Его не звали, но он приперся / They never called, yet he is here: Глава 18

Chapter 18

Camrad_RIP 21.07.22 в 16:28

* * *

Camrad_RIP 21.07.22 в 16:28

The time is ruthlessly ticking, reminding me that delay will now be like death, and not just for me. I have ten hours to infiltrate the fortress, preparing the ground for further sabotage, so that at the right moment to take the necessary actions, giving a chance of survival to my comrades. The comrades themselves are waiting for their turn to use the anchors they have been given to summon the Shadows and rush into battle themselves. And if Ygra, in general, does not care - she knows how to wait in ambush - much less accustomed to prolonged waiting, people are nervous much more than the acceptable norm.

Camrad_RIP 21.07.22 в 18:54

They would attack anyway if they didn't get the signal from me to retreat, and I had to do everything quickly and on time if I didn't want to kill them. For now, the team remained seated in an inconspicuous hollow, literally a couple of hundred meters from the beginning of the outer perimeter. Naturally, such a convenient place to prepare for sabotage was equipped with alarms and traps... and that's why the guys are sitting right there. The hollow itself was too far away and inconvenient to walk to it all the time, so the rangers hoped for signal charms. No, they could easily have checked the place if there had been at least two more fives. But there were too few of them. Who am I to tell if I already know the answer, because their superiors were too lazy to send scouts beyond the perimeter too often?

Camrad_RIP 21.07.22 в 18:55

My clairvoyance told me that if any person, even one with a pass amulet, were to leave the perimeter, his return would require a long adjustment and a small false alarm. The rangers themselves were professionals who didn't mind wasting their time on long checks and reconnections to security circuits. But the operators of these circuits clearly lacked such work ethic, despite their professionalism in their field. As a result, the rangers were too rarely going out of protection, combing the nearby forest, and my team could sit in a cozy hollow almost without fear.

Camrad_RIP 21.07.22 в 18:57

After all, nothing ever really happens at Stone, unless you count the whims of the bosses.

Camrad_RIP 21.07.22 в 19:08

It was easier to get inside the fold this time than it had been the last time I'd been there. First of all, I had already learned the structure of the protection, so I was able to get through it without being delayed at all for even a single moment. Secondly, the ready plan of action and the rush gave such motivation and a kick that there was no time for doubts. And thirdly, and most importantly, my new title allowed me to disguise myself more reliably and easily, without causing me undue hardship.

Camrad_RIP 21.07.22 в 19:09

The familiar sensation of glass shards scratching at my very soul, and I swam inside the fold, taking advantage of the appearance of the crucian fish closest to me. This fish was even slightly larger than the rats I'd been sick of lately, and I was going to hate them at this rate. The fact that I had learned to put on such small shadows did not make it any more pleasant than it had been, but the opposite was true.

Camrad_RIP 21.07.22 в 19:11

Kostik has no luck again.

Camrad_RIP 21.07.22 в 19:10

And so, I'm already inside the spatial anomaly, again feeling the unpleasant stare from the surrounding area of the Mist, which seems to have become even a little thicker. I'm sure it does, I'm sure of it! It's just nerves, that's all. There's no monster out there that noticed my presence and decided to come closer! It's not there, I said.

Camrad_RIP 24.07.22 в 12:28

Such positive thoughts and reflections did not prevent me from moving slowly and sadly forward, straight to the very rock in which the damn stronghold had been hollowed out. The thoughts were swearing words, full of all kinds of wishes for uninterrupted diarrhea for such talented builders, even if they were long dead. The shells of the domed barriers still shone with the intolerable light of malicious magic, and I slowly and sadly crawled toward them, no longer even trying to emerge into reality, constantly in the Shadow. And with every fucking second I was forced to sink deeper and deeper, just to avoid being thrown out into reality.

Camrad_RIP 24.07.22 в 12:29

The deeper you dive, the less clear and well-drawn the world becomes. At first, small details like grass, pebbles, thin twigs, and leaves on trees disappear. Even a simple step can take you far enough away that you can no longer distinguish these details. Then the larger features fade away, leaving only faint lines, like a rough draft of a drawing that has not yet begun. A dash, an ink-black bar where the tree should be, a dark gray blot where the huge stone wreck should be, faint flames of magical signals, and a clear image of the hostile barrier, dimmed but still dangerous and vivid. Now I am even grateful to this image - it is no longer frightening, but on the contrary, it serves as a guiding thread, an unquenchable beacon that does not allow me to lose my bearings in space and get lost in a world that is too foreign to me, which is no longer recognizable.

