Готовый перевод Его не звали, но он приперся / They never called, yet he is here: Интерлюдяи третья "Никто не хотел"

Interlude Three: Nobody Wants

Once upon a time, when he was a simple officer in Melareth's Second Army Corps, he was told that the most problematic part of fighting sabotage is the fact that it only looks sudden. In reality, any enemy sabotage stunt is preceded by long and painstaking preparation, gathering information, recruiting renegades and informants, sending in their spies, and a bunch of other little things that to the uninitiated seem to make no sense at all. Much later, when he had grown considerably in rank, given new powers and another pile of responsibilities attached to them, he was taught to correctly assess and anticipate such surprises.

Most likely, ordinary soldiers and sergeants will be very surprised at how much harder the work of spies and infiltrators can be made if one simply observes the regulations and does not allow accidental leaks of information. Somewhere, the brave corporal will not arrange a drunken heart-to-heart talk, the captain of the cavalry will not go to whores to brag about his exploits, somewhere, the officer on duty will carefully monitor all who enter the territory entrusted to him, and somewhere noble officers will not lose in cards huge money, for which they will be taken by balls. And, oh, miracle, nine out of ten of the masters of the dirty game will look, walk around the camp, collecting rumors, and go away: either to ask for reinforcements from the command or seek easier prey.

All it takes is caution, common sense, and competence - and how much good it does! Quite a rosy picture for a skillful and genuinely willing commander. Leroy himself always tried to comply with these regulations, to overcomplicate them, and then to overcomplicate them again. That is why he was disliked both by officers, who had received rank and patent by patronage, and by soldiers, who only had time for training, sleep, and minimum rest. That's why army staff would pray for him if they needed someone who could set up camp quickly in newly occupied territory. Apart from the fact that he was a pretty good general, too, even if he preferred to command a relatively small elite breakthrough corps.

Unlike so many others, he wasn't exiled to the Stone for his misdeeds, but for having some qualities necessary to be the commandant of such a place. Perhaps when Melareth re-enters the war he will be dragged back to the field, but until then his abilities were much needed and sought after here. His ability to keep a crowd of deadly personalities in a tight grip and instill iron discipline in pampered aristocrats trapped in the extremely limited space of a pocket dimension allowed him to maintain order in the Stone almost around the clock. Besides, his family was a successful merchant, and the Crown personally covered them from greedy old-family rivals.

He didn't really care about his family: his parents were in the crypt of the family, and the others were distant cousins whose names he couldn't remember, and still were. But if you have certain preferences, it would be foolish not to use them. Another clever thought that came to him during his service.

More unpleasant was another conclusion drawn from an old instructor who had served the Crown half his life as a secret-guard operative and was now living out his days as a teacher of promising young men. The gist of what he said was that the most trivial precautions could save nine out of ten sabotages by preventing them from happening. And against the one that won't, even much more severe methods of protection won't help.

"Understand, young people, a funny situation." Master Shostin spoke, pounding on the stone floor of the auditorium with his usual stick. "If you have pros working against you, you can only do something in advance by accident if they make a mistake. You can make their work more difficult, and you can react as quickly as possible, but you cannot make yourself completely safe. The main problem of such badgers is that you, having received the first blow, begin to react and command strictly within those limits, which are prescribed by the statute. That's exactly what they expect from you - predictability. Remember, young men, the only way to outplay the elite spies on their turf is to change the rules of the game immediately. Otherwise, before you realize it, your staff plans will be copied, the army treasury will be stolen, and the food in the warehouses will be poisoned. You will be court-martialed or go to your grave, for people like you will be among the main targets. Dismissed!"

Those words had stuck in Liroy's mind for a long time, allowing him to counteract various amateurs and professionals quite successfully on several occasions. He'd even destroyed four elven saboteurs, which didn't give him points in the eyes of the eared bastards, but it gave him titles and headaches. And he truly wished to take the creatures alive, but they fought to the very end, obviously not counting on mercy or ransom. Right, in fact, they didn't, for then they would only face captivity and a dishonorable execution. Well, except that their girl would have been sold to one of the nobles. Leroy, by the way, would not have claimed it - he was neither a womanizer nor a xenophile.

That's why it hurt him more than most that on this shitty day he had fallen for the same line that his less fortunate and reasonable colleagues had been fishing for. He had been calculated. No doubt, there were many excuses. The fact that the Stone was many times better protected than any other place where he had to command. That the unknown saboteurs, if they could get here, obviously belonged not just to the elite, but to the real aces, which even on the scale of the kingdom can be counted on the fingers, perhaps even on the fingers of one hand. The fact that he was careful to take every possible and not-so-possible precaution, personally getting a few extra sensory fields installed. There was much that he had done cleverly and correctly, but the result was the same: he, and the entire Stone Command, had been miscalculated. Now his men would die for their carelessness, for allowing themselves to be consumed by routine, for their negligence.

Leroy Atkins was not one of the few commanders for whom soldiers became their sons, though some thought otherwise. To him, any soldier, scout, or handyman was a resource, just as Leroy himself was. He cared for warriors as a master cares for a useful tool, he watched their achievements and allowed them to develop themselves, not unreasonably believing that some of the levels and titles they gained were due to him. He hated to lose the powers entrusted to him, which somehow in and of itself led to soldiers willing to carry him in their arms. Even in full armor. He took the soldiers' respect for him as a matter of course, sincerely believing that any highborn commander should behave the same way, receiving the same feelings in return from the men entrusted to him.

Because of this belief, he often clashed with aristocrats who, while demanding deference and special treatment, did nothing to validate such claims. It is probable that it was due to some of these offended youths, who decided that being a traitor was sweeter than serving the kingdom, that he found himself in this situation.

A very unpleasant situation.

When the alarm came from the outer perimeter, he was not particularly alarmed - it often happened that single hunters, or even whole groups, would come out to the entrance to the Stone. The forests here were full of wildlife, and so the locals preferred not to let one pass by. Sooner or later, there was another fool, too brave to fear the rumors about the Woods, or too greedy to fear anything at all. There had been a time, long before he'd been commandant when they'd simply been brainwashed and kicked out of the forest, but that method was quickly found to be ineffective. The only way to ensure that the peasants were kept out of the forest was to make those who went into it disappear.

In general, the standard signal indicating that the security perimeter had been breached meant just another stack of reports sent in. Before he came here, many preferred to quietly slaughter hunters who got in the wrong places, but Leroy's pedantic nature demanded careful documentation of all odd situations. He despised the routine paperwork that forced soldiers to write several reports for every lost arrowhead, and there was almost a combat encounter, even if it wasn't dangerous for the garrison of the Stone.

Very quickly, however, the standard signal was replaced by a triple alarm, which automatically meant the need to quickly get off their asses and rush to the aid of the rangers in trouble. Not too fast - in a fortified position the rangers could hold out long enough - but not too slow for nothing. Even then he should have been on his guard when one of Gordion's lurkers came running back with a report of the sabotage they had foiled. Even the goblin could see that over two dozen dead was not prevented sabotage but since Gordion himself had survived, he couldn't call the liquidation attempt a success. Still, the owner of his level, his powers, and his legendary artifact from the royal treasury is a tidbit if you want to wreak havoc.

After calming down a bit when it became clear that the old stealther had survived, he gave the order to go, literally overloading the portal arches with more than a hundred fully-equipped fighters. Other enchantments were triggered after them, cutting off possible spies from leaving the fold - it would be much harder to get back inside, but no one would leave the fortress itself. There were enough simple soldiers and elite units inside to protect both the center of the fortress and its most important asset, Ferer Roche, who was doing some research here.

The situation, already no longer normal, spiraled out of control when it became clear what it was that opposed the Rangers in their field. The Shadows are a very unpleasant opponent, as Leroy knew from his own experience during the war with the Sorz and the creatures of the Dark Orders who sided with them. The Sorz are all sun-glorifying fanatics, but they ally themselves with dark things more readily than his own Melareth.

It was hard to fight against Shadows, especially if there were many of them - simple signal threads were no problem for them, because the creatures could clearly distinguish magic, flowing around dangerous areas. Traps could only be activated blindly, but that was likely to lose both tracking and protection circuits - all washed away by the rampage of magic. Up to a point, the Rangers, who had lost four, didn't risk hitting so sharply. Inferior Shadows are dangerous, but very dumb, and quite easily destroyed if you're prepared for them.

If there hadn't been so many of them, things might have gone differently, but they did. It wasn't that Leroy panicked, but he felt it necessary to destroy the apparent diversionary strike quickly. Apparently, the main target was Ferer, as Leroy immediately made his point on the connecting amulet. The mage would have to be guarded as such, plus he always had two elite guards with him, but reassurance would not be superfluous.

The second message sent demanded that the fold be opened back up. And send a couple of dozen more fighters with the most suitable classes for fighting the Shadows, and give them the necessary amulets to pass on to the rest of the soldiers. Only the intuition of one of the mages, who felt something wrong, saved them from the most dangerous blow, which could crush a good half of the soldiers who came out to fight. They are not rangers, they are not trained in constant maneuvers so that a ramming attack will have to meet with the forehead.

