Готовый перевод Его не звали, но он приперся / They never called, yet he is here: Глава 13

Chapter 13

Walking through the breadcrumbs of the hapless hunter's half-forgotten memories was strange and difficult. Not because of the severity of the route, but because of trying to reconcile what Glacio remembered of his adventures with the reality of the situation. Torrid and long, despite all my characteristics and titles. Well, someone had to do it anyway, right?

I had walked or rather flew, the way to Whitewater almost entirely in shadow form. After that joyous - don't miss the quotation marks - the moment when being in the Shadow stopped taking energy and even started regenerating it, this was the fastest and most profitable way to travel. There were side effects, but they could be dealt with, and the Price of Humanity helped in that regard. By the time my ghost flew into the wooded vaults of the Nothern Woods, I felt a gut-wrenching chill and nothing else. The almost completely extinguished emotions, yes, aided by the cold claws of the contracts that clawed at my heart, provided a delightful bouquet of feelings.

I had to get back to reality, settle under a nearby tree, and have a smoke break - it was a simple snack, plus a jug of cider I had smartly brought, which was like compote for me, that served as a good antidepressant, making me feel good about life and rise my mood again. The leftovers of my lunch had to be thrown directly into The Shadow, for to leave such evidence literally within walking distance of an enemy would have been a very short-sighted, if not foolish, decision.

The way forward was a little slower, as I regularly interrupted my steps, exiting the real world and moving in the usual stealth mode. So far I hadn't encountered anyone or anything except a few deer and a couple of wolves, but I hadn't reached the necessary route, so there was nothing for me to look for, nothing to do.

When I reached the rock from which the young hunter had fallen into the water, I walked simply and uncomplicated along the stream, trying to move as quickly as possible, but also as stealthily as possible. Even Glacio himself had no idea of the amount of time he'd spent clinging to the log and praying to the gods that he wouldn't get crushed at the next rapids, and his perception of time was rather confused.

Judging from the fact that it took me almost a quarter of a day to get there, and given my speed, it took him a very long time to get there. And no, I didn't see the mysterious fortress, as you might expect. I began to encounter alarms and traps. More alarms, to be honest - typical magical nets and strings blocking the standard trails and passages between trees. Not too dense, but inconspicuous enough to catch even a professional.

Sphere sensed these traps very vaguely, and so did my sense of danger - the structure was similar to what I'd already seen in some of the traps used in the ancient necropolis I'd climbed into at the beginning of my adventures. Back then I hadn't sensed it at all until I'd stepped in and almost died, but now it was different. It was either the traps were weaker, or I'd grown too much in skill, but I didn't even need my Gaze to notice the signal threads.

I could feel the energy in them, which was reminiscent of nature, but with a bit of earth in it. It was like the warm roots of a plant that had been torn out of the ground - an unpleasant scale, especially to my shadow senses. I'd wager gold on the fact that some druid, in conjunction with someone else, had made them. The other one was supposed to make those alarms invisible in the premonition skills, but there's no sure. Maybe there was one person with two rare classes, not two. It doesn't matter.

It was easy to get around obstacles - I flew around them in shadow form, slowly approaching my goal. I spotted the men sitting at the campsite and moving along the pre-built and equipped "tree paths" fairly quickly, despite their good stealth scores of all of them. And yes, Hans wasn't lying about the fact that these peppers know how to hold their positions, for they had indeed turned the forest into a three-dimensional maze of traps, tricky trails, natural (or seemingly so) obstacles, and rope roads running through the towering tree crowns. Here you do not have to storm, you have to really pour fire over the whole area to ensure that it is possible to expel the ambushed huntsmen.

The death lane, lovingly created by the enemy, was not particularly wide. The first kilometer went to the detection zone, where there was nothing but alarms. Although a couple of routes for a quick evasion of possible saboteurs were found, but it was more of reassurance in case of a meeting with those who liked to hunt game in these places, not to unload expensive traps on them, simply and unpretentious to shoot from a distance. Then there were another two hundred meters of terrain, dotted with lie-ins and ambush positions, and the final boundary was the zone of death.

That's where the real perversion was! Remotely activated magic traps, lots of physical traps, some druidic crap that made every bush turn into a disguised monster. You could really take down an entire army here, especially with the incompetent command of the attackers and the proper use of trump cards by the defenders. All these preparations subtly reminded me of the scanning psychic field over Whitewater - a sense of a conscientiously made and regularly updated billet, that no one believes that they will have to use. This is entire to my advantage, of course.