Camrad_RIP 24.07.22 в 14:04

One sloppy move and I would fall even deeper. Where that light would not reach me, depriving me of even the ghostly sense of direction that I now possess. And it's not that I wouldn't be able to get back out - the class perks would allow me to swim up, even if I were completely lost, simply because of the instincts I had built into my core. Except that there, at the bottom, where the dim light of hostile magic does not reach, are creatures for whom one careless stray into their lair isekai would not even be a snack. Plankton, inadvertently sucked into a nostril on the inhale, figuratively speaking.

Camrad_RIP 24.07.22 в 14:05

One more reckless move and I would slip upward, burning my ghostly body with unbearably bright magic. Even if I could hold on and not fall out into reality to the delight of the active defense systems, such a burn would take time to recover and would consume some of my reserves. Of course, I could recover my reserve very quickly, especially if I were in the depths of the Shadow Realm, but there was no time to lose, for Christ's sake. Otherwise, oops!

Camrad_RIP 24.07.22 в 14:36

That's why I keep my balance, slowly approaching the small crevice in the first dome, squeezing in like a worm through the ground. This area is the junction of the two main elements of the barrier - in fact, its only weak point. In reality, this junction is not visible at all, and even in the Gaze, it reached at most a couple of millimeters, given that it was not visible at all because of the glow of the magic. But here, at this depth, this joint is no longer a thin crack. I think that if I dive any deeper, there will even be gaps in the dome itself that I can slip through without fear.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 05:11

At this depth, there is no ground beneath my feet, so I am no longer walking, but actually floating in a weightless blackness and grayness. There is no sense of top and bottom, and just surrendering to the instinctive knowledge I have in me somehow uncomfortable. I think I am confident in my abilities, but it is better not to risk it yet. I have a very clear reference point - I can't miss it, even if I try very hard.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 05:12

I passed (or, rather, swam through) the first two barriers without any significant expenditure of energy. I even had time to replenish what I'd spent earlier - the reserve fills up with the great force at this depth - when I approached the third dome. A dome that would be impossible to overcome so easily, especially for me, for a Shadow cannot be invulnerable to the purest Light. Even now it burns me as if I had stepped out on a sunny beach, never once in my life trying to add to my tan before this day. It's not dangerous yet, but if I try to get close to the dome and get through the gap between it and the neighboring barriers, I won't be happy.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 07:30

Okay, Kostik, it's time to take extreme measures.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 07:31

Until that moment, my body, despite its ghostly form, had retained its human features, and I was literally floating but now everything had changed. It was as if I merged with this place, reaching into the very depths of my consciousness. To where those very instincts were stored, that infinitely alien understanding that allowed me to use my class skills. My body seemed to float, changing, distorting, and melting into something different, more suitable, more right for this place.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 07:32

The legs were no longer there, for they had merged into one strange mass, resembling at once the fin of a mermaid and the smoky tail of some cartoon genie. The torso elongated and became somewhat predatory, and the spine became too long, like a snake's, allowing it to curve at impossible angles and almost knot itself. My arms had grown, from scratch, enormous claws that looked more like blades and fins than ordinary limbs. I was also able to get all the bones out of them, which made my hands look more like some kind of god-awful tentacles than my hands.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 07:33

The mind was numb, and the hunger and thirst for other people's lives froze at that thin line where a little more, a little more, and not even the Price of Humanity would keep that humanity from disintegrating into its atomic components. In spite of all these troubles, the result was undeniable. Gone was the uncertainty and loss, vanishing like smoke - now I knew exactly where, how, and why I needed to go to get to my desired destination. What's more, I might even be able to swim to the exact coordinates, if I hadn't hit the alarms.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 07:34

The body itself was now less affected by the bright light or rather, by the Light that was eager to pulverize me into ashes. For one thing, I unknowingly dove even deeper, and for another, my new body was regenerating damage faster than it was getting, despite the burns. A great lead-in for successfully overcoming the next obstacle! With great difficulty, keeping my mind clear, I moved forward, gradually flowing between the flaming columns, passing through the domes of barriers like water through sand.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 07:36

It was both harder and easier than I thought.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 07:36

I turned back into a human when I was already inside the Stone. Though I was still in the Shadow, at the very top of it. I had to swim at random, praying to St. Random to make sure I didn't hit any of the deep alarms left especially for such tricksters. And there were! I counted twenty-one, and then I lost count - because there were so many of them!