The mage sensed more foes approaching, and activated the traps without asking, incinerating at least two dozen inferior Shadows that had yet to penetrate the defenses, lost in the labyrinth of signal nets. The attack also revealed for a moment two creatures that were far more dangerous than all the little things.

One of them, looking like a ghoul wrapped in darkness, was too distracted to survive, giving the mages time to douse her in flames and then finish her off. Also, a Shadow, only not an inferior one anymore. The second roared furiously, but evaded their attacks, employing the shadow-melding trick, so much disliked by Leroy. Even the most primitive of Shadows using this type of cloak could only be spotted by those with heightened perception and peculiar classes. The rest of them had either to wait for the abomination to reveal itself, or strike at random.

The signal changed from alarm to full combat, forcing us to hurry. And then Jeremy, the staff amulet man, looked shocked at Leroy, who had sensed something wrong himself.

"The Second Hundred's signals changed to "dead." Stammering, which was never his style, he said. "Survivors are under attack... there are no survivors."

The strike was to be made directly at the portal platform, where the remaining forces had gathered on alert. Not all of them, of course, but all of those entrusted to Leroy personally. Ferer's guards, Gamel's mages, Gordion's spies, and the trivial attendants were still alive, combat-ready, and on full alert. True, after so many defenders had been killed, ignominiously and instantly, Leroy was not so sure it would be enough. Such an attack could only be pulled off by truly mighty foes, and even the rest of them wouldn't stop them. It was too late to consider taking out summoned monsters. The summoners would hardly go to the battlefield in person anyway because their role would be to distract most of the garrison by forcing the others to assemble by exposing themselves to some bomb or even a legendary artifact. Most likely the latter.

"Call the gathering!" Atkins shouted, shouting out the noise of the magic going wild and the traps activating idly. "Give the signal to open the arches! Get them to let us back in before they get eaten!"

"Yes, give the signal!" The amulet man came to his senses at once, quickly remembering that he was no longer a rookie, so he would lose his pants in a sudden attack. - I'll send the combination! Ready! Nouuughh..."

The man's words and life were cut short by a glowing dark blue arrow, smeared with some vile poison that causes instant decay, and in such concentration that Jeremy's body fell to the ground as a pile of slime and rot, identifiable only by its shape, and even then, not necessarily. At this point, Leroy stopped understanding the thread of what was happening. The actions of the opponents were completely illogical, wrong, and irrational! The only purpose that justified an attack on his men right now was the capture of the Stone, but that was no longer sabotage, but a bloody declaration of war!

Not even Sorz would go for such madness! Leroy knew, albeit without detail, exactly what was being researched in the Stone, knowing full well that the Crown would not forgive such a surprise, and allies would turn their backs on the aggressor, leaving him at best one-on-one against a righteous Melareth. Or, more likely, to join in the plundering of the idiot.

The conclusion is simple: the enemy is counting on the fact that there will be no one or no one for identification. So it's his job, Leroy, to get the enemy wrong. We'll have to trust that Gamel and Gordion will be able to outmaneuver the small saboteurs. A large squad of saboteurs would not succeed even with the legendary Heroes. And to withstand a blow and inflict one of their own. That same Maître Shostin used to say that when you cannot beat a saboteur with little blood, you must forget all the complicated plans and simply crush the enemy while there was still someone left to crush. Having lost all the bets up to this point, you are already in a losing position as much as it can be a losing one. So now all that was left to do was to show military valor and pray that your ardor and power would be enough to break the situation, or at least to save yourself.

The reinforcements from the Capital will be arriving soon, which means that there is still much to wait for. The main thing is that until the arrival of the capital's elite, they are still able to tell about what happened. Such a failure, of course, will affect his career unpleasantly, but given the class of sabotage carried out, a certain discount will be made for him. And it would be Gordion and his service who would be whipped, figuratively speaking, rather than Leroy and his men who had fought fair.

The main thing is to withstand it.

They had to accept the fact that the problem with "withstand" would be quite serious from the very first seconds of the battle, which broke out as soon as all the traps were activated, most of them wasted. And then the shadows themselves began to strike at the crowded men, tearing, choking, restraining, cleaving, and even cursing at a level that was uncomfortable and dangerous.

The Rangers, accustomed to maneuvering and single attacks, quickly joined the ranks, for the singles had lost nearly a third of their numbers, even if you count the second quarter-hundred that had arrived with Leroy. They adjusted quickly, even nearly finishing off the inferior creatures, but the more dangerous Shadows were too clever and cautious, and the signal net was gaping with holes. The archers, accustomed to relying on stealth and distance, fared very poorly against even more stealthy creatures that had no use for physical attacks, little magic, and whose wounds were healed by the devoured lives of their victims.

They cooperated, nailing the inferiors, nailing the second Shadow, who looked like some kind of giant dog, and using magic from their bows, nailing a demon archer with poison arrows (he couldn't be alone there, could he?) and forcing him to retreat further into the woods. They were able to cover the fighters' orders with light cocoons, preventing the shadows underfoot from coming alive to grip their throats. Standard magical defenses worked well against ranged attacks, even if they had to be renewed time after time. The twenty-fifth level ranger even managed to illuminate a Shadow of incredible power, engaged in area attacks and covering that lone archer. In fact, the fact that the creature was covering him was the reason it was spotted.

If they now had a set of flame and light artifacts, which they never had time to deliver, it would be over quickly-no matter how dangerous this particular abomination might be, but against the immense power of pure Light, no Shadow could resist. Also, an experience, also personal, in which Leroy was as sure as he was of himself. Even without the approach of reinforcements and the amulets he had issued, The Shadow was doomed. Several mages and warriors of suitable specialty were among them right now, and just the sheer number of attacks was slowly but surely draining The Shadow.

Now the Shadow, illuminated by a dozen marking skills, hung in the air, sheltered by another dozen barriers, which, one by one, crumbled under the methodical attacks of the assembled men. The creature was struck by nearly two dozen people with the right skills, plus the five huntsmen whose arrows could deal damage to such intangible creatures. Soon the Shadow would fall, after which the lone archer (he seemed to have been sent here to bring the Shadows to the right point) would be hunted down and either captured or killed. Probably the thought that they were about to be killed proved mistaken, a brief panic attack, shameful and ridiculous.

Leroy Atkins made a mistake once again.

The creature struck as suddenly as a Shadow can be sudden. It was at that moment when the creature hovering in the air was covered by the last layers of its barrier, and all attention was focused on her alone, perfectly timed for an insidious strike. The first dozen and a half fighters and the most dangerous mages simply ceased to be when they were pierced by clawed hands popping out of the ground.

There were so many of these hands, unbelievably many, but Leroy's combat intuition told him that they all belonged to the same creature. The soldiers reacted quickly, as veterans with high level and necessary skills should. Some used a dash to get out from under the blow, some used a defensive skill, some managed to put a shield under the claw, and some hit the attacking limb with a shining blade.

It even helped some, but not too much in most cases. Those who jumped away got another blow, catching them at the moment when they couldn't escape again. The defensive skills were too weak to keep such a creature away. Material, or even enchanted barriers like shields, did not deter the creature, which passed through them like a ghost through a wall.

The warriors would withstand.

Though the creature was so mighty that the sense of danger screamed to flee without a second thought, though it was fast, skilled in sorcery, able to disappear into shadows like an elven assassin, and restore its life with the lives of others, it was only one creature, though a very strong one. Leroy had yet to meet a legendary monster, but from the looks of it, this abomination was very close to being called one.

The warriors would strike it down.

Had it not been at that very moment that those whose existence had been forgotten had struck. Those who had waited so fortunately for the moment of disruption to strike their decisive blow. Alchemical bombs were a treacherous, fastidious, expensive weapon, capable of turning against their owner at any moment, and yet incredibly effective in skilled hands. The adversary was skilled.

The poison gas and acid vapors that corrode the lungs were no guarantee of killing the enemy - everyone here had the simplest poison amulets, and everyone here had a couple of not the simplest. but the enemy didn't need that. It was enough only to break the barely recovering order, to knock out the most unprotected part, to force the others to run out of the poison zone instead of fighting. And to strike, to strike quickly, often, and deadly, to strike with new poisons, arrows, or magic, to keep Leroy and his squad from waking up and striking back.

There weren't many of them: Leroy could distinguish three, and something else flickered in the background. Maybe another Shadow, or maybe a second squad of similar foes. Just three, but laden with enough potions and vials to sustain several hundred regular fighters. He felt a flame of detached, calm anger ignite in his body, filling his body with lightness and strength. The adversary had shown himself, the adversary had become clear to him, the adversary could dig their own grave.

With a savage roar, the forty-seventh-level Master of War rushed forward, activating an unstoppable ram, expecting to literally splatter one of the nimble enemy figures against the surface of a heavy shield of thick layer of enchanted steel. Now only a fair fight would decide everything, which he had missed for all those years of quiet life.