The enemy's life force was measured in five fives - pun intended, however - of those same rangers, which is quite a lot, considering their levels, equipment, training, and the defenses they were wrapped up in. Naturally, I had to walk in circles around the defended area several times, trying to figure out all the huntsmen, which was only made more difficult by their camouflage, concealing artifacts, and the constant flicker of patrolling.

I had to go right inside the death zone and use their "air paths. Because walking on the ground would have been problematic even for me - there really was nowhere to step. And even on those trails, there were alarms! They were of a different nature, selective, but no less cunning. Not signal strings, but rather full-fledged, barely discernible cobwebs, or even closed fields that would immediately raise an alarm if someone who wasn't wearing an amulet passed hit them. It might have been a problem if I didn't master the shadow step and could not fly while in shadow form. There was the thought of stealing someone's shadow by dragging the signal of the loser amulet onto myself, but that too was a dead end, unless I eliminated the donor itself - whatever the central control circuit was, it was advanced enough to spot two identical signatures and raise an alarm.

Probably some cunning artifact, or even a contract spirit of unknown nature, but the efficiency was excellent. A couple of times I almost hit the signal strings with my ghostly form - not all spells were advanced enough to notice me when I was in another realm, but there were some. Mostly due to the extremely strong and subtle effects, these spells became too real, touching the upper limits of the other realms. You couldn't exactly call this kind of thing unnoticeable, but their purpose was solely to snare those who liked to pass through trouble by escaping from the real world.

What was missing was individual preparations against each realm but that's a fantasy. At the same time fantastic paranoia and equally fabulous douchebaggery. Creating an individual comprehensive defense against travelers through every known plan, or at least through the most popular ones, is a job of titanic proportions. King Melareth's private chambers are hardly so protected, though I can't vouch for that, alas.

What was much funnier was another detail, which I could not notice on the spot. Look, gentlemen, we have almost two kilometers of obstacle course, covering a certain territory, and in the center of this defense circle is an area that is barely a kilometer in diameter. Attention, connoisseurs, a question: where in this corner did a huge rock fit, in which a full-fledged fortress was hollowed out?

The observation that followed was torture - I could neither be seen nor caught unless I was distracted and fell into some trap through sheer inattention, which I carefully avoided. The rangers continued their seemingly chaotic movements, getting on my nerves and patrolling the territory entrusted to them. Three times the cursed evil castle remained undiscovered as if it weren't even here.

Had Glacio caught a colorful hallucination provoked by danger, a huge amount of adrenaline in his blood, and hypothermia from being in cold water?

I found the wrong place, and somewhere near there is another protected area, where the fortress was located, and this hellish place was some kind of spare barn?

Is the fortress, in fact, much smaller than the size that Glacio imagined for the reason described in the very first assumption?

Or is the damn shithouse hidden so well that I do not notice it despite all my characteristics, skills, and titles?

I would have to find out for myself, for it would be foolish and useless to leave here with the least amount of information. I had originally intended this raid to be long and arduous. And I certainly did not expect all the problems to be solved in the blink of an eye. The times when I was confronted by all sorts of weaklings are over, and now I have to work against tough pros who compensate for the lack of personal power with teamwork, material support, and sheer numerical superiority.

It was really hard to get into the deepest part of the guarded area, and the last dozen meters were literally a solid wall of scanning and protective magic, followed by... emptiness. The same kilometer of free space inside the protected circle was a typical forest, albeit rather overworked with rocks and driftwood. Even a couple of bonfires and traces from picnics were visible - probably jaegers were resting here. Absolutely quiet place, which is banal and there is nothing to protect, because there is nothing to be. And around it stands a barrier of such power that it cannot be broken by an army battalion.

Suspicious.

I'm going to take a closer look at the last lines of this protective perimeter, just in case. I wondered if there might be some clue to my silent clairvoyance, or if it might be of some other use. My out-of-existence hides my essence from other people's knowledge in passive mode, but I can't pick up anything with my third eye, either.

I found them nearly half an hour later, my whole body pressed into the cold earth, where the last rays of the setting sun were falling. The things were there, nearly a dozen meters deep, so securely hidden beneath the earth, the stone, and the charms that even I couldn't see them at once, even with the Sphere.