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 07:38

Luckily, the data I had received from the Shadow, combined with the information I had pulled from dreams and clairvoyance, was enough to help me get my bearings quickly enough. Either there was another layer of protection I hadn't noticed before, or I was just doing something wrong, but the deeper parts of the Shadow realm were somewhat out of sync with those in the real world. It wasn't dangerous, but it was annoying!

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 07:42

How else could it be, when all too often I had to dive down to the depths, only to swim out into the middle of nowhere? Almost every door was secured in such a way that there was no way to get through it with normal shadow steps. Imperceptibly, I mean. Not as easy as my adventures in the Kraj, when I could just walk through a wall if it was too heavily enchanted, but the walls were also less enchanted, maybe, but not by much. Besides, the material of which the Stone was built was somehow wrong, which made me reluctant to squeeze through its structure. What if it would jam me?

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 07:44

But nothing lasts forever, including even my agony, and here I am, hanging in the middle of a room filled with all sorts of delicious things, with hardly any observers. I did not consider the four soldiers lazily telling each other the tales they had heard a thousand times I didn't consider as a serious obstacle, nor did I consider it a normal observation. In principle, they are right - a closed field watches more reliably than any bag of meat, but here in the warehouse, it is a little deficient. It would have found me as a human without the slightest problem, but I'm not going to be human now.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 07:46

A moment of concentration, and then an instantaneous series of actions, so fast that even for me it merged into one continuous act, indivisible into separate fragments. Stepping out of the Shadow, capturing the image, and transformation, as fast as it could ever be. One brief moment in which my heart wouldn't even have time to make a beat, after which there was a barely audible slap in the far corner of the warehouse and a quiet, but unspeakably emotional

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 07:47

*Squeak*

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 07:47

But I couldn't avoid making a mistake, even if it was only a little - I managed to fall out of the Shadow and immediately take the form of a rat without any complications, but afterward, the I-image was suspended at a height of one and a half meters above the surface of the floor. The rat, I noticed, was much smaller. It's mathematics. The next moment bitch-physics work and fucking gravity impudently dropped the rat's body onto the cold and very hard stone, nearly breaking my image apart. That would have been a fun start to the operation if I'd had to rush into battle. No, I had a plan for that, too, but after that I would have to run away quickly, forgetting to kidnap Ferer, sitting in the depths of the fortress.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 07:50

"Fucking rats!" The farthest away fighter, who seemed to have developed his perception well, echoed my indignant squeal. "I thought they'd been poisoned recently!"

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 07:50

"They were here before we got here and will be for years afterward." Unexpectedly philosophical, his comrade answered him. "No intendant could drive those bastard animals out of the grocery warehouse. Back in the Second Army, we had Mikhas Fyorodov as a quartermaster, and he was over 30 years old and had tough classes. But even he shook his hand later - if you kill them, you'll have new ones in a matter of weeks."

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 10:34

"Oh, I wish I could go back to my home province now!" Another soldier paid no attention to his colleagues' words, simply taking advantage of the conversation to complain about life. "I'm about to grow moss here! Well, I punched that captain in the face, and he started yelling at me himself! Fucking "inappropriate behavior", chain mail wasn't polished! How the fuck am I supposed to polish it if I'm going out in three days? I'm gonna get an arrow in my gleaming asshole, but I'll be dressed for the fucking parade!"

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 10:44

"Jeez, Griff, nobody gives a shit!" It was the owner of a highly trained ear, who was most inconvenienced by the loud lamentations of his comrade-in-arms, who couldn't take it anymore. "You're not in a penal company, but you're sitting on your ass in our company. You'd be glad you don't have to do shit, but you're looking for deeds."

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 10:46

"Maybe I'll have a chance for a deed, why shouldn't I?" Parried the whiner, who had calmed down. "I'll get a medal on my chest, spurs on my feet, land as a gift..."

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 13:55

"Yeah, and Karin will pull her skirt up in front of you." The other one added. "You shouldn't eat those mushrooms that Sarius is claiming to be edible, you're getting a little too high."

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 14:03

"Oh, that's it! Go to hell."