The figure predictably dodged the blow, doing a beautiful somersault over herself, while also evading the attack of the warrior who had decided to help the commander. Leroy allowed himself a miserable smile after his opponent had fallen for the trick he loved so much. Relaxing his hand, he forced the hammer to slip, heading after the bouncing target. She would dodge once more, but then a single movement of his hand, pulling the sturdy chain, would redirect the hammer's blow, leaving the lost assassin no chance.

A sense of danger flared up, causing him to shift his head sharply, letting another deadly poison arrow fly past. It didn't even hold him back for a second, but it still distracted him a bit, giving his opponent a chance to push off into the air, moving even farther away from the annoyed Leroy. He still twisted the blow, sending the hammer on a chain straight at the target, but the target itself was covered by a bloody Shadow, who was never able to finish it off because of the interference of a second, more dangerous one.

The barrier didn't withstand the blow, but it saved the bitch, who had vanished into the shadows, from retribution, and another arrow whistled into the arm of the screaming soldier, the same one who had tried to help Leroy unseat the twisty dodger. Listening to his senses, and finding no presence of the escapee in them, he silently stepped over the already silenced soldier, activating the only active ability his helmet provided. He had once had a very funny trophy monocle fused into the left half of his visor, allowing him to see what was hidden. Not long, a couple of minutes a day, but still the usefulness of such a device is hard to underestimate. Many of his warriors have something similar, but this particular monocle showed even very well-hidden secrets.

However, some sort of disguise did not penetrate them, for a woman who had already fled to the side could not have only been level eighteen. A woman of that rank would not have survived her encounter with Leroy, and he had no memory of the fact that Blade Dancers could use intangibility, much less shadowy intangibility techniques. Very effective, in fact, since the few weakly glowing arrows the Rangers fired at random didn't even make her fall out of invisibility, though it did cause some suffering.

Another dash nearly sweeps the bitch aside, but she pushes away again from the dying man with a slit throat, fleeing his wrath. The dash, however, leads directly to the remaining mages, forcing the Shadow to move her body out of the way of the hammer's glowing power. Not all the way out, losing a good chunk of its black body, but for some reason, it was in no hurry to die, though the previous ones were very flaky after such a blow.

Dancer, once again escaping death, split into three identical selves - identical even to the monocle - slashing again at the two soldiers who had tried to intercept her. She let the blow of the glowing magic axe slip through her, twitching painfully, then thrust her hand into the chest of the failed warrior, who had already lived to gray hair. The gray hair turned even grayer, and the warrior himself began to desiccate rapidly, while the faint haze emanating from where the axe hit him vanished into nothing. So there's self-healing, too? Bloodsucker? But they specialize more in blood, death, and curse magic than they do in shadow disciplines. Well, mentalists at last, but certainly not cursed shadow ones.

Another throw of the hammer on the chain forced her feverishly to push away from the still-not-drunk warrior, but she could not fully escape, though she did save her pitiful life. The fighter's body was nearly atomized, but the damn immateriality saved its wielder, allowing her to bounce back and try to escape into stealth again. Leroy only exhaled... Turning sharply and unleashing another blow on the Shadow who had tried to reach for him, making it squeal again in pain and hatred. Several shadow arrows and spears, aimed both by the offended Shadow and by the second creature still flickering overhead, only slightly red-hot his armor, which held nearly two dozen magic-absorbing seals. It is possible to overload these with naked power, but very difficult; it is easier to bypass at the expense of physical power.

But no one can compete with him here.

Commander did not forget not only to fight but also to monitor the surrounding situation, maintaining calm and discipline with passive auras, strengthening their protection against evil magic and slightly increasing the characteristics of those fighting beside him. His warlord class was slightly weaker than his main class, but even that was enough to strengthen his soldiers by a third, even more.

Now, at once, two of his men with Shining Blade classes, supported by half a dozen regular fighters and one mage, pinned down the pesky Shadow, putting up his barriers, preparing to disembowel the weakened creature. Taking a deep breath, Leroy activated the Battle until Victory, feeling the power of such a powerful enhancement literally sucking the energy out of him.

The result, however, did not fail to show - his soldiers began to fight better, faster, more professionally, even, as if they had gained five or two levels at once, which made both Shadows sad, and with them the guides who covered them. The glowing blades still failed to finish off the Shadow, as another enemy, previously out of Leroy's sight, swooped down on them. He shone like a little sun, or rather a slice of daylight sky, and it made the man's eyebrows, hidden under his helmet, creep up in surprise. Sky class in a such dark company raised a lot of questions, among which there were no answers.

One of the Shining Blade and three of the simple soldiers fell under the blows of a sword that flashed like lightning, but he could not save the allied Shadow--a Shadow allied to the warrior of Heaven, for crying out loud--in time. The firemage, reinforced by Leroy, strengthened the fiery chains that gripped the shrieking Shadow, inexorably making his way through the very last barrier in the form of a shadowy cloak with a high collar.

Lord Atkins kept his skill activated, wasting his reserve of energy, but allowing his warriors to seize the initiative, inevitably pushing the enemy back. And they'd finish those insolent men off before Leroy's reserve hit bottom. Yes, they're good, well-trained, very unpredictable, and seemingly drunk on potions to the point of deadly intoxication, but they've already lost. Leroy had once stopped the advance of a cavalry regiment, what to him these four, albeit with the support of the Shadows summoned by someone.

Finish, and then rush to the aid of the Stone, where things went a little sad.

It's almost done...

A flash of intuition kicked in at the very last moment, giving Liroy a moment's peace with death. A long, inhumanly long, green hand, with small but clearly very sharp fingernails, scraped across the surface of the helmet, tearing the enchanted metal like a lump of clay. The force of the blow lifted the man into the air, sending him into a brief flight, ending with a collision with a tree and the activation of some forgotten signal trap that flashed brightly, but not dangerously.

When Leroy blinked his eyes open, he thought the blow to the head was too much - his men were being torn apart by a huge, naked green-skinned woman. He would have assumed it was some kind of illusion, but the miraculously unbroken monocle in his helmet asserted that the creature was a swamp ogre. Then it extinguished and cracked, apparently permanently - an impact on the helmet deformed the structure. Feeling his head buzz, indicating a considerable concussion, Leroy forcefully poured healing and tonic potions down his throat, activating an unstoppable ram, rushing toward the enormous creature from his prone position.

Despite all its speed and suddenness, the gigantic figure twisted incredibly gracefully, missing the crushingly loaded hammer just wide open. His gaze involuntarily followed the sway of the extremely voluminous chest of the incomprehensible monster, which nearly cost Leroy his life a second time. Only his warrior reflexes, embedded in its very essence, saved his neck from another blow with the hand that managed to rip the head off the nearest soldier on the way back, tossing it at the creature who takes the crossbowman in the crosshairs. The monster kicked unexpectedly, knocking the spirit and life out of the fighter creeping up behind him, then jumped aside and vanished into thin air, oblivious to several arrows and blows that hit him. Still, most of them didn't even scratch the creature's surprisingly delicate skin.

Leroy knew of swamp ogres, and had seen them, though only dead or drawn. Leroy knew that his artifact could not deceive, though today had made him doubt it. Which meant that this creature was indeed a swamp ogre, albeit an unusual one. Maybe some crazy chimerologist or master of life had crossed an ogre and a succubus, or something similar. It doesn't matter; what matters is that he remembered exactly how to kill such creatures.

"Form a circle!" Shouting over the noise of the battle, which had lost all semblance of order, Leroy yelled. "Fire and acid, you sons of bitches! Fire and acid!"

The commands came one after another, and Leroy, who had finally pulled himself together, was beginning to rebuild the scattered formation when the giantess struck again. He dodged the log, but the mage behind him didn't, flying off into the distance. He seemed to be alive, or at least cursing, for sure. The monster stepped forward, once again drawing his attention back to the rippling spheres of her chest, but Leroy didn't even notice, attacking once more.

The blow of the hammer split the second log, which the green-skinned creature was clutching, to pieces, but it didn't hit its body. And the flames and acid did not harm at all - though he could not be mistaken that the creature was exactly a swamp ogre. Its manner of fighting and its habits matched it completely! Yes, the appearance was different, but giving the monster's body such a graceful and desirable shape should have weakened the powers of the altered creature, not strengthened them even more! Was that someone creating a swamp ogre hybrid that was invulnerable to acids and fire? It would be too mild for such an experimenter in the furnace, especially if this hybrid turned out to be capable of producing offspring!

Then the carnage began, there's no other way to put it.

The giantess made her way toward the mages and simply walked through them without even slowing down. Several very deep burns, left by the unwilling mages to die alone, were literally healing before his eyes. Leroy saw firsthand how the gleaming blade of the steel-dancing swordsman made a long and very deep cut, from which not a single drop of blood spilled, and the edge of the cut had healed before the swordsman's life-staking strike was even over. The man who struck the sword didn't live long himself, being grabbed in her arms and literally torn into two pieces, which were then used as projectiles.

