The Kartoss Gambit (The Way of the Shaman: Book #2) (7 page)

I became almost a mirror of the merchant’s frozen stance. A quest obtained from an item could mean only one thing: I had in my possession a way to another Legend of Barliona.

I swallowed with effort and read the quest description:

The Eye of the Dark Widow. Description: a hundred thousand years ago, before humans appeared in Barliona, the world was ruled by cruel and capricious Tarantula Lords, who subdued all other races with their power. After a cataclysm the Tarantula Lords vanished, and all the races tried to wipe the thousands of years of Tarantula yoke from their memory, letting them be entirely forgotten. But in the depths of the Free Lands there still exists a cult worshipping these Lords, and its Patriarch dreams of bringing back the Tarantulas and submerging the world in fear and pain. Stop them or it will be too late. Go to the Emperor for further instructions. Quest type: Legendary. Level requirements: 100+. Group requirements: 20+ participants. Reward: hidden.

Twenty level hundred players, who will need to make their way deep into the Free Lands and bring down some Patriarch… For all the esteem in which I hold my dear self, organising a raid like this is beyond me — at least at this point in time. But that’s no reason to throw away such an object! I turned the Eye over in my hand for a little while and put it back in the bag. That’s right, I might make some use of it yet.

“Five thousand now and another forty in a week’s time,” the words of the trader, who seemed to regain his faculties, completely stunned me. Usually such things are in use among players and are little more than an inventory item for NPCs. But here was forty-five thousand gold on offer! And that’s despite my red band and the fact that an NPC would automatically try to rip me off as much as possible. I don’t think so. First I would have to find out more about the Eye and who the Tarantula Lords were and only then would I make a decision.

"No, thank you. I am not going to sell the Eye right now.”

“Ninety thousand gold. Tomorrow,” by the looks of it the trader decided to finish me off completely. What was it about this thing? I went to the manual and made a search for the item’s name. Nothing. At all. A search in the forums also brought zero results. Could it be the same as with a quest chain, where you wouldn’t be allowed into the hidden help area until you accepted the quest? Most probably. But I cannot accept the quest now. A hundred levels are, after all, a hundred levels. It would be laughable to even approach the Eye with my current fourteen levels.

"No, thank you. I will not sell the Eye even for two hundred thousand,” judging by the long face of the trader his third offer was probably going to be in this area. When I get to Anhurs and create my Clan, it should become clearer what to do with the Eye. It cannot disappear from the bag since it’s not a Legendary item, so there it can stay.

As I left the disappointed merchant, who immediately started to pack up shop to the frustration of the locals, I headed back to the forest. The counter measuring my forty eight hours spent outside the village was reset, so I again had two days to rescue the wolf cubs and kick some goblin ass.

The wolves were still sitting in the place where I left them – behind the shrubs before the wooden gates of the mine. If that’s how they’ve been guarding the entrance before, how did a lone goblin manage to make his way outside? There wasn’t another exit, as far as I remember, and it wasn’t possible to climb out of the pit. Well, who knows, maybe even wolves need to sleep…

Having taken the necessary items out of the bag, I commenced my metamorphosis. At first I went radically green. I painted my arms, face, legs and in general anything that may show from under the skirt and tunic. The wolves stared at this outrage full of incomprehension. From an ordinary human being the Shaman was turning into a green paint covered God-knows-what. One thing was comforting: there were no witnesses – it’s not like the wolves were going to tell anyone of my loss of dignity. The leather tunic left enough space for me to stuff plenty of grass in the relevant places, giving me a truly feminine appearance. When I put on the skirt and the wig, the pack leader couldn’t help snorting. Yeah, I’ll make a note to kick the leader’s grey hairy behind once we get rid of all the goblins.

