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

Komtur: No, we won’t betray ourselves. If you yield once, next time, you’ll break. We’ll learn what our members and allies are worth. In the fire of this war, we’ll either harden or burn down.

Chapter 12

SO WHAT DID IT look like? A frozen castle? A glass crown with hundreds of rays? A cluster of giant crystals reaching out to the sky?

Hundreds of sharp icy spires, as if sculpted out of frosted silver and crystal glass, soared above the waters of the underground ocean. They were shrouded in iridescent light that scintillated all the colors of the rainbow. All of that shone and sparkled like a star that had somehow ended up in the grim black sea.

“The Snow Queen’s castle,” Fayana mumbled, fascinated.

“Umm?”

“A story from my childhood,” she explained, lowering her eyes in embarrassment.

“It does seem more like a clan castle than a natural anomaly,” Bonus agreed. “The towers, the spires, the central building... They seem frozen, covered with a sheet of ice. You can even make out the main arch... What is this place?”

“Nobody knows, but the Crown of Ice hasn’t been here forever—it appeared around a year ago. Just popped up overnight,” the captain explained.

“Can we disembark there and explore it?”

“It’s pointless. See that radiant glow? It’s similar to the domes around castles and outposts, but a hundred times as powerful. You can’t get in.”

“Maybe you just need to try harder?” Fayana asked. “If this place is protected, it must have something really nice.”

“Many thought so, too. They assembled raids and ships,” Thrainul said, nodding. “I wasn’t around then, but I’ve heard enough. You can find a video online. In short, four hundred players and ten ships couldn’t overcome the basic regeneration of the Crown’s shield. I’ve seen the stats somewhere...you’d need unreal damage.”

I looked at the pointed spires looming above. It really did look like a castle frozen centuries ago and covered with ice that hid all of the details, leaving only blurred outlines. It reminded me of the Crystal of Negation that had shrouded the Temple of Shadows but different. Unreal damage, you say? A vague thought stirred deep inside my mind, but I forced it back. I was only passing through; solving local riddles wasn’t my job.

“I don’t believe that you can’t get inside,” Bonus kept on, stubborn. “Direct damage is one thing, but there must be ways of getting through the castle dome.”

“They tried it,” Thrainul said with a reluctant nod. “People capable of that didn’t tell any details, but they failed, too. Something inside immediately one-shots you. The bottom line is, the Crown’s protected. Don’t touch it, just look.”

I wondered if they tried approaching it from the Shadow Plane. Or were such experts a rarity? Just to be sure, I got a look at the frozen mass with my shadow sight...and immediately turned around, almost blinded by the dazzling light! In the Shadow Plane, the icy castle came across as a broken star radiating an unbearably bright glow. Staring at it was impossible, like a high sun, as crimson circles instantly appeared before my eyes. Whoever had created the mysterious structure did a great job protecting it—there was no getting inside through the Shadow Plane, as that place had no shadows to begin with!

Slowly, we sailed around the Crown of Ice, studying it. Whatever it was, it was huge, as big as a real fortress. Its snowy crystalline facets surged from underwater; clean and impeccably smooth, they glittered in the sun. Even the gloom and grime of the Hole didn’t seem to tarnish it.

“Local sea monsters steer clear of these parts,” Thrainul told us. “It’s calm here. You could even take a swim. Would you like to?”

Was he joking? I felt shivers as soon as a looked at the black ever-still water. Seeing our faces, Thrainul burst out in laughter and took another sip from his large flask. He was a real booze-hound; I watched the last case of wine taken from the upper worlds become empty in real-time. It wasn’t a good sign—tickling your nerves with illusionary alcohol usually meant trying to escape problems in both real and virtual life. However, he seemed to be a competent captain, even if he was stubborn like a real zwerg.

“From here, we’ll sail east, to the Sea of Terror,” he informed us. “We’ll get a peek, too. You wanted to see the local monsters, didn’t you? I promised you a hunt—we’ll have a small safari, ha-ha!”

* * *

The light of the Crown of Ice, meticulously documented by the Pioneers from all angles, slowly faded away. We were going east, to the core areas of the Hole and toward the enigmatic Sea of Terror marked as a blank spot on all maps. The Isle of Madness that I needed to reach hid somewhere in its depths. Despite my daily urging and fast-talking, Thrainul stubbornly refused to enter those waters. All I managed to do was to reaffirm his promise to drop me off at Scale, the island that was home to deepwater monster hunters. There, I planned on chartering a ship with a crew or, at least, obtaining more information. Scale was the closest inhabited island to the Sea of Terror, and I hoped that local sailors were better-informed than Thrainul. By his own admission, the zwerg didn’t like that region and only visited it in passing.

The Hole bothered me more and more. Lack of light gave birth to depression. How could they live here, in constant darkness? The auction didn’t work, and neither did the remote contract system. The amenities offered by NPC settlements were limited to lodging at a local inn and a resp circle. There was no entertainment, either. I passed the time dueling with Rocky, who pushed me around the deck while teaching the basics of Esperanza. Gradually,