They were... poles.

The stone pillars were about a meter in diameter and almost five meters long, going down vertically, as if they were lined up to the ruler, forming a perfectly shaped circle, inside which was an empty space. I felt uncomfortable in that place, shivering. It made me want to crawl back under the veil of enemy spells, instead of being here, right in the middle of some incomprehensible magical thing of unknown purpose.

That's exactly what I did. I dove into The Shadow again, and then a little deeper, deeper than the signal spells would reach. The world, already dim and monochromatic, began to rapidly lose detail until only the outlines of the largest and most visible rocks remained of reality. All other material objects were replaced by the dense blackness and grayness of the Shadow, greedily stretching its paws toward me. Even though I was now a Shadow myself, this only took away some of the impacts of this place, leaving the broadest set of unpleasant sensations intact.

I fall into reality in a small den set up as a short resting place for some patrolman. There are no alarms unless you count the one hanging in the passageway, so I can rest for thirty seconds before continuing my work. Still, my second step into deeper layers in the last hour was overkill, simply by not being used to this kind of exertion. A few training uses didn't do much to curb the new facet of my abilities - being in the Shadow, at its uppermost edge, is almost normal for me, then the depths are as difficult as they are scary.

Okey.

Let's continue our mission.

I got it, not right away, but I got it! They might call me a Slowpoke, recognizing him as my totem animal, but in my defense, this was the first time I had encountered such a thing, and it was so well camouflaged. Or rather, not exactly disguised, though such an outcome was probably foreseen, too. It's just that in all the hullabaloo of alarms and active traps that were set in this place, I did not immediately notice such strange and qualitatively concealed elements.

In fact, until they were activated, I couldn't tell them apart. Rather I didn't distinguish them from the dozens of similar magical formations that clogged my senses. At that moment in time, I was lying in another lie-down, trying to remember to keep track of the patrolmen so that they wouldn't step on me if anything happened. I almost jumped up and down when, about fifty yards to the left and below, new reinforcements began to appear.

At first I thought I'd been spotted and would have to run away, but I quickly realized that that was not the case - it was just a new shift coming in. They came out of nowhere, bitches! They appeared out of a peculiar haze, a barely discernible movement of air, as if in heat, which formed a strange doorway into... to nowhere. The sphere showed this place, conducting in the brain the association with the sea of glass shards and blades, constantly changing shape and capable of cutting into pieces if you stick your hand there. And still the same sphere discerned the space beyond the gate... that was both here and not here at the same time. It was no more than twenty meters deep, but it did, giving me a headache from trying to understand what was happening and to integrate it into my picture of the world.

While I was recovering from my surprise, the newcomers exchanged information with the old shift, exchanged a couple of jokes, and then the latter also dissolved in the same arch of a strange portal, disappearing from my perception, and I began to understand a little of what was going on.

Observation one: the arch appeared directly over the Southern edge of the circle created from enchanted subterranean pillars.

Observation two: the arch did not disappear completely, and now I could distinguish it normally, even if it was difficult to do so because of the constant background noise.

Observation three: if I look closely and recall my sensations during the reconnaissance, I saw six or seven other similar places where the space itself seemed to ring with the sound of broken glass.

The last observation: these fuckers turned out to be fucking cunning motherfuckers who didn't play around with all the little things, but instead simply shoved the entire rock, the fortress in it, and all the adjacent territories into a three-fucking-all space fold.

And now I have to somehow get in there and figure out a way to get them out of there.

Well, it's just awesome!

Trying to enter the portal archway deep into the fold without an identification key and without knowing what was waiting for me on the other side was pure suicide, especially in the face of the blind spots in my clairvoyance. I don't know what would be more dangerous - to be Kostik shredded into many pieces when the portal didn't work correctly (or correctly, as it should with trespassers), or to walk through it and be locked up with all the bastards there, and all the defenses?

Instead of making stupid decisions that I would later regret, I went outside the protected area. Then I went farther away and finally sat down for lunch because almost a day and a half without eating had not the most pleasant effect on my body. This time I did not leave any picnic and even tried not to produce any smell, but just ate some dry food and went to bed. I wouldn't say that I needed sleep, but it wouldn't hurt to send a message before my allies started an operation to rescue me.