The main thing was for my disguise to work or all my efforts would have been in vain. Before heading off to conquer the pointy-eared minions, I went to the nearby stream and looked at my reflection. It was really something! I did a great job of making myself look truly ugly: green, scary and black haired. A real orc. But something was still lacking. I wrinkled my brow, as the image remained incomplete. Yes, I was green, in a skirt, with a Mallet in my hand, but some small detail was missing. The goblins wouldn’t fall for me as I am, I was damn certain. A quiet growl made me turn around. Grey Death, if I correctly understood that was the name of the she-wolf, brought me a small bone in her teeth. That it! The orc-woman in the picture had a bone sticking out of her nose. I tore off a couple of hairs from the wig and used them to tie the bone in place. Now the look was complete. If I didn’t manage to seduce anyone looking like this, I understand nothing of goblin notions of beauty. One thing made me nervous – the she-wolf kept snorting, as if she was laughing at me. That’s fine, keep laughing, I’ll find a way to get my own back.

I gathered my wits about me, selected one of the archers on the closest tower and stepped out of the bushes. Now was the moment of truth. The hidden pack of wolves, ready to attack the goblins, stayed in the grass. Some time went by, but the little buggers didn’t look like they were going to do anything. Did they just completely fail to spot me or something? All right then, let’s give them a hand. I filled my lungs with air and whistled, carefully watching the status of the goblin. If he became aggressive straight away, my idea had fallen through. All that careful paint application would have been for nothing.

A couple of seconds went by, but the goblins were not turning red. I no longer had any doubts that they saw me: both archers nearly jumped over the railing, trying to get a better look at the beauty that had come to pay them a visit. Suddenly the goblin that I kept selected gained a buff in the form of a heart: 'Adoration'. He threw down the bow and started to climb down from the tower, leaping over steps. The other one wasn't far behind. Did it work then? I started to take slow steps towards the forest and the protection of the wolf attack force. The love-struck goblins opened the gates and sped in my direction. Yup, those guys were ready — completely losing their heads as they ran towards me, blowing me kisses on the way. How disgusting. One of the lover boys jumped to a shrub behind which a wolf was sitting and tore off a few branches. Were they going to bring me flowers as well? Cool, I think I’d like that… Blagh! What’s got into me! I have to take the goblins deeper into the forest, where their screams wouldn’t be heard. I hurried away from the mine. Immediately the goblin that I selected acquired a second buff: 'Fervour', again in the form of a heart. Oops. So that’s dating orc-style then, eh? Great. I ran off about two hundred meters from the mine and turned towards the goblins, who were rushing to get their hands on the orc beauty. Damn! I didn’t think things through when I put my ambush right on the edge of the forest. The wolves were shifting in the shadows either side of us were hurrying to take their new places for the attack, but weren’t quite going to make it. Goblins were going to get to me first. Buggerit! I can’t summon any spirits, because I’ll get out of character and this duo would wipe me out in the blink of an eye. Even if their stats are focused on Agility, I was no match for their 30 levels at my level 14. Killing me would be a walk in the park. Gripping my Mallet, I decided to use that to fend them off until the pack got here. I only needed half a minute or so.

The goblin flew up to me, arms outstretched, and tried to catch me in his embrace, but got hit by the Mallet straight on the nose. He staggered back and cried out and acquired a third heart-shaped buff: 'Flirting'. A couple of moments later all three buffs merged into one big heart: 'Love'. So there you have it. At least someone loves me in this game. Turning around to his rival, the goblin shouted:

'Gawe to heel, you spawn of a sklix. Zis wommun iz mine!'

'Fir wommun laik zis I keen dips yoor mugs in da dungs! I wunt her too!' shouted the second. I had no time to be surprised before I saw a message:

Attention! A member of the Kartoss Dark Empire has fallen in love with you! To make it possible for the lovers to understand each other the game administration grants you the opportunity to understand and speak the language of dark goblins. Have a pleasant game!

You have learned a new language: 'Dark Goblin'.

Achievement earned!

'Romeo and Juliet' level 1 (19 seductions of the members of the Dark Empire until the next level).