The more dangerous Shadow was in no hurry to die either, though it could hardly be contained, but the losses were growing and growing. The second shadow was disembodied, but it was no joy, for the Sky Adept had already burst into the ranks of the defenders, using the blink and blinding the fighters with flares. Attempts could be heard somewhere in the distance to reach the dancer and the archer who never showed, but all of that was not enough. The night's darkness, the excellent preparation as the attackers maneuvered between traps and signal charms better than the defenders, the superior equipment, the clouds of poison, and the green creature cursed by all the Names, now breaking in and now disappearing away, simply did not allow the attackers to be destroyed.

They were slaughtered.

They were slaughtered as chickens.

Methodical, prepared, confident even. In all the rules of the art of sabotage. Something woke up in the depths of Leroy, something arose in the soul of the man still shouting commands, trying to recreate the formation, something broke in him in this black-black night. And he didn't keep that something inside him, yelling in a thunderous voice, activating every single aura he had at once. His classes didn't have much in the way of active skills and abilities, taking theirs with monolithic defense and simple, straightforward attacking power.

He suddenly realized that if he didn't break the situation right now, regardless of the losses and risks, the enemy would win. Even if they weren't killed tonight, they would simply retreat, leaving them all to lick their humiliating wounds, leaving neither their bodies nor any other clues as to who had sent the freaks here. Everything depended on him alone now, as it had in the days long ago, when he had fought in the front lines, leading his dozen, without a thought for complicated strategies or tactical maneuvers. And he screamed, putting himself, his commanding skills, and his own will into the scream.

"Come here, you fucking swamp mix! I'll teach you how to spit blood!" His growl, combined with activated suppressive auras (replacing the deactivated reinforcing ones), caused his opponent to be thrown out of invisibility, and the man himself was already striking with his hammer, backing up his every word. "For! I! Bitch! You! Beast! L-e-e-e-roy! A-a-a-atk-i-i-i-i-kins!"

Each of his blows forced the giantess to retreat, cradling her wounds and roaring in pain. Each blow crunched the bones in the arms she'd used to block his hammer, ripping chunks of flesh from her body and skin, burning and cauterizing the exposed flesh before it could regenerate. But the bones would fall back into place with the same sickening crunch, the torn muscles would heal and grow back, the skin would turn green again, and the burns would crumble into scabs, revealing the pristine green of the swamp.

It retreated, but it was not afraid, not whimpering, and not wary. The monster, accustomed to living by the hunt and created for the hunt, came upon too dangerous a prey, but only a silent, chest-thumping growl, calm and angry, met every mighty blow.

"I! Not! Gonna! Die! Here! Damned! You! You rot!"

Each word is like a rock on a mountain slide, and it weighs as much. The bravest of his warriors follow him, trying to seize the moment and support the commander since the invisible creature has become quite discernible. But their blows are few and far between, the monster doesn't even try to be distracted by them, their blows are too weak, too slow. And out of the darkness, poison arrows are already flying, knocking out the furthest behind or the most dangerous. One of the warriors, whose name didn't occur to Leroy at the moment, even managed to catch an arrow with his bare hand, trying to jam it into the green-skinned woman's leg. It was a good plan, but the ugly giantess obviously sensed something, moving to the side and breaking the courageous man's neck with a single blow. But after that, for the first time, she missed a blow to the head, rather than to her arms, which caused her to stagger back to her knees.

Inhaling deeply, Leroy let out a beastly shriek, swinging the hammer over his head and putting into it the most powerful crush he could at that moment. The air of near victory was so unbearably sweet that it seemed to make him dizzy. He hesitated for a brief fraction of a second, but the giantess reacted in time to toss a handful of dirt into his visor.

If the helmet had not been damaged by the previous blow.

If he remembered it by simply closing his vulnerable eyes.

If he had had time to make a reverse motion with the hammer, instead of trying to complete the blow.

If...

He felt no pain, unlike the feeling of flight and another encounter with a tree, and the second, and the third, and the fourth, and the fifth, and after the sixth or seventh, there was a distinct crunch in his body, and the body went numb, no longer obeying its master. He tried to move while the cries of the slain soldiers echoed in the distance, tried to assume a sitting position when they fell silent, tried to force the regenerator down his throat with his naughty hand when he saw a shadow looming over him.

She didn't say a word.

She didn't make a sound, just as she hadn't made one before.

The night-vision potion he drank made it possible to discern the monster's impossibly graceful forms, seemingly beguiling in the vile irregularity of the desires they inspired. He couldn't utter a word, not a sound, and they wouldn't have listened if he'd been able to make the dying body speak.

Leroy Atkins lived a long life full of dangers, sweet victories, and bitter defeats. He has loved and been loved, buried his love and found a new one, served and ruled, punished and pardoned. He was used to the fact that he could always fix any situation if only to grasp firmly the hammer that was dear to his heart. He was used to the fact that any obstacle could be broken, to the fact that no obstacle existed for one who was willing to break through it, regardless of the risks, dangers, and possible deaths.

Quick as a stroke of lightning, attack.

And darkness.

So empty, irresistible... And unavoidable.
______________________

One of the main lessons that any military professional working with golems must learn is that golems themselves should not be seen as soldiers or subordinates, but as another kind of weapon, like a blade or a cunning amulet. Speaking of mages who directly specialize in controlling or creating golems, this is the first axiom of the first, and without fully accepting it, one cannot achieve any results in his or her field.

Barai, despite his youth, considered himself a pretty good specialist, possessing two (unusual and rare) Amuletist and Golem Guide classes at level twenty-eight. In pure class skills, he outclassed the bitch Rimel, winning both in controlling skills and in the synergy of his two classes. The Golem Guide had a secondary class of Benefic, which was undoubtedly a very useful aid to an army mage, but nowhere near as useful in pure competition with her counterpart.

And yet she was better than he was. Of course, among his few fellow officers, he held to the notion that it was purely a matter of superiority, and that Lady Raimel had obtained her position in a way that was quite familiar to her. Except for that deep down in his heart, Barai was well aware that he was inferior to her in everything, just inferior. It was a lack of experience or something else, but where he felt like a puppeteer using glove puppets, Raimel was like playing a keyboard instrument of some sort, controlling a full five golems at once. Directly, so all of you, controlling rather than setting basic directives, limiting himself to minimal influence!

Barai himself could only pull two. Three, if he worked to his own detriment after drinking a shot of the firewater that sometimes replaced the alchemical stimulant. And the bloody beauty wasn't working at her full potential, either. An army mage is not only a risk and a lot of blood behind his back but also a lot of experience. Barai had no doubt that this woman's specialized skills were vastly superior to his, making it possible to make up for the lag in class abilities.

Now, desperately trying to get as many of the steel things as possible back into service, he was genuinely glad that Raimel was alive while cursing the idiot technicians for managing to ruin nearly half the golems in the hangars. He'd been offered a share of the profit, even if he hadn't been privy to the details. He almost agreed though he wasn't sure what they were going to sell. And if he had known... he could hardly contain his greed.

Barai Shaimaratal, though descended from a very old and noble family, was as poor as a church mouse. The blood of the mountains flowing in him undoubtedly offered many advantages, opening the doors of a great number of distant and not-so-distant kin, but no more. Everyone needed money, even seemingly related third cousins, otherwise, there would be no help. Five poor auls (small mountain villages) could barely provide for his large and friendly family, and at least for some dowry left for the sisters. Men had to get the ringing gold on their own, not forgetting about their parents, helping them to settle in the Сapital.

Having obtained his classes through being apprenticed by his father to one of the largest golem masters, Barai could be justifiably proud of himself. Still, his level and two classes at once put him very high in the family hierarchy. He would certainly have preferred to have the epic class of Mountain Warrior, which was rumored to be held by the head of the entire Shaimaratal county himself, but he wasn't bad at all. Money, again, loved the pockets of the rare specialists working (professionally, which is important!) with toys as expensive and difficult to handle as golems.

He was here because of money, or, rather, because of the lack of it. The child of the patriarchal world was somewhat unaware that the women of the Capital were not always as quiet and submissive as they ought to be. And those of them who allowed themselves inappropriate clothing was not always corrupted priestesses of love. Anyway, a few jokes and an attempt to put the feisty girl in her place quickly turned into a conflict with the flunky accompanying the girl. Sensing the support of his comrades behind him, Barai decided to put the self-important young man in his place and then return to the pretty girl standing behind him.

He woke up in a prison cell after a healer had repaired his shattered jaw: a high-ranking monk from a noble family of hereditary martial artists is no joke. His companions were laid in the same place, only in separate cells. The bastard, unworthy even of the name of man, had shown unprecedented baseness, and was unwilling to settle the matter peacefully, causing many problems for Barai and his companions, and there was no money to buy someone else's patronage. Had it not been for an offer from the Crown administration to work in a distant fortress under a pile of contracts, he would have had to return home penniless. And even that would have been better than quietly killing those who possessed lesser levels and had no patrons at all, unlike Barai.