I was able to communicate without too much trouble, since it was nighttime, which made everyone sleepy. After a few minutes of effort, and then I created a shared dream for all of us, even Ygra. The latter was so excited about our company that she tried to have a session of friendly hugs and poking my face into her green boobs, which delayed the meeting for what seemed like an eternity and a half while we tried to make her understand the importance of the situation and make her realize that this was not the time for games. She understood us by about the second minute, though, not bothering to stop the merry game of tag-team. If it hadn't been my dream, I wouldn't have been able to stop her, but I just didn't want to. Let her nakedly troll the trio of my companions, especially those of them who thought I was an ogrefucker. Taria didn't mind, though, vindictively twisting and biting her nipples in retaliation for trying to smother her with boobs.

Well yeah, I'm a kind of a troll.

No, I'm not ashamed.

After all of us (including my projection) were nearly strangled three times each in the gorgeous cleavage of the green giantess, I did take control of the dream and called a meeting for the second round. The first question, spoken even before the meeting itself began, was posed by an affectionately smiling Losius:

"You could have stopped this circus right away, couldn't you, Tin?"

"Yes?" Looking at the honest and lucid expression of the rumpled aristocrat, I experienced an attack of mild uncertainty about the situation and my future health. "All right, Losius, let us not be distracted from the course of the meeting. Put the rapier down! Put it down! Stop pumping my Dream with Sky power, and stop throwing things at me, I said, stop it! Hans, what are you waiting for, help me calm him down! Hans, why do you need a sword? Hans, for fuck's sake! Taria, put the sledgehammer down! Where the hell did you get that? Ygra, let go of me! These aren't games, they're gonna hit me! Stop hitting me in the simhvsmhrp!!!"

The third round of the meeting began about two more hours later. I recreated the puppet of my brutally battered body eight times. The last time, when Taria created some kind of cudgel on bare willpower that looked suspiciously like a FLÜGGÅꝮNKծ€ČHIŒβØLʃÊN, I was almost frightened, even though it was a dream. My dream, by the way!

The first question I was asked by the guys, who were a little tired of catching and beating me (even Ygra participated, although she sincerely thought that throwing me up with all her might, and then catching me at the ground, was such entertainment), was voiced by Taria:

"Look, it's your dream. You said you could create and change things as you saw fit, didn't you?" In response to my tentative nod, she finished the thought. "So you could stop this circus again at any time?"

"Yes?" I answer even more cautiously, anticipating in advance some kind of trouble with my ass. "All right, put the weapon down! Why do you need an iron maiden? Where did you get the rack? Stop pushing me! I sa..."

The fourth round of the meeting ended with me literally putting into the heads of everyone present (except Ygra) the information I had received, giving the directive to wait until I returned from reconnaissance. Ygra received a set of orders that would lead her away from a possible attack by the same huntsmen, who, sitting on the forest fortress they had equipped, would nail her and not notice her.

Somehow my role as chairman of the council of the world conquest didn't work out.

I guess it's just that I didn't have the right costume.

I have heard of a great sage who had brilliant ideas only when he was on the white throne. In my case, apparently, the factor stimulating ingenuity and intellectual activity was the successful trolling of comrades-in-arms, for I did remember something. Watch your hands closely: if this fortress is all impregnable and in a spatial fold, how the hell did a low-level noob Glacio get into the enclosed space?

He swam there.

So I'll have to swim, but first I have to consider all the risk factors properly, and just wait a little bit before throwing myself into battle.

After another half-day of wakefulness, I could say with certainty that the whole trick was the flowing water. It was also the fact that the creators of this fold had shot for too steep a piece, even managing to bite it off and chew it up, but getting a couple of minor flaws. They probably wanted to create two portal arches completely replicating the riverbed to get an unlimited source of water for the fortress. Or they could not build the fortress in another place, and the damn river was running through here, so they had to work with what they had.

I am a complete amateur in magic, but even I know that it is impossible to maintain a full pocket dimension for years without a continuous source of energy, like a natural vein, or a source of magic, although I have not heard of them in Alurea. I think Kasia said something about that while visiting the Asteriums, only there weren't sources of magic, but gaps to other Realms. The important thing is that the flowing water strains the signal networks of the fortress, causing them to malfunction and blur at times.