Achievement reward: the chance that you can get a member of the Dark Empire to fall in love with you is increased by 1%.

You can look at the list of achievements in the character settings.

Bloody hell! I've always dreamt of such an important and almost unattainable achievement. Now the main thing was not to let anyone know that I had it. Generally, learning the language of the Dark Empire is not that hard — you just have to go to the library and spend a couple of months there, studying texts and speaking with a Guardian. When the time comes the Guardian would offer you a book and teach you one of the hundred languages of our continent. Any one you'd like — from the widespread orcish to the rare language of the kobolds. But I had no idea that you could gain a language through such a 'gift'.

The goblins started to squabble about which of them was the better match for me. They had already switched from words to fists when my wolf attack force arrived. The fight was short, but unusual. The wolves tore into the goblins, but the latter didn't even try to put up a fight. With huge, tear-filled eyes they looked at me as her who betrayed all their hopes.... Err... I mean him, rather! They can go to hell! Now I'm the one getting confused.

Experience gained: +400 Experience; points remaining until next level: 351.

From each goblin I got two gold and a pair of worn trousers. They had neither weapons nor potions. Well, never mind. The main thing was that we've found a harmless enough way of defeating the goblins. And if I had to sway some hips and batter some eyelashes – once again I say that if there were no witnesses, it never happened. These thoughts were going through my head as I went for the next group of 'Romeos'...

The wolves were clearly up to something. Until I hit the goblin with the Mallet, not one of those mongrels attacked the pair that was hurrying after me. What was the point of leaving them in an ambush? Just so they can snigger and watch me chased by a crowd of admirers? In any case, it was finished now — all the four towers were free, the gates were open and only the ten or so workers, the warrior and the commander remained. I was wary of the last two. The warrior would have a boosted Strength stat, but the boss was an unknown. He might even turn out to be a wizard. I had to be careful.

Thanks to the 'Romeos' I raised myself up to level fifteen, but decided against allocating the free stat points. The higher a particular stat was, the harder it was to level it up in a normal way. No, I can wait it out and not spend them until I absolutely have to.

By the way, since we're talking about stats, I decided to get to the bottom of what bonuses Endurance gave me. It was good that it reduced the level of pain I felt, but by the looks of it Endurance also had to reduce the amount of damage I sustained. However, not a single message that came up said anything about damage being reduced in any way on account of Endurance. Did it have to be activated in some way then? What did the help section say?

Endurance
determines a player's ability to ignore any damage from an opponent for (Endurance /10) %. This is calculated and deducted from any incoming damage automatically, before the analysis of blocking, dodge or damage reduction from defence.

Now I understood why I didn't see Endurance in the messages. A message 'sustained XXX damage' shows the harm caused already after it's been reduced on account of Endurance. In my case that was by 1.1%. Not much, of course, but sometimes even such margin may allow you to stay alive.

I gathered the wolves into one attack formation and headed towards the mine. Enough goblins remained there to give us a fair amount of trouble.

"The Mastermun came! The Mastermun came!" all ten goblins threw their picks to the ground, fell on their knees and started to kowtow to me all as one. Did they really take me for their master? What the heck am I going to do with them? I selected one of the goblins and looked at his properties. Goblin. Just a goblin, totally lacking the 'dark' adjective. I took a better look at the closest one and saw a collar on him. Slaves! There were a dozen slaves here gathering the ore.

"Aarrrgghhh!" shouted the warrior guarding the tent and ran at me. "You no wommun! You dress-crossing spy! Enemies in the camp!"

Level thirty. A close combat fighter, being a warrior and all, was running towards me, waving his yatagan around. Think again, wise guy! I can run too. However, unlike an archer, I can summon Spirits as well. The wolves again froze like statues, reluctant to be the first to join the fight. I can live with that — I'll down this one myself and they can look out for the boss joining the fray. Usually one of those comes part and parcel with a long and hard fight.