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 14:04

I didn't listen to the guards arguing for the hundredth time in a row, moving inexorably forward along the burrows laid out for me in advance. I'd never thought rats could chew through stone. No, it's not just rock, though, and not just gnawing - there are plenty of simple crevices and holes. During my crawls through these very holes, I was repeatedly convinced that the rodents were poisoned and killed - skeletons of animals, most often cut into two even halves with the help of the enclosed field of magic, were indeed frequent. I had to squint my eyes at the message that popped up from the System, which I couldn't even be happy about, because I was so tired of the mission.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 14:35

Form of Shadow: 3/9

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 14:36

Allows you to give your entire body the properties of Shadow while in the material world; allows you to manipulate the shape of your own body while in shadow form; allows you to completely ignore any physical or insufficiently severe magical damage if it is inflicted on a body part that has taken Shadow form; allows you to freely navigate relatively deep layers of Shadow, taking a more appropriate form to stay there; allows a limited increase in the volume and power of one's own body by taking a shadow form; when in a Shadow form, the characteristics are slightly enhanced depending on the degree of change.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 14:39

It was a good deal, of course, but I'd rather develop the more useful Aegis than the murky and mentally unhealthy Form. However, it would be foolish to deny the fact that if I were to further level up, Aegis would be no less dangerous to me. Just like any other skill from the shadow or other class branch of development. The delights of owning a mythical class, what else is there to say?

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 14:43

I never realized that rats were such territorial creatures - my person, disguised as one of them, regularly be fucked by the whole crowd as a non-native. Either the rats somehow saw me as an outsider, or I behaved somehow un-rat-like, but I had to endure several unpleasant fights. Naturally, they couldn't even scratch me, but tearing the imprinted image, especially if I was in another burrow at that moment, was unpleasant. It wouldn't kill me - I'd have time to shift into Shadow, but it would be a pain in the ass. Even if the confined field didn't pick me up, I'd have to crawl back to the food warehouse to put on the rat's shadow again.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 14:45

I think I'm starting to hate rats more than horses, although I doubted that such a thing was even possible.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 14:46

A rat crawling along the wall of a wide corridor, with its inhabitants scurrying back and forth, could have readily signed its rat will and said a final hello to its rat grandchildren, for its life would not have been long. The fact that humans had not been able to eradicate the vile animals definitively did not mean that they would be tolerated if they came into view. And there were many eyes, and many eyes that were accustomed to spot every little thing lurking, or being hidden, far better than a mere rat.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 15:00

Alas, this rat was not only a rat but also a great master of stealth, even if that skill was rather muted by the need to carry someone else's image. The gaze slipped from her, the eyes failed to notice her, the sensory skills were perceived as blank, and the beast itself made little more than nary a noise. There were no simple looks here, of course, but for a purposeful rat, even that wasn't enough.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 15:02

Of course, I would have preferred to simply crawl through the rat holes, regardless of the resistance of their original inhabitants. But, as I said, the rats were not so numerous as to be able to dig their burrows through the whole territory of the Stone, or at least a significant part of it. Outside of the food warehouses and the areas adjacent to it, rats, if they ever were, turned out to be reliably exterminated, leaving behind not even skeletons and shit.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 15:04

So I crawled almost in full view of the audience of interested people, at every moment risking to meet someone whose observation would be high enough to penetrate my weakened stealth and put an end to the operation. The possibility of crawling under the ceiling or through the vents I was not even considering, for the local controllers was clearly watching Earth horror movies. There were relatively few sensors on the floor because there were crowds of people walking around all the time, but under the ceiling and in the ventilation was no way. It seemed that the whole area of these sections was one solid trap, just for idiots like me. Sphere, by the way, had seen suspicious piles of ash there, indicating that something occasionally climbed in, even if it didn't live long afterward.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 18:09

On several occasions, when I had to overcome not just alarms, but full-fledged barriers on doorways, I had to use a prearranged trick, lovingly constructed while still sitting on the farm. Magical negators are a separate subject, and it could be long, tedious, and still not enough. The idea of my plan was to fill the Essence Vessel with as concentrated an essence as possible, embodying the concepts of abolition, timelessness, and absence. The resulting cloud was not pure gold, but rather dark green with golden hues inside, but its effect was unmistakable.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 18:11

If this thing had simply weakened or removed magic in a certain area, I would have raised the alarm instantly with my actions. A signal interruption isn't a bad signal in itself, but my creation was much more subtle and refined. Nothing happened where the suspended matter I'd created hit the air. The magical and physical emanations stabilized as much as possible and were the same as they had been a second ago. For a short time - until the essence dissipated - all the barriers and closed fields saw nothing unusual in the desired area, even if there was a real mess going on there. It's a tricky thing, especially for fantasy spies.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 18:14

This did not negate the need for caution, forcing me to make sure that I did not hit anyone else with my potion, so that the potion would disintegrate in time, before anyone else entered the area, so as not to waste all the supplies early. Everything had to be watched, but that was the price of even the tiniest chance, which could shift the difficulty from "impossible in principle" to "if you try very hard". And I'm going to try.

Camrad_RIP 25.07.22 в 18:22