the Shaman: Book #2) (34 page)

"So he should make the rest."

"You can't force someone to craft something like that. I already gave Hellfire a slap on the wrist for asking Mahan to make the Dwarf figurines as a present for Anastaria's birthday. You can't force someone to create."

"All right. Then I will instruct mine not to touch Manan either. Let him create in peace. By the way, do you know about the additional six anomalies?"

"Yes, we've already sent groups there. Looks a lot like the ziggurat that's in the Krong province."

"I still can't understand what it is that the Corporation is planning. Putting Kartoss forces in the vicinity of Malabar, with the support of Magisters too.... Something big is in the pipeline. But what?"

"Time will tell. At last! Listen, you really need to improve your chess skills. You're playing like a noob! If father was still alive, he'd be very disappointed."

"Don't grumble. You won and that's good enough. Oh, the buff has turned up. You know, it'll be fun playing with this thing on."

"Mahan, please come this way," the Herald appeared right next to me. "The first game has been played and the rules have been met. The other games will take place without your presence. I hope you had a pleasant time."

"Herald, can I stay for five more minutes?" I begged. Again, something told me: I had to stick around, if only for a couple of minutes.

"If you stay in the palace for three more minutes, you will be denied access to the external palace garden," the Herald's reply was firm. "After three minutes the access to the palace will be lost to you permenantly. Even the First Kill would not permit you to return here. Make your choice."

"I will stay here another three minutes. As soon as the time runs out, please do take me back, but I need those three minutes."

"The countdown has begun. You have three minutes. After that you either step onto this portal," the Herald pointed towards the whirlwind that appeared, "or say good-bye to the palace forever."

"I understand, thank you."

I turned back to the clan Kings. They sat there, slowly drinking their wine in silence. Well, guys, what did you want to tell each other? Two minutes went by before Evolett began:

"I think the Herald took him away by now. He has no business being in the palace with his reputation."

"I agree. So — back to business at hand. Tomorrow I'm sending Hellfire to Serrest. He has to be taken out of the game for at least twelve hours — the boy's been gaming himself out of line lately. Can you arrange an ambush for him, please?"

"Done. What about Mahan?"

"For now, nothing. We can't go to Krong, the conditions of the quest prevent us."

"And what about the six new points?"

"A ton of time can go by before you develop them and understand what's what. Let Anastaria try, but I don't believe we'll see much success there. I would have to fly to Farstead myself. There I'll find Mahan and have a heart-to-heart chat with him — about the chess pieces and the information about us. No-one informed him — he found out himself somehow."

"By the why don't you want to take him in?"

"The damn condition for the Karmadont Chess Set. You read the scroll yourself..."

"Mahan, your time is up. Make your choice: the portal or banishment," once again the Herald appeared next to me, cutting off the sound of the brothers' conversation.

"The portal," I managed to force out of myself. But it was so difficult to utter those words... The shimmering cloud immediately enveloped me, landing me in Elizabeth's room. What were those two talking about?

Right after my return to Beatwick I shut myself inside the summer house, completely cut off from the world. The conversation of the two brothers completely threw me. Were they even brothers? Now I wasn't all that sure that what I heard was true and my intuition was silent. I had even more questions now than before this chess match. An analysis of that meeting was in order:

Facts:

1. Two players, who are the actual leaders of Phoenix and the Dark Legion clans, know each other well and carry out certain of each other's requests.

2. The clan leaders knew that the creator of the Cursed Chess Set would be present at their first game and put on a performance for his benefit.

3. As soon as the month that I have remaining to complete my quest runs out, a swarm of high-level players will head for the Krong province. At the same time, a certain number of these players will be very aggressive towards me.

4. There exists a scroll with information about the Karmadont Chess Set.

5. Conclusions: the Chess Set will stay with me until I see that scroll.

What should be placed under doubt:

1. That the players are brothers. Reason: for some unknown purpose these two players have shown me that far from being enemies, they are actually very close relatives. Why did they need this? To show that I can forget about joining either clan since they'll get to me in either one? I don't get it.

2. The arranged nature of the games. Reason: the first game was a show put on for my benefit. It is highly likely that even the totalizator would remain open during the games. Knowing full well that I would be present at the match and still saying that Phoenix will be having very bad luck for four months in a row.... Smacks a lot of disinformation.

3. Both clan leaders know that I created the Orc Warriors. Reason: a bluff aimed at getting me to finally admit it and hand over the figurines to them.

Yeah... An interesting situation. And yet I'm completely out of ideas. What to do? Damned if I know. Only one thing is clear — I urgently have focus on the important activity of boosting my skills and levels. I have to raise myself up to at least level 40 — then I can speak to the clans on a somewhat different footing. I have a whole month to level up as much as possible — a time I must not waste. I will create the present I promised Clouter right now, and then go out 'in the field' tomorrow. Draco also needs to be leveled up. Speaking of which...

"Hi. Come now, we need to talk."

"Coming."

As Draco said when we were in his world, here he was still small, just over half a meter. Not a problem — I'll get busy with levelling him up from tomorrow. The timer for summoning the Totem immediately popped into view, counting down two hours. It was a level 1 Totem: 20 Hit Points, Strength and Intellect depended on the player, but couldn't exceed the pet's level by twenty points. No matter, that'll do Draco for now.

"Listen, I keep forgetting to ask: what is your name?"

Draco stopped and stared at me with big naive eyes. Damn! Why am I asking him? He's a child — he'll respond to the name he's given! But what if a grown-up Draco wouldn't like it? That would be a pity.

"I see. I asked the question wrong. From today until you reach level 200 you will be called: Draco! We'll figure out what else to call you when you grow up."