Anyway, Barai agreed that sitting around on a royal contract was better than sitting around at home, or quietly choking on a beer and giving his soul to his ancestors. He even managed to hold his temper while under Raimel's command! He, Barai, had to bow down to the first mage's dastardly bedfellow! But he had to, especially since the pay was very decent.

Come to think of it, the man himself was happy with his new life and career. The gold was accumulating, even if he had to send something home, his skills were growing, and even a couple of levels - professional skills had to be used quite regularly - and the maids here were very agreeable, as normal women are supposed to be.

The cozy picture collapsed along with the sabotage that struck almost all of the golems' attendants at once, along with the signals of the death of most of the warriors gathered inside, along with the attack on the outer perimeter of the wondrous fortress, hidden from the world. Barai had only to silently pray to all the ancestors and the mountain winds to survive. The beats and sounds of a distant battle going on above, some frantic and jerky signals that he had never heard before, the gradual disappearance of magical lighting, and the sudden dampness that began to accumulate condensate on the walls and the golems that had not yet activated, only added to the anxiety.

And it was still good for him - he, Raimel, and the four technicians who had survived the diversion could distract themselves with work. The nearly three dozen soldiers and outside specialists who came running to the largest accumulation of manpower in the area were far tenser. It was hard to believe that these pathetic crumbs were all that remained of the mighty Stone garrison. Barai couldn't even imagine what kind of shaitan had managed to kill so many warriors whose valor and strength had been proven by their levels, and whose training he had seen with his own eyes more than once. And that was even more frightening than the wrath of his father or the cunning of the enemies waiting in the Capital.

If only he could survive, he would return home to his native mountains and no one would kick him out. I'd rather be guarding grazing herds against wolves and the occasional monster than getting caught up in such a mess. There's plenty of gold in the world, but there's only one Barai!

The golems moved around the hangar in a strict order, trying not to run over random passersby. The golems themselves outnumbered the humans, which made the gathering sad on the one hand, but happy on the other - a golem is much better at fighting than a human, even if it's not at the lowest levels. Once this hundred could crush an army, especially with the support of three giant constructs, but those days are over.

Thirty-four machines were now in service - fully active - and another dozen and a half managed to start up, despite the malfunctions. The rest were already disassembled and stripped of the cores that made them move. Everyone in the crowd really wanted to kill the traitors one more time when it became clear how deep the abyss that had opened up was. The worst part was that no one knew where they had hidden the stolen cores, and even if they had, they wouldn't have risked leaving the protected room.

The fortress was becoming increasingly damp, and streams of snow-white mist began to drift across the stone floor. The sensory skill holders turned deathly pale, refusing to explain the cause of their fear, but they were adamant that they should all sit here and wait for help to arrive. If the alarm is sent, there must be one, simply because if the Stones decide to abandon them, it's hard to imagine what it's for. The number of high-level and valuable specialists here exceeded all limits.

The amulet communication was malfunctioning too much, despite all her attempts to contact anyone. Raimel still picked up some sort of message from the Corps of the Watchers, sent directly to the officer's amulet, but she couldn't get a good sense of what was going on there. They all had only to wait, prepare their golems for a breakthrough, and hope that they would survive the night after all.

Barai noticed the danger entirely by accident, thanks to his relatively high perception (he had quite seriously considered a career as an archer before he received his Amuletist class) and to the fact that Raimel gently pulled him aside, trying to put one of the least hopeless specimens among the broken golems into formation. At the very least, it could be used as a barrier, blocking the doorway with a motionless body.

That's when he noticed one of the soldiers looking into the small mirror in the corner of the workroom. There you could comb your hair and wipe the dirt or dust from your face if you got dirty while working on the golems. It was Barai who hardly ever had to work with his hands, but the rank-and-file servants of magical constructs had to do everything by hand. Anyway, he watched and watched, what difference does it make?

The difference was that the mirror itself reflected somewhat differently than it should have. From this distance, the man couldn't see anything clearly, but it certainly wasn't a human reflection. Obeying intuition rather than combat reflexes, Barai yanked the officer's armor-clad commander, who was explaining something to his subordinates, to point at the strange composition.

He didn't even think at the time that it might be a diversion or a trap, just pointed out the strangeness. The high-ranking officer didn't even say a word, just silently used some sort of blink, he was next to the frozen soldier and with one blow of his blade smashed the unfortunate mirror apart. Barai was ready to swear that the reflection was trying to cover itself with its hands from the falling blade.

The sound of broken glass raised all eyes to the swordsman dressed in officer's armor, whose blade continued to shine with barely discernible light. Their gazes became anxious as the soldier who was looking in the mirror smiled stupidly, then said in a somewhat lost voice a somewhat ominous phrase:

"They call me!"

No one had time to understand what had happened, and the commander, who had broken the mirror and was trampling shards of a mirror into crumbs, could not react, as the soldier with a quick and practiced movement opened his own throat. Panic rose not from the sight of blood, to which most, if not all, were accustomed here. Panic was caused by the many-voiced howls and cries with which an incomprehensible force struck the barrier blocking the doors.

Barai swore and blasphemed with words for which his father would have whipped him to blood and his mother would have chased him across the yard with a wet towel, despite his age and level. The son of the mountain would have said a great deal in his defense if he could have interrupted the scolding spewing from his mouth and distracted himself for a moment from what was going on near the door.

Golems are great machines of war. Even one can stop an infantry attack, break an enemy formation, break through a wall that is not too strong, take on volleys of arrows and evil magic, or simply carry its owner, moving through driftwood as if on a parquet floor. In general, they are great things, combat golems, especially if they are made by dwarves according to their designs and blueprints.

The problem with people screaming in rage and terror was that the golems were helping too little right now. They weren't helping at all. Yes, their weapons were well enchanted, and yes, most of the models present in the Stone had a silver coating that burned the intangible abomination well, but it was too little against what confronted them this night.

If it were not for that noble warrior, whose name Barai could not even recognize, but whose blade drove away the impossible terrible creatures, and not the ugly (but beautiful, bitch!) Raimel, playing with golems like a child with dolls, then there would have been the end of his, Barai, story. But the first blow was repulsed, after which he began to strike back. Not a very effective punch, to be frank, but still, the retaliatory blows came and caused some inconvenience to the creatures.

The creatures were large, about the size of the golem, even slightly larger, but that size didn't help them in the slightest. The center of the creature was a small, almost childlike body, hidden in the depths of a lilac octopus with lots of tentacles. The creatures resembled the same octopuses that Barai had once had the privilege of eating in a restaurant in the Capital, half and half with some scrawny slime that were sometimes found in the mountain caves. The abomination was vastly more dangerous than the creatures, forcing the mages to spend all their energy on reinforcing the barrier of entry. Only two creatures had gotten through so far, but that was enough.

In close combat, they fused the golems into one lump, making them wish they had had to deal with the work of dwarves. If there were familiar and solid stone giants here, they would not have been so easily broken. Though, to be frank, the creatures were hitting the magic component first.

As it seemed to Barai, the creatures' attacks had nothing to do with temperature, or even with the much rarer transmutation. It was simply that the things caught in the strange mist began to float, like a candle flame. Every single one of the mahout's senses screamed that to be hit by such a blast was a fate even more terrible than mere death.

But the magic contained in the golems' steel required strength to cancel it out, so the creatures managed to destroy only six constructs, two of which were barely able to move. And after defeating the steel warriors, the creatures had shrunk considerably, beginning to gradually accumulate new portions of the haze around them. They would probably have tried to get inside the hangar perimeter through mirrors and other reflections, but the same officer, praise be to his ancestors, demanded that any reflective surfaces in the hangar be smashed or soiled in an orderly and profane manner. There weren't very many of them as it was, and now there weren't any left at all. They couldn't use polished lats or golem hulls instead of doors, or maybe they didn't know how to do it in time. It didn't stop anyone from spilling all the paint they had, so Barai could now boast of embarrassingly green hair, but he didn't care.

The creatures were dangerous not only by their reflections but also by their screams and cries - it literally screwed into the head, demanding to lay down their weapons and fall to the ground, trying to tear out their own ears, just not to hear this abomination, let it be buried in the deepest caves! Others, on the contrary, hurried to help, embrace, and comfort the creatures weeping like young boys, for which they paid, only reinforcing and restoring the monsters that had devoured them. It was good that there were only a couple of them, and then the two mages and the priest did something about it, weakening their influence on the minds of the people.

Raimel, the ice bitch, saved everyone. She wasn't the only one who managed to stay on her feet under the pressure of crying and screaming, but she had the golems under her control, covering the temporarily helpless people with herself. When the steel warrior who had lost control of Barai straightened sharply, no longer threatening to crush him into a pancake, the man forgave Raimel all her former sins at once. And when that same golem drove away the abomination that had lunged at him with its enchanted poleaxe, he almost fell in love.

"I'll get married." He muttered to himself, trying at the same time to squeeze the most wounded creature between the two golems controlled directly, and the three controlled indirectly. - I don't care if she's not innocent anymore! I'll cut my arm and soil the sheets if I have to! I'll take her as my beloved junior wife!"

Behind his words, which replaced the exhausted stock of swear words, he did not forget to control the golems, now and then moving to direct control, now and then stepping to the side again, giving only general commands, trusting the battles to the many algorithms embedded in the construction. Raimel was motionless, only her hands and slender fingers moving in a mesmerizing rhythm, and the steel giants fighting in the same rhythm behind her. Amid their efforts, the regular soldiers could only hold their ground, save for the mages and the unrelenting commander, driving away the abomination with his shining blade.

"Senior Wife!" Barai changed his mind when one of the ice queen's golems managed to snatch away a lilac tentacle that reached out to him with a golem ax. "And if she refuses, I'll steal her! I'm about to run home anyway!"

Raimel, fortunately, could not hear him, for she was completely absorbed in the battle, giving as if it were the last time in her life. It could be true - that death had never stood so close to Barai.

The combined efforts were partially successful. The creatures that pushed against the barrier from the entrance were pounding even harder, but the two that did manage to break through were literally vaporized. One was chopped into many, many pieces by the commander, who had managed to get close enough to the wary creature, and the other was vaporized by a bolt of lightning from a stationary amulet that had been connected to it by one of his colleagues in class. Barai would have tried it himself, but there was no time to divert his attention away from the golems, nor Raimel, nor the two technicians who possessed the rudiments of the necessary skills to control them.

For a second there was complete silence in the hangar, with a distinct howl outside the barrier, and then the same commander (Barai had no energy left to remember his name) came to his senses, slapping and kicking everyone he could reach, clearly determined to survive this mess. Barai approved of this attitude in every possible way, which was not surprising.

"Mages, hold the barrier!" He started handing out orders. "As long as you can, keep it up. And then some more. If we let them all through, we'll be crushed. Raimel!"

"Lord Groisman?" Coldly and calmly, as if this dance with death had not just happened, a true masterpiece of direct control of the constructs, she said. "I'm listening to you."

"Wake the giant shit up, Raimel." He answered tiredly. "By any means necessary, you will, but we can't hold out without weapons like that when the creatures break through. We don't have the strength to hold them for more than half an hour. The mages have already begun to slurp their potions. A little more at this rate, and we could be taken without a fight. And I don't want to fall into the clutches of these creatures, and I don't want you to, either."

"I entirely agree with your reasoning, sir." If the lady was impressed by the warrior's words, she made no sign of it. "But no amount of speech will allow me to do the impossible. The Colossus-class golems cannot be used without the key, which only Maitre Gordion, whom I have been unable to contact, and Lord At'Orovai, who also has not responded to the call, has the key. I don't know if they're dead, or if their communications have gone bad, but I can't get a key out of them. At the very least, I'd rather be court-martialed than try to get through unprotected corridors to any of them."

"Can't you at least try?" Almost with a pleading voice the fighter asked. "Go around, hack the locks? I don't care what the consequences might be, even if you guarantee to destroy the golems. If you so wish, I am ready to swear on my blood that I will take responsibility for this order. But we need that weapon. Very much."

A drop of condensation fell onto Barai's face from the ceiling, forcing his attention to the fog gradually gathering in the far corners of the room, as well as to the sparkling walls where magic had begun to conflict. The Stone was crumbling before their eyes, unable to stand up to what was eating away at it from all sides. The people trapped here seemed so small and insignificant...

Barai suddenly realized that if he died here, no one would remember him, no one would tell tales of his death or sing songs about his last battle. He didn't want to die like that, didn't want to die at all, to be frank! He would have accepted dying surrounded by loving great-grandchildren, falling on the battlefield, next to grieving comrades-in-arms.

But he didn't want to die here.

"You could break the amulet base of the locking mechanism." The Barai was as calm and surprisingly indifferent as Raimel had been a second earlier. - I'm an Amuletist by first class if you don't forget. I can redirect the command pulse in the right direction if Lady Raimelle can illuminate the right parts of the enchantment structure."

"Could it work?" Asked a slightly hopeful Groisman.

"It might work." She answered.

They brought the first golem to a completely inoperable state in less than a minute - too hurried, under the desperate stares of soldiers and civilians, under the hoarse breathing of overpowered mages driving themselves to their graves. Raimel was able to point, to let Barai feel, the location of the amulet-key. But that's why it was placed there, so that all sorts of selfish amuletists wouldn't be able to break the lock at once.

To himself, Barai promised that if he met the man who came up with the wonderful idea of locking up one of the Stone's strongest weapons, just to ensure that the golem masters had no leverage over the fortress, he would give him a good scrubbing in the face. Perhaps even with that golem. Anyway, he still has to steal his beloved future first wife, and then leave for his native mountain auls, so he can take with him a huge Colossus, or at least a relatively small Giant.

The main thing is to survive.

Under the desperate stares of those around him, and to the renewed prayers and blasphemies of Barai, they set to work on the second machine. Either the gods had heard his prayers and rewarded him for his faith, or the devils had been pleased by his blasphemies, but the second and third locking amulets were disabled. Blood ran down Raimel's handsome face as well as his own, but the main task was accomplished - they had weapons. Even two weapons!

"I don't know how to use such constructs" He tried to explain himself to Raimel. "There is no one in Stone who can use them at all. You need special dwarven classes, which no one among us has."

"But can you control it? Can you?" Groisman rushed her, watching as the barrier, no longer supported by the half-conscious mages, was thinning. "Can you do something?"

"I can. " A nod of approval and a tired sigh. "I can't guarantee full effectiveness, but I can use the basic built-in amulets. I can't distract myself from controlling standard golems. I can't control them directly, only indirectly, and only occasionally."

" And I can guarantee that I can control most of the amulets!" Excitement and a wild headache erupted in Barai, a mountain accent that seemed to have been firmly rooted out of him by the years he'd spent in the capital's workshops. "I can't vouch for the control, but I'll take the big golem."

It's old and very familiar trouble: if you start having trouble speaking, it means it's time to take a vacation because the overstrain has reached critical levels. He wouldn't mind taking a vacation right now, or anywhere else if only he could leave this place. Alas, instead of a carefree stroll through the capital's taverns and brothels, he had to settle for two vials of fortifying potion, a large sip of firewater, and a snuffed sleeve. Raimel, to Barai and Groisman's unspeakable surprise, did the same, except for the sniffing with her sleeve, and the sip of firewater was smaller.

No, he understood that alcohol, especially very strong alcohol, could slightly reduce the kickback from the too frequent and close relationship between the construct and the mage, but the "ice bitch" always seemed so demonstrably above such methods that Barai even forgot about his headache with surprise, and the accent almost completely disappeared from his voice:

"Will you be my first wife?"

"Did you mean what you just said?" Not even with contempt or insult, but with great surprise, this impudent and rude woman asked in response to his declaration of love, and then silently, without waiting for an answer, disappeared into the special compartment for the pilot Colossus, not deigning to continue the conversation.

"I'll definitely steal her!" Barai nodded decisively to himself, also diving into his cockpit and extending his magic and senses to the many magical lines and nodes. All you have to do is to control an almost familiar golem, with the slight difference that the golem itself is much larger, and you are sitting inside of that golem.

Yeah, he can do that in a heartbeat!

The barrier burst when the floor fog reached my knees, hiding the few wounded and unconscious from fatigue in its whitish waves. The fog seemed subtly wrong, ominous even, frightening with its strange energy. The mages and sensors were picking up the same energies in it as in the fog surrounding the space gap, making them visibly nervous. Now the concentration of this power was far from dangerous, but even the mere paucity was enough to render the magic embedded in the walls unusable very quickly. The only comforting thing about the fog was that the creatures who had burst into the hangar were warier of it than the desperate humans.

The first of the intruders did not last long, however, finding themselves dispersed into wisps of lilac matter and fog. Two enormous dwarven manned golems stood guard over the lives of the cornered defenders, who remained deadly fighters even in such dire straits.

The golems looked like five-meter humanoid figures, resembling huge, hunchbacked knights. In a combat situation, they had to leave the hangar through a gate left for them, located away from the usual entrance arch and leading directly outside the fortress. A separate topic was the removal of such large constructs from the lacuna through the portal passages, but none of that mattered now. No one was going to let the Colossus out of the room, on the contrary - everyone was going to tear apart the already shattered hangar, holding the defense right there.

The Colossus, which could repel almost any threat, helped them maintain this defense. The armored hump on their backs contained a high-capacity core, with a control cage next to it, in which the controlling Technomancer or Pilot sat. The Barai and Raimel classes were not suited to squeezing maximum efficiency out of these constructs, but they could still control them. These golems had no head as such, only the image of a fierce bearded face on the chest plate. In the eye sockets of that plate shone two red crystals that served as the controller's eyes. The two long and disproportionately thick arms were armed to the Colossus' size.

In the right-hand golems clutched - or rather, not clutched, but embedded - a cold weapon in the form of a huge and gradually heated ax, capable of a single blow to tear apart a knight, along with his armor and horse. In the left hand were built two giant wands with destructive magic - lightning thrower and dragon's breath. The original designs had an alchemical lead string and an alchemical flamethrower, but they replaced such a thing specifically for humans. I was a bit scared to give the technology to humans, or maybe I just realized that people wouldn't be able to maintain such mechanisms.

The hearts and batteries in the Colossus weren't the best, because people thought they could be powered directly by the Stone. Alas, now that the strange fog had drained most but the most powerful and reliable of the magic invested here, such an option remained closed but even so, they had at least a couple of hours of function or forty minutes of battle left.

The magic accumulated in the wands was expended threateningly quickly, but it was acceptable if you remember that the controllers "had in their hands" stationary fortress amulets! Yes, lightweight, but still incredibly powerful and capable of direct aiming. It was these amulets that met the first creatures that broke through, literally pulverizing the first two abominations. Damaged and inoperable golems piled into the barricade were also hit, but they were neither cold nor hot from such blows, but the monsters composed of pure planar energy were literally torn to shreds by lightning.

The first creatures were followed by an insanely angry howl as those outside realized the threat, and then special monster magic kicked in, knocking almost everyone in the room off their feet. The mind-numbing shrieks paralyzed the will, but the dwarven runes that had erupted on Colossus kept the controllers' brains from frying. The rest of the humans were hit more by the edge, so there were no casualties, either. The creatures didn't know it, but the dwarves were well aware that a blow to the pilot's mind was one of the most effective ways to put a pilot golem out of action. Much easier and more economical in terms of reserves than burning or freezing enchanted steel through. And so the shorthaired have learned to masterfully deal with such techniques, causing the mentalists and similar skillful practitioners to gnash their teeth.

The creature attack was not a mental attack, but it was close enough to that to be almost completely inhibited by the rune defense. The defense was undoubtedly almost overpowered, but almost doesn't count in these situations. The controllers, on the other hand, almost missed the moment of attack, but almost missing is much better than almost being in time.

The fraction of a second Barai spent regaining his composure was not fatal, allowing him to use the magical equivalent of a flamethrower only in time. The slightly belated Hestia Raimel could have saved the charge because the first two monsters that burst forth were washed out of reality almost immediately, and the others retreated as swiftly as they had rushed into battle a second earlier.

The creatures were cautious now, having learned to respect the power of the iron giants that lodged in the mages. Instead of sudden attacks, their cries began to press gradually but continuously. Now that the mages could no longer hold up a barrier against the cry, the humans had no choice but to cling to their sanity or die. Gradually the runes on the hull were showing more and more vividly, but there was still a long way to go before the circuits burned out. The creatures weren't going to wait that long, already getting a taste of human souls ready to jump right into their mouths.

Only one of the mages was left on his feet, and the commander, clutching at the gleaming sword like a life preserver. Barai was enormously glad of his idea and the fact that he could fit his ass into the control cage, or he too would be squirming now, nearly hidden by the swirling mist. A milky white haze already covered the floor down to the waist of the man standing, and there was no sign of anyone lying there at all. One could only hope that neither he nor his future beloved wife would step on them. Otherwise, it would be embarrassing, yes.

He wanted to run, but he knew that even if he could break through the wall, there was nowhere to go and the lacuna was no longer safe. Though there might not be crying things waiting for him outside... But there would be something else waiting for him. His sense of danger was barely developed, but the overall impression of this fog was the most negative of all possible forebodings.

+It's as if a shaitan is breathing down your back, a faint-hearted thought flashed through Barai's mind.

But it's not over yet, is it?

The unprotected people had still not risen from the fog when the howling and wailing monsters burst into the hall, their cries of triumph and joy at the imminent reprisal. Sweat dripped down Barai's eyes, his body ached from the sheer amount of magic pumped through the controlling cage, too much merging with the structure of the construct caused unbearable pains in his head, and blood seemed to flow even from his eyes.

And yet he fought, just as Raimel, who was in the next golem, fought. The only man who attempted to do anything - their commander, it seemed - was swept away without even a second's hesitation, literally dragged into the lilac haze of the monsters' intangible bodies. Magical wands and red-hot axes struck next. The Colossus attack was supported by the standard golems, controlled only by algorithms and the occasional interference from Raimel, who was distracted for only a few moments.

The creatures were fast.

Twirly and agile.

They possessed some form of foresight, for after the first of them broke through the archway into the room, none of them could be hit. Nor could they do any serious damage themselves, though, causing the Barai to gnash their teeth. Three times the cursed burps of night wind simply shattered a chunk of the wall next to the archway, moving away from the lightning bolts when they seemed to have nowhere to go. Immediately the all-consuming fire released managed to vaporize two more foes, but then they were forced to divert to the breakers, giving the remaining creatures time to penetrate the room.

Small golems fall one by one, but the creatures pay the price, each golem's destruction eating away a portion of their lilac plume, making them cry quieter and move more slowly. By the time the last small golem had fallen, there were only three of them left against the two Colossus that had expended so much energy.

Not the worst odds.

He had never felt so at one with a construct, never worked with such reliance on a master's hunches and intuition. His level spoke for itself - Barai was a talented man, perhaps the strongest in generations of his family. He knew that the real rewards and titles could only come when you went over your limit. And now, without a doubt, he had crossed that limit time and time again.

For all his talents, Barai was a pure craftsman, not a warrior, no matter how much he tried to prove to himself otherwise. But now, as he hurled lightning bolts and poured the flames that melted the stones around him, he realized that he had been a mere craftsman until now. With each passing second, the creatures clamping down on them grew weaker and weaker; more and more of the hangar area was covered in flames and soot; more and more the righteous rage and faith in victory flared in Barai's heart.

Here the first lilac clump couldn't stand the rhythm, falling under two cross blows from the glowing axes. They pushed each other a little, of course, but the balance was restored faster than the remaining opponents could take advantage of it. And the serrations on the enormous blades were of less concern to the two unwitting controllers than anything else in the world at that moment.

A lightning bolt from the Colossus that Raimel controls shreds the second one, who has spent too much time attacking Barai's hull. Yes, each such touch turns the enchanted steel into a melded lump of incomprehensible substance, shattering the enchantments and tearing the chains of runes. But now the creature had lingered too long, allowing the woman to time and strike exactly when the creature had no time to accelerate but had already flown far enough away from the golem's hull to fear no damage to her ally.

The last creature flew below the ceiling, dodging the weakened streams of flame and lightning for some time. The forceful use of the built-in weaponry depleted its reserves of energy and cores in literally a dozen minutes, but the golems were still too far from shutting down. The edge of the lilac plume was licked by the flames, the slowing creature was struck by a weak (only in comparison) lightning strike, and the body that fell directly into the mist was shattered by the impact of a red-hot axe, at the same time dispersing the mist.

They withstood.

They won.

They survived.

Barai couldn't believe his luck, struggling to keep from revealing the mottled messages of Status. That's what you can tell at home, scaring your grandchildren with the story of his victory and exploit for years to come. And no one would dare say that Barai was a mere braggart, not even his father. Because there's hardly a man in the whole county who could repeat what Barai just did. And his beloved wife, of course. But women are not mentioned in such cases, so as not to spoil the moral fable with the capital's trends. A woman's place is in the home, not on the battlefield. His grandfather said so, and his grandfather to him, and his grandfather to him, and before that his grandfather also said so, according to his grandfather. That's what he would say, too.

The main thing is to be able to get Raimelle home without letting her kill her husband-to-be before his time. Otherwise, it would be a very bad fable: he conquered all his enemies, glorified his ancestors, and died at the hands of his stolen bride. They would laugh and spit in the other world for such a thing, and they would be right!

Even if he hadn't been dreaming, he wouldn't have reacted in time to the sneak attack. It was not for nothing that he thought these creatures resembled hunting dogs surrounding a wounded mountain bison, not for nothing at all. Because after the death of the pack, the herdsman himself showed his face, finishing off a too stubborn beast. Even if he had reacted immediately, Barai would have had no time to do anything - there was nowhere to run, and ducking while inside the Colossus' control cage was too much of a challenge. Maybe the dwarven Pilot would have been able to twist the faithful machine like that, but where dwarves and where Barai is the wrong specialty, and any talent has its limits, which cannot be moved without the right training.

In a few seconds, the molten wall, the wall that had been struck most often with a dragon's breath, cooled into a perfectly polished surface. Into a man-made mirror, from which something unbearably unhuman appeared at once, in comparison to which the weeping monsters were mere pet sheep. The cloud of lilac mist had no eyes, no limbs, but the two controllers knew perfectly well that it could see them, that it was looking at them, and that they had very little time left to live.

The remaining intact runes on the hull glowed and began to melt through the steel on which they had been drawn, but still managed to save the controllers' minds from madness. At least Barai subconsciously knew that since his brains hadn't leaked out of his ears, the always cold-blooded Raimel had all the more reason not to go crazy. And then the reflection looking back at them spat something, instantly disappearing and turning into a simple man-made full-wall mirror.

Barai was talented, very talented, and he had just won at least one not-so-easy title and was an admirably cool mountain warrior (in his mind), albeit without a warrior class. So he managed to turn the hull just a little, saving the golem's "hump" where the control cage was located. The machine collapsed instantly as if surrounded by hundreds of incredibly strong threads that sliced through the bewitched steel as easily as if it were a piece of bread! By what miracle he'd managed to get himself out from under the impact, he didn't know, but he did.

He was saved.

The blowback from destroying the golem, combined with overexertion, exhaustion, intoxication, and a slight hangover, hit his mind in one fell swoop, but Barai still saw Raimel's bloody body crawling out of the hump of the second Colossus. It made him want to howl unbearably, knowing that the woman he'd just fought alongside (she might be a woman, which meant she had no place in the stories, but she had fought!) was now dying, and he couldn't help her. He could not even get out of the cabin.

Whether it was because Raimel was too highly specialized, focused on controlling standard golems, or because she was just standing closer to the mirror, she was only partially able to defend herself. Strange cutting threads pierced the cage and severed both her legs and one of her arms, the stumps of which she desperately tried to clamp with her magic, but she too had overstretched, and there were bloody streaks visible on the woman's torso... Raimel was failing, dying of blood loss and wounds, one step away from victory, but still trying to crawl somewhere purposefully, without removing the expression of calm concentration from her face. Maybe she had a cache of healing potions somewhere nearby, but they wouldn't help against such wounds, and you couldn't get to that cache with wounds like that. However, he would no longer see the apparent end, be it a blessing or a curse.

Barai was losing consciousness with a sense of the utter wrongness of what was happening.

The epic stories were not supposed to end like this.

It was at that moment that Barai understood why his father and grandfather so seldom boasted of their exploits at the evening bonfire, where the whole settlement gathered. Even though they had more deeds under their belt than those who cheerfully recounted their adventures to eager ears. It was just that they, too, knew that sometimes stories didn't end the way they were supposed to.
_______________________________________

Pain tormented her body, preventing her from concentrating properly on her goal, from giving her even a ghostly chance of salvation. Ironic, but it was always her cold mind, soberly assessing the odds in any situation, that told her now that Hestia Raimel's life story was coming to a sad end. Blood loss, exhaustion, and wounds would kill her with assurance, without even a shadow of a chance. She had seen such wounds too many times to entertain any hope of salvation.

The One who has become everything to her... he must be busy with something far more important than saving her life at the risk of his own. After all, all people can easily be replaced - a bitter truth that had reached her a long time ago.

She couldn't even answer the question of why she continued to fight for life, even though she knew there was no chance. Maybe it was her innate stubbornness, forcing her to cling to every chance and tear her teeth for a place in the sun. Maybe it was the army reflexes, which often triggered where the mind could no longer bear the load. Somehow I wanted to believe that the main reason was the few words she'd heard before we parted.

///I order you to survive.

It was hard to refuse such a request, even without the strange and so beautiful magic that bound her fate more securely than a thousand magical contracts. At least there, in the next world, she could answer with a clear conscience that she had tried to do his bidding to the last breath, to the last drop of blood. If it hadn't been for the potions she'd been given "just in case," she wouldn't have lasted ten heartbeats. She was terrified to even imagine the cost of such concoctions, capable of keeping the set of meat pieces that the enemy attack had turned her into in this world. It also added motivation and stubbornness, an unwillingness to let down someone who had wasted so many resources on you. She didn't even want to think about the fact that he might not have enough of those potions himself - the very fact of what was going on in the Stone now was the best indicator of the success of his actions.

For an instant, she lost track of time, lost herself in space. The hard, wet stone of the floor still chilled her body, shaking with deathly chills, but she could no longer tell where she was going, or if she was going at all. The thick fog obscured words, sounds, and even thoughts. Tears of pain and resentment streamed down her eyes, but she continued to cling to life, unwilling, unwilling, unwilling to admit her defeat.

No one want.

For a moment she glanced at her hand and saw the tips of her fingers seem to fade away, to dissolve, to become the same mist that surrounded her. The last of her strength left her, and all she could do was watch in silence as more and more of her body disappeared.

It ceases to be.

In some ways it was scarier than death, and in other ways it was easier. More pleasant, even. The Mist was slowly taking her herself away from her, leaving behind only dampness and an attentive look on her back. It was watching waiting for her complete disintegration. It was unclear why, or what, but it waited. It waited without malice, without cruelty - the gaze of what was looking at her was infinitely indifferent to her, and to the world in general.

But it could wait.

Could watch as her life was cut short.

It was this realization, the realization that it was over, that made her fight. Even if it were the fluttering of a kitten drowned in a bucket, she refused to go silently and obediently, refused, for that was all she was allowed, all she had left.

Her body was sprawling in wisps of snow-white mist, and she was feeding it everything she could just to keep herself alive. Levels, characteristics, and classes were going nowhere, and skills and titles were disappearing. Everything she tried to save was her - her memory, her mind, her anger, and her grief. That which embodied Hestia Raimel, that which was once her.

The battle was desperate, glorious, and as hopeless as trying to scoop out the sea with a scoop from an old fable. For a moment there was nothing left to pay for the right to be. Not even a drop of matter remained of her body, and Hestia herself had long ago turned into a thinking lump of snow-white mist that desperately refused to dissolve into nothingness. The last second of her life was filled with some strange regret for everything at once and a small ray of light joy.

At least He managed to get out of that trap without getting caught in the eyes of the Mist that was taking her away.

And then that mist shattered, like the fog dispersed by a gust of wind. Her whole being - and she had nothing left but her essence - felt something incredibly evil and hungry rushing past, and the Mist, seemingly all-powerful as much as she was indifferent, was torn apart by the terrible and hungry beast, if only to retreat temporarily, letting the rebellious prey exhaust itself.

She had no ears to hear and no eyes to see, but somehow she could still discern the staggering figure in the leather armor, holey and smoking. A figure whose words she heard before the consciousness of her naked soul could no longer be held in working order, sinking into saving oblivion.

"No, come on, you can't even make a step without me, can you?"

For some reason, she felt a sudden urge to regain her body, to climb into Colossus, and to bang the speaker on the head. Affectionately and lovingly, of course, but so that he could feel the weight of the battle she'd endured and the sweetness of her victory.

After all, she survived.

It's still there.

She won.
_______

No one wants to die.

No one is willing to suffer defeat.

No one wants to lose everything right away after gaining something incredibly important, far more important than mere gold or even political influence. The moment his power, his magic, overcame the will and might of the legendary creature, he understood and realized far more than he could have imagined before. It was like an epiphany, a stroke of lightning that suddenly put in place the scattered and hard-to-assemble pieces of a mosaic that he had not been able to recreate for decades.

The path to understanding how the world worked was stupidly simple, simple enough that he wanted to laugh at how close that answer was. Close to every one of them, close to every human and nonhuman. All it takes is the right look to realize it. To see it the way he had managed to see it himself.

Then, standing before the impudent lad, brimming with borrowed and alien power, he had no doubt that victory would be his. He was more experienced, he was stronger, he was full of strength, while his enemy was barely on his feet after a hard battle. An enemy who was supposed to be exactly what he was.

Ultimate Hero.

He attacked calmly and confidently, as he always did. This was his home, his fortress, and his battlefield, which he could change at will. With each blow, his enemy grew weaker and he grew stronger, with each move he discovered new strategies, and his enemy was deprived of room to maneuver. He could not win, he could not escape, he could not even give himself up to a different realm, feeding his soul for a desire for revenge before he died.

The empty bravado of a kid who didn't even know what he'd gained, who couldn't control his power, and who certainly didn't have the slightest chance of saving himself from becoming another monster, didn't touch Ferer in the slightest. Accepting defeat at the hands of a nobody who couldn't preserve himself was not only unwilling, he refused to accept such a fate.

But the kid also knew how to say no.

He now realizes that he is all too used to the fact that Heroes remain Chained, shadows of their former selves, incapable of true deeds.

This one was different.

The power inside him should have broken the man's will faster than a heartbeat, but it was as if he hadn't heard the cries of the shadows calling him, hadn't paid attention to the fact that his body wasn't even a material manifestation. He was already an evil Shadow, had already lost his human form, but somehow he refused to admit it.

Every strike of Ferer's should have been his last, but no amount of anti-forethought, no combination and stacking effects of the magic manifested in reality could inflict the very, much-needed final blow of mercy. The creature, who remained human, fought stubbornly, arousing even the remotest semblance of respect.

When he fell to his knees in helplessness, Ferer did not allow himself mockery, did not allow himself gloating, even though he was proud. Defeating such an enemy, who remained human to the very end, was a hundred times sweeter than defeating yet another creature, of which there were already too many under this sky.

The mercy blow was parried by an entirely different force, a force sleeping in every glare of the mirror and in the depths of people's souls. The boy changed the source of the charge with stunning ease, going on the attack himself. But Ferer still could not find a way to stop his enemy - the blows either did no harm or passed through the alien, who had become something completely unanthropomorphic, and who walