Shadow Seer (Rogue Merchant Book #3): LitRPG Series by Roman Prokofiev (english reading book TXT) 📗

in the flesh. She was standing in front of us, silently looking through the slits in her silver mask.

“Tell me who you are and how you got the Keys,” she suddenly spoke up. “Preferably the truth; it will save time for all of us.”

“Lena, it’s me, Dmitry Svechkin. Don’t you recognize me? You’ve seen my Key, and here’s the Compass!” He demonstrated the star metal device to her.

“Dmitry? Sorry, but I find it hard to believe!” the specter replied. “By your logic, the owner of the second Key is Maxim, and this man isn’t him—I would have recognized him in any avatar! It’s a player. How could a player get his hands on a Key? HotCat? Oh my God, what a stupid nickname!”

“Wait, I’ll try to explain everything...”

“And if he isn’t Rubtsov, then you must be fake as well. Maybe a subpersonality sent into the Stronghold to get my Key or—”

“Lena, open the Net; you must have the ability to do that! Look at the date! Read about Sphere! Look at our website—”

“Let me give you a small test first,” Romanova replied calmly. “If you’re really Dmitry Svechkin, you won’t have a problem. Then we’ll talk.”

“Fine.”

“What’s the password to the database on the office server?”

“The new one or the old one?” Svechkin asked. “The old one is ‘get to work,’ no spaces, every second letter capitalized. I don’t remember the new one.”

“What a funny coincidence, it was installed after the scandal with Balabanov. What car does your ex-wife drive?”

“Irina? Red Volvo. Should I tell you the license plate?”

“All right. Then I’ll ask you a tougher question. Only the real Svechkin could know the answer. What color were the mnemonic crystals in the first version of the procedural generator? Blue or green?”

“Crystals?” the Gravekeeper repeated, confused. “What crystals? Are you trying to mess with me? There were no crystals at all!”

“True, there weren’t,” the First Maiden’s specter said, chuckling. “Well then, congratulations. You’ve passed the test. Nice to see you, Dmitry. And now, tell me—who is this man, and why does he have Rubtsov’s Key? Where are the others?”

“The situation’s bad. I’ll send you the information, take a look. Andrei started his play. We’re most likely dead in the real world. The Seven Brothers weren’t started properly, but he’s opened dynamic access to the Keys and is trying to gather them. That’s how this guy got Max’s sword. Thankfully, he decided to help us and not the Magister—”

“Stop!” I interrupted him. That wasn’t his choice to make.

“I haven’t decided anything yet. I got the sword by accident, and I never planned on getting involved in this mess. For my help in breaking into the Crown, I was promised a reward, not custody.”

“A reward...” the First Maiden let out a nasty smirk. “Who promised it, I wonder?”

“I did,” Svechkin said, stepping forward. “I couldn’t get here alone to wake you up. Lena, we need to talk. You don’t see the big picture. We’re in deep shit, and we need to get out.”

Romanova’s specter disappeared, and for a few seconds, we were left in complete darkness. Then light poured into the room, revealing a rectangular exit. It seemed we were invited to leave.

* * *

“I guess carrying it wasn’t hard at all,” the First Maiden said after a tense silence. For the previous half-hour, Svechkin had been telling her about the current situation while I sat next to him and absorbed the information. Maybe one day, I would need the particulars of the relationship between the developers. From the Gravekeeper’s story, I concluded one simple thing: they didn’t really trust each other.

“The coffin. We were buried in empty coffins. You know, I never really believed in the afterlife.” A sad chuckle came from beneath her silver mask. “That’s why it feels so funny watching your own funeral. Nobody took over the inheritance yet, but everything will go to my sister. Have you checked up on your family?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” the Gravekeeper replied, sullen. “And what does it matter, anyway? We’re locked here now. Even if our ‘digitalization’ becomes public, it won’t give us any rights or change anything.”

“Yes, I agree. But what a son of a bitch!” Romanova sprang up and started anxiously pacing about her chambers. “How dare he do that!”

In a fit of rage, she pulled off her winged mask, and it tinkled as it fell on the floor. The air trembled around the delicate figure of the First Maiden as a powerful aura of unrestrained menace reverberated throughout the air. I had felt something like that in Temples and when facing Ananizarte and Tormis. Romanova’s avatar was clearly anything but simple.

“Rouse the Stronghold, jump to Dorsa, and take down his lair for good!” she yelled. “How about that, huh?”

“What will it solve?” Svechkin asked sadly. “Other than give us satisfaction, it will only disadvantage us, attracting the attention of the new administration and revealing our hand. We need to gather all of the Keys. Where’s yours, by the way?”

“Here, in the Stronghold. It’s safe. Gather all of us, you say? I guess even with five Keys, we could dictate our terms. Let’s use this plan as the basis. We have the Compass, so finding the Keys won’t be a problem. I propose we wake up Rubtsov next.”

“It figures,” the Gravekeeper chuckled. “Actually, one problem’s sitting right in front of you.”

He nodded at me.

“Cat. The Magister has him by the short hairs, even in real life. We need to figure something out, or helping us will prove costly for him.”

“The easiest is to unbind the key and return it to its real owner,” Lena said. “That would be the most efficient solution.”

I gave her a wry smile. It might be the best option for them, but for me, it was deadly. I