That's how Glacio was saved, in his case. Once in the portal arch, he floated past in that brief moment when the signal strings and nets were once again destabilized, and the arch itself could not stay in "atomize the intruder" mode all the time because of the same fish, snags, and other debris that were causing the false alarms. The specialized signal nets for water territories could help, but at that moment they, most likely, were out of order. Then they were repaired, but on that ill-fated day one youngster was lucky, and the jaegers, who had just caught the intruders, were busy and missed the "saboteur". Letting him swim out through the opposite archway.

This means two things.

The guy is not just lucky, but literally a lover of Fortune.

It would be more difficult for me than for him because the route is already blocked, even if not as reliable as the land approaches. But the protection I already have will give me trouble, especially since I can't see it through the archway - the sphere is malfunctioning, the Gaze doesn't show anything, and I have no other way to retrieve information. Not even a contracted Shadow to send - I'm not sure how a portal would react to such magical interference. It will let the fish and half-dead hunters through, but if the signals get hit by a lump of shadow energy, I might not like the result.

The long and torturous attempts to look at the area behind the archway did lead to a certain result: I understood the principle of the signal fields that scan the water surface. If it had been a full-fledged closed field, evenly covering the entire territory of the fold, it would have been much sadder. Fortunately, installing such a powerful defense is very hard to dock with a constant and uninterrupted flow. Roughly speaking, such a dense field would simply be washed away by the flow of liquid.

The structure used by the fortress inhabitants, however, was not much simpler - an extremely fine and dense net of magical threads, combining both life and water as the main elements, was just at the border where a little more dense and it would just wash the fuck away. Instead, the net blocked off a stretch of river with many screens, preventing even the smallest fish from slipping through unnoticed. I can't be sure without clairvoyance, but I'm guessing there's another artifact that's there as a think tank that determines where the fish are and where to sound the alarm.

How am I supposed to get in?

I almost changed my mind at the last moment, I was too afraid to dive into the depths of the arch, but if I started, I had to finish it, otherwise what the hell was all that dancing for? It was with these thoughts that I consoled myself, and at the same time, I wondered whether these words would be written on my grave or I would not have one at all.

A log floated through the rift in space. An ordinary wooden log, well-watered, as wooden logs floating on the water, are when the wind and thunderstorms blow them down and carry them away in an unknown direction. Of course, the shoreline in front of the entrance to the fold had been adjusted (but so that no traces of influence could be seen), so that such river wanderers were thrown by the current onto the shore beforehand, without littering the narrow passage, but there were exceptions. The same Glacio could attest to this if he tired of life. And yet it was a log - the most ordinary log floating down the river.

It looked like a log even under the most curious and attentive eye.

It was marked as a log on the scanning fields.

Even to the touch it was a plain (and wooden) log.

It's a great technique, stealing shadows, great as it is! Because without it, I wouldn't have risked a situation like this, leaving the idea of infiltration for later. I not only pulled the shadow of an ordinary log into which I was now pressed with all my body but also took on all its characteristics, even those that could only be perceived in a magical way. It took a lot of concentration, but it wasn't much of a strain-it was exactly what my class ability was designed to do.

The moment I floated through the portal, I was almost afraid: the sensation of the sharp shards of reality tickling every part of your body even from the inside, the realization that at any moment you could just be blown away in chunks of bloody mincemeat. And the ear-splitting rustle of bottle glass being crushed by boots was enough to cause a brief panic attack in even the bravest of people, much less me.

Next came more pleasant news, among which was the realization that no one is alien to the desire to save money. So, too, the creators of the scanners did not waste unnecessary resources, concentrating most of the filter screens near both edges of the pocket dimension, where the water flows into the fold and where it flows out of it. Quite a sensible choice, but they thus missed my appearance, which doesn't upset me one bit. If the whole stretch of river in this strange place were as tightly controlled as the entrance and exit, I'd just have to swim past, admiring the stone mass I'd already seen in Glacio's dreams, and then find a new way to get in.

It turned out to be a lot easier this way. I stepped sharply into the shadows, sending the log to continue on its arduous journey to the sea, and myself up into the air in a ghostly form to assess the further front of the work. And then, inaudibly, because I was in the Shadow, but very subtly, I swore at the world, the admins, the summoners, the System, the Jews, the royal wizards, the spatial specialists, and all their kin up to the sixth tribe.

Did I complain about these guys' paranoia when I examined the outer layers of this place's defense and scanning systems? Did I complain about the excessive difficulty in dealing with such forces? Well, forget I fucking said that for all the paranoid pranks of the outer perimeter were fairy tale bullsh*t compared to the horror that had already been put on inside the perimeter of the spatial fold.

