Shadow Seer (Rogue Merchant Book #3): LitRPG Series by Roman Prokofiev (read ebook pdf .TXT) 📕

the distance—a mountainous shore broken by fjords, empty and bare at first sight. The ship lights revealed jagged cliffs sticking out of the black water and tarnished with a slippery coat. We slowly sailed past the coast, and I noticed the crew take up battle positions without warning.

“See? There, on the right! Storm, point the flashlight!”

An unusual construction on a flat plateau emerged from the darkness ashore—something like a huge pyramid haphazardly put together from black boulders of different sizes and shapes, all covered with scarlet inscriptions. Either pictograms or glyphs, the ugly characters peppered the entire surface of the pyramid. They were a dreary, depressing sight, almost like the Ancient drawing in Helt Akor.

“This is the main landmark around here!” Thrainul announced. “The entrance to the Flooded Temple.”

“I’ve heard about it. It’s a raid dungeon,” Bonus said with a nod. “Why isn’t anybody farming it?”

“Raids are rarely assembled here,” the captain replied, shrugging. “I visited it, and so did others. Inside...ugh, it’s full of nasty things—Ratlings, ratling cultists that summon various crap. Then you need to go underwater and fight the drowners. You can’t simply walk in there without a powerful air mage or deepwater equipment. We did go all the way through. At the end, the path to the Drowned King opens up, and that’s the Deep factions, a real clusterfuck...”

“I’d love to explore this instance. At least the entrance,” Fayana said. “Thrainul, could you drop us off here?”

“Don’t. It’s very dangerous,” Thrainul said, shaking his head. “You don’t see it, but there’s an ambush. Wild ratlings are guarding the coast. It’s an unnecessary battle, and these creatures are fast and nimble; I can’t guarantee your safety.”

“We could inspect the pyramid on birdies, flying around it,” Bonus suggested.

“There are many signals on the shore. The captain’s right,” Fayana said slowly, putting her index fingers on her temples. “And there’s another one, big, descending on us from above. What is it?”

As soon as she said that, I heard the warning shout of the ship’s seeker—a fishman, a weird tall and fragile creature with translucent eyes. I still didn’t know his—or her—name, as that NPC spent most of their time in the water in front of the ship.

“What?” Thrainul’s face twisted. He immediately turned the steering wheel, sending the vessel into motion, and pulled a lever. Screeching and clanging, the armored plates folded along the broadsides moved up, covering the ship in a hemisphere. The captain had activated the submarine mode that I hadn’t seen yet.

“We’re going to submerge,” he told us curtly. “Birdies, you were saying? Look!”

Through the rapidly closing gap above us, we saw a large white silhouette fly out of the darkness, almost as big as our ship.

It was a moth: most of all, that creature resembled a pale nocturnal insect scaled up a thousand times. It had translucent wings, each the size of an astral ship’s sail, long antennae, a segmented abdomen, and bulging amber lenses of compound eyes. Black curved claws viciously glistened on its six stretched paws. Fear makes mountains out of molehills, but each of them seemed as tall as a human.

Silent and graceful, the monster glided down, almost falling on top of the ship, and we recoiled in horror when its shadow covered us. But the gap between the plated hemispheres grew smaller and smaller until they finally closed, and a blow reverberated through the vessel, making it reel—the moth rammed into the armor. After that, we heard a dreadful screech, like glass cutting steel, and a thin, barely audible, ultrasonic shriek that made us automatically cover our ears.

We were turning around and submerging at the same time, and the emerald-black water of the underground ocean pressed against the thin glass of the portholes. The sounds of blows died down, and so did the shrieking. I peeked at the combat log full of “1 point of damage” lines—the creature’s acoustic attack could harm us even through the armor!

“Did you screenshot it?” Fayana quietly asked her assistant. “This monster’s not in the Almanac. It’s epic and unidentified!”

“I recorded a video. Captain, what monster is this?”

“Whole colonies of such moths live above, among the stalactites under the dome. There are even worse creatures... That’s why nobody flies here on birdies other than around the inhabited lands. They’ll swallow you together with your mount and won’t even notice!”

His words shattered one of my hopes—reaching the Isle of Madness on a winged mount. So flying was out of the question. I would have to find another way, questioning all information sources—thankfully, the ship was full of them.

“We’re bound for the Stone Forest!” the captain announced as the vessel reached the required depth. “You can go ashore there. For now, rest. You can log out—nothing interesting will happen until then. Well, if we don’t stumble into another monster, of course.”

All of us gathered around the front hemisphere, large portholes displaying the Hole’s underwater attractions. The cone of light emitted by the bow projector dispelled the inky darkness, illuminating web-like clumps of black weed and the translucent coils of long fish that seemed closer to tapeworms. At first, those sights seemed exotic, but soon, I grew tired of them and stepped aside to talk to Rocky. The Gravekeeper was wistfully polishing a monstrous jagged harpoon—a projectile for the chain cannon installed astern.

“Hey, Rocky, could you enlighten me about something?”

“You’re a curious one!” the Gravekeeper exclaimed, snickering. “Fine, go ahead. You’ll treat me at the Pirate’s Heaven.”

Half an hour later, I knew a lot about Dagorrath, ranging from the political background to the trade routes of Thrainul’s ship, which, incidentally, was called “the Abyssal.”

It really was a hole, no other way to put it. There were no auctions, no Golden Hamster offices; teleportation magic or connecting pentagrams didn’t work there. You couldn’t summon anything from another world or open an Astral Portal. That’s