"Draco," said the Totem thoughtfully. "Draco... I like it! I'm Draco!"

After clicking 'ok' to the question of whether I agree to this name for my Totem, I came out to the courtyard with the flying kiddo in tow. If I remember correctly, there were many low-level beetles and flies around here, on which I can unleash my pet to hunt and level up.

"A Dragon," our 'lessons' were interrupted by astonished whisper of Elizabeth, who was staring wide-eyed at Draco turning another bug into a little pile of ash. With 20 levels in Intellect, the little dragon could spout fire very well, destroying one beetle or butterfly a couple of levels higher than him in one breath. Thirty minutes of battling the insects in Elizabeth's courtyard raised Draco to level 3. I wondered if he had a system for point allocation, like with the Hunter pets. Or did all his stats go up proportionally at the same time? The manual had nothing to say about that and I didn't even bother looking at the forum. It was quite useless...

"Where did you get him?" Elizabeth regained her composure and respectfully watched Draco flying about.

"This is my Totem," I habitually looked up Elizabeth's properties and was dumbfounded. Attractiveness — seventy points. Another ten any my landlady will start making advances towards me. She is, of course, an attractive NPC, but the depicted character came with a clearly specified age. She's a bit too old for me. Damn, what am I on about? I'll have to be catching her in four days' time!

"But Dragons don't exist... Avtondil, stop!" shouted the landlady, when a gust of ginger hair flew past her and crashed into Draco. My blood froze. If my Totem would give Clouter the same treatment he gave Almis...

"Mum, mum! Look, it's a Dragon! Look at the tail he's got! Oi! No you don't! You'll never catch me!" accompanied by the enthusiastic barking of Tiny Tim, there were now two kids running around the courtyard — a human and a Dragon. The difference in their races was immediately overlooked; the children screamed, shrieked and chased each other, having completely forgotten about us.

"He... won't... do... anything...?" asked Elizabeth, stumbling over every word.

"He shouldn't. He's well behaved," I was about to call Draco back, but was stopped by a message that popped up:

Totem level increased by 1. Current level: 6.

A couple of minutes of running around the yard and you get a level? Why, all of a sudden? I suppressed the desire to get my Totem back and simply watched the kids chasing each other around. Then came 'hide-and-seek, 'It' and 'dodgeball', into which they dragged the landlady and myself . By the end of the second hour since Draco appeared, all of this raised him to level 17. Why? I had no rational explanation for this, so I was simply glad it happened.

"Was this my present?" asked an out-of-breath Clouter, when Draco waved his paws at him and disappeared. That's it: now he's inaccessible for 24 hours. "Can you call him again? I really-really promise to eat all the porridge. I'll run and do it now. Pleeease!"

"I will call him again tomorrow for sure. You can run around all you like then. Now he's tired and has gone to sleep. That's Dragons for you — when they get tired, they go straight to bed. And that wasn't the present. I'll give you the present tomorrow. So run along, you have to sort that porridge out."

"Can I eat the porridge tomorrow?" Clouter looked pitifully at his mother.

"No, you can't. Either the porridge and the Dragon or nothing. That's final!"

"Ehh... Life really can be so cruel and unjust. Complete filibustering on your behalf, mother," sighed Clouter and trudged off to the house. Where did he pick up words like that?

"Don't listen to him. He's read up all those words in a book, and still doesn't really know their meaning," said Elizabeth, fixing her hair, when Clouter disappeared in the house. "Is is true about the Dragon? Will he come tomorrow too?"

"Of course. I keep my promises. I haven't forgotten that I promised to look into who's been scratching the gates either."

Elizabeth noticeably started, her eyes grew shifty and, glancing from side to side, she asked:

"Perhaps you shouldn't? Who cares about some kids fooling around? Maybe you should leave off your nocturnal village walks. Not much point."

"I would never go back on my word. And now, excuse me, I need to go and make a present for your son. Promises have to be kept."

The landlady took a breath and was about to stop me, but restrained herself. I could clearly see that she wanted to say something, but decided not to drag the information out of this demonologist. All was clear to me already. She was going through the inner struggle between Attractiveness and her main mission: for now the mission is winning. If she comes and confesses all before the week is out, I'll have a think of what's to be done with her.

I sat on the bed, took out the Marble I gathered at the mine and my jeweller's kit and entered the design mode. The idea for the present was simple: since Clouter loves his Tiny Tim so much, I'll try to carve a dog figurine for him out of Marble. What if it came out well? It'll do me good and will make the lad happy.

Replicating a piece of marble in the design interface, I began to create an image of a dog. Hm. Looks like making an image of a living being from memory isn't all that simple. When I was making the Cursed Chess Set, I had the holograms of the players and it was much easier. For a long time Tiny Tim didn't want to come out right. Either the head was wrong or his legs too short. I had no time restriction on being in Beatwick, so I wasn't too worried about how long it might take me to create the dog. Time and again I created and removed the image of Tiny Tim from my memory, until a certain attempt came out perfect. It was him — the meter-high Wolfhound, gentle and fluffy, as the dog was in his virtual life. I combined it with the model of the Marble and opened my eyes to be surprised with a stream of messages:

Damage taken. Hit Points reduced by 24: 304 (Cursed Dog Aura) — 280 (Magic resistance). Total Hit Points: 2396 of 2420.

Skill increase:

+1 to Jewelcrafting. Total: 23.

+1 to Crafting. Total: 5.

What the...?!

I lowered my gaze and saw THIS THING. A small Marble statuette of a dog. But this was no normal dog. I was looking at a vicious muzzle, drooling and teeth bared, with a spiked collar, rabid eyes and flaking skin that had ribs poking out of it in places. The statuette looked hideous. What about its properties?