I looked with a Gaze at the rock and the fortress carved into it, and I could barely keep my eyes from closing. The fortress glowed, literally glowing in dozens of shades of different colors, merging into a single spot in which I could barely distinguish the individual elements. The rock, too, glittered, albeit in a much smaller volume, serving as both a conductor and a reservoir of energy.

Along with the beats of my heart, the realization that the rock itself serves as a monolith and obelisk, a kind of pipe through which energy enters the castle, and at its expense drinks the power of all the wealth that opened before my eyes, was hammered into my head. If I understand anything at all, there was a breakthrough to some other plane through which its power flowed into reality. Already inside the rock itself, in the heart of the fortress built, there was something that allowed this energy to be recycled into relatively neutral energy, allowing it to power traps, barriers, alarms, and the spatial machinery itself.

Trying to figure out what forces were involved in this place made me feel a little sick. I could try to create something of a similar scale but in my mind, it would be "make a big bang" or "make a huge f*cking mess. Whereas here, real masters of creation were clearly at work, and perfectly able to complement each other. This place was old, really old. If protection and alarms were set up many decades ago, but the fold itself, the system of portal breaks, the fortress, and the device that converts foreign energy into neutral ... that's really something ancient. So ancient that the very fact of its presence, the very awareness of its antiquity, broke through all the anti-prophetic blockades, giving food to my clairvoyance.

Suddenly, yeah.

Six external dome-type barriers served as the main defense circuit. And the shell that covered the Slavecatchers' camp didn't even stand beside them. Six armor shells shone with otherworldly power to shield the fortress from any possible attack. This armor was not only powerful, but it was also selective - nothing but what has the right to pass through, and crystal-clear air, would pass through. All humans, as well as any inanimate cargo, must have a magical mark and seal on them, or they will be paralyzed at best, but far more likely just shredded into a bloody pulp.

The valley itself was not at all large - a mile and a half in radius, completely covered by my sphere, if I sat in the very center. Ah yes, the sphere! Everything outside the fold felt very strange, convincing me that this whole piece of reality had been tossed somewhere else.

The place was full of a kind of thick fog, in which there was not a single shadow, and the very fabric of reality evoked the association of a lurking beast. The beast was lazy, huge, relaxed, and well-fed, but once you enter this fog, you lose sight of your bearings, and there is no way to get out, unless you force your way through, or are part of the place yourself.

Mist.

This definition was imbedded in my brain with both clairvoyance and something else, as if The Shadow and the Dream had helped me to recognize and understand their enemy. The very presence of a place and phenomenon foreign to me did not evoke the same savage hatred and disgust as the black stuff from the Kraj, but the same feeling of a lurking beast watching you closely was still there.

I definitely didn't like it here. I had reasonable doubts about the normality of the guys living here permanently. Or, on the contrary, I panic because of my too sad experience with other realms. I had a lot of experience with other plans, while these bastards, clearly not the first year based here, on the contrary, were well convinced of the safety of this place.

In addition to the castle, there was a small forest, enclosing the outbuildings from the wall of mist that hid the "edge of the world," a piece of the river that I had come here and hoped to leave by, and, in fact, the buildings I had mentioned, the warehouses and training grounds. There are no supply barns or barracks outside the fortress, apparently, in case anyone decides to besiege the place. There was not much activity outside the defense structure: apparently, the inhabitants of the fortress were afraid of this strange mist.

The protection and number of alarms outside the fortress was comparable to the "death zone" of the outer defense area. Many, very many. But they were obviously checked and updated much less frequently. In principle, in the absence of regular patrols, you could have a good rest here, if it were not for the constant and very intrusive influence of the clairvoyance field - the same as the one that covered the Whitewater, only more concentrated, dense and dangerous. It was not difficult to feed it a lie, especially if you were not planning any sabotage that might disturb my opponent, but it was still uncomfortable to go to sleep here. And it is necessary, at least, to check how this place is protected from Dream.

Protected.

This is the first time I've seen such protection, but it's really protected from all sorts of sleepwalkers. That's where the bad news ends and the good news begins. First of all, the protection itself is as old as it is clumsy, obviously hasn't been updated in a very long time, and generally sucks. Even now I can try to break in and enter someone's dream. I'm not sure about influencing those very dreams, but I can enter and spy on them, as well as make the least impact. It's not safe, but if I'm careful, it's tolerable, especially if I don't try to use the Soaring in the Dream the scanners can react to - it's still energy straight from another plane, even if it's extremely difficult to detect with normal methods. These guys might have an unusual one, I'm sure of it as myself.

I didn't want to take any risks, but I was well aware that risks were acceptable now. So I had to, figuratively speaking, get my ass up and get to work. The protection against dream walkers was created by an artifact, but not by another dream walker. It suffered from two fatal flaws: static and immobility. It was as if someone had installed a black iron cage in the Dream, the bars of which were energized. An ordinary dream walker like me, at the first points of my skills, could not overcome such a barrier - they would not see it, and if they received an electric charge, they would either suffer unpleasant injuries or die.

I have reached the level where the projection of me asleep can freely navigate in a dream, distinguishing not only between individual dreams, but also between the dreams, their relation to the real location and, most importantly, between the extraneous elements that should not be in the Dreams. I even noticed some strange creatures, like those nightmares, a couple of times, but I did not approach them, and they prudently did not want to come near me.

It was surprisingly easy to squeeze past the bars, feeling the power hidden in them, primitive but no less deadly. It was even easier than I'd first thought. It was this simplicity that made me wary, allowing me not to miss the second trap, hidden behind the first, which was precisely designed for those smartasses. Such paranoiacs! I can't even get mad, they're so beautiful and skillful at it! I'm a goddamn Hero, trained in stealth and information extraction, but I have to dance around them like a mongrel around a bull, fearing a hoof to the forehead.

The second layer looked like a fisherman's net, whose job was both to signal an attempt to influence and to confuse, restrain, detain, and prevent the sleepwalker from retreating until the third layer of defense arrived. The final argument was an old and seasoned nightmare, superior even to the one I'd exhaled from the mind of that little f*cker I'd met in Ostmark. It was superior in the sense that the creature had clearly been planted here by a skilled dream walker, and the net had been created by him, too. I could try to do something like that if I thought about it, but I'm not sure what the result would be.

The Nightmare, if my senses were to be believed, was tightly bound by contract, after which its only role was to gobble up visiting brethren or dreamwalkers caught in its net, of which, of course, there were very few, if any. In theory, I could risk a dialogue, but I wouldn't be so sure of its ability to negotiate, nor of my own ability to intercept the contract that bound the creature.

Again, in theory, I could have left the owl alone, for he relied almost entirely on the woven web that had long been part of his own senses. But if the risk of trying to use dream walking was still acceptable, then using it while within walking distance of such a dangerous creature... that was a different matter.

What I did not doubt was that no one else could have blocked Dream with anything. For at least something I would have noticed, which meant that, apart from these three layers of defense, there was nothing here. A most opportune moment to take control of this field into my own hands, if I was sure I could pull it off unnoticed. The grid is a clear manifestation of an artifact that I can't do anything about, but at the same time, it's not dangerous to me, if I don't pry myself.

But the net and the creature tied to it. A creature that has become part of it, is more difficult. I can kill a nightmare, especially if you consider its "blindness" (clearly inherent, so as not to escape from the service) and the inability to navigate in Dream other than by touching its nets. I'll do him, and I won't even try hard enough. But his death would have to shake the binding artifact - somehow it would have to report trespassers. And if this amulet, artifact, or even the growth mirror, transmitting a direct picture, suddenly crumbles, or cracks, or something else, then even a complete idiot would suspect something.

I would be suspicious.

What can I do in this situation? I can do a lot of things, especially with the second rank. For example, I can kill the creature, and then use the Soaring and Weaving to make it into a fake that can say "all is well, fair marchioness" while I'm busy dissecting the brains of the castle's inhabitants. In principle, I can try, even with a good chance of success, especially if I finish the battle in one, at most, few blows.

Does this option workable?

I think so.

So work, Kostik, work - the sun is still high.

The battles in Dream are unlike anything else I've encountered before. It does not combat in the literal sense of the word, because I don't even have a body! You don't strike your enemy with claws and lightning, you don't strike him with blades and spells, but you impose your will on the Dream. And your will is that your enemy no longer exists. The rest - the form and manifestation of that will - is purely secondary, as are any wounds inflicted or received by your projection.

I, the projection, was wading through a multitude of nets, dangling motionless in the shaky reality of the Dream. I didn't need to go around the web, because I could simply wish, and the projection of my will simply became a thin thread, flowing through the cells without disturbing them. With each beat of my heart, asleep in the real world, I got closer and closer to my goal.

Hovering over (or under, or left, or right) my opponent, I incarnate my attack, taking the Dream under my power. My strike is a distortion in the wreckage of thousands of dreams, the purest and most concentrated lust for murder, forcing the projection of the nightmare, its reflection in a chorus of broken mirrors, to scatter in debris.

My blow tears at its essence like a fisherman's knife tearing open the belly of a beached fish, and I see its essence spilling out in lilac streams, becoming one with the endless expanse of Dream that spawned it. Without waiting for it to shout out a signal to attack, my will literally cuts the cord that connects it to the coordinator amulet. It is, in fact, an ordinary growth mirror, only qualitatively enchanted into a fortress and creating a force shield over the surface, so that something, dare it to climb out of there, cannot overcome such a barrier.

There was so little time that you could say there was no time at all. I should have reacted before I'd even struck, but the chances of success were still high. When I was straight in the Dream Soaring activated surprisingly easily and quickly, as if I'd been doing it all my life, as if it had become as natural skill as breathing.

I, the projection, turn around its axis, and the reflections of my thoughts and desires turn around with me. A parade of mirrors, a dance of half-forgotten dreams in the shards of broken stained-glass windows, created by my will, comes into action.

Dream...

...Reality...

...Reflection...

...Basis...

I am the projection grows dozens of limbs, each with a spiraling ribbon of pure Fream. Dozens of eyes have opened on my body, each of which is a small mirror that provides the basis for a circle of distortions. The ribbons become threads, the reflections become scalpels, clamps, and needles, and I myself, the projection, concentrate entirely on my power, my Basis, leaving to myself only a tiny section of consciousness. Where the understanding, given at a high price, the Price of Humanity, has settled, I still remain myself, holding firmly to my essence, not allowing it to change and distort into incalculable mirages.

I am a weaver.

Defeated by me is a fabric.

A will is a needle.

My will, the will of the Master, was stronger, and it changes, reflects someone else's Basis in my mirror, making it different, pleasing only to me. The projection's limbs pick up the broken link to the amulet, which has not even had time to signal the death of the creature bound to it. The channel is stitched, restored, altered, and put to my service.

The unbearably brief moment of infinity, and the Dream comes into motion again, and in the center, in the very essence of the cadaver I have created, another will flares up, giving life to its Basis. The new nightmare is even stronger than the fallen one, more dangerous and evil. His nets are no longer just signaling tools, but a multifaceted weapon and his directives have been replaced by new ones given by me.

I admire my masterpiece for a second, and then the part of me that is still clinging to reality pulls my projection back into reality, causing me to bite my tongue with a savage pain throughout my body. The agony lasts for a few heartbeats that seem like three and a half eternities, and then I reassemble myself from the shards, only to realize that I almost ended my existence as a sentient human again because of some bullshit and my stupidity.

A notice flashes in my Status, which I glance over with a lazy glance, almost without reading what's written there. I don't have time for that right now, gentlemen.

Weaving Dreams: 3/7

Allows you to create incredibly complex and multidimensional structures in the dream world; with the application of force, allows you to generate animated Dreams within your woven dreams; allows you to give the Dream spawn a will; allows you, at a high cost, to subjugate weak Dream spawns to your will by giving them a limited list of orders; allows you to change the essence and basis of the Dream inhabitants you meet at your discretion, though within very limited limits.

Somehow I think that the phrase "fuck it why" might soon be considered my official motto, summarizing all my attitudes toward the world and its inhabitants.

I don't even know why?

Authors note:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UBSmZTVZhuDV7fnLJUMS3axbh19CY_eU/view?usp=sharing - Kostya and spatial anomalies.

Crit only one, on the power and amount of defense that hangs over the fortress.

Also 97 to work with Dreams, so get a new bonus.

And there was a lot of dice in general, but some of them may be spoilers in light of the next chapter.

Also, Kostiq almost got an epic title (+5 and +5), but he lacked the smallest thing. In the next chapter, he'll probably get it if he doesn't go from stealth to meat-guts-grinder.

Twelve pages, came out pretty good.

Внимание! Этот перевод, возможно, ещё не готов.
Его статус: идёт перевод

Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/80370/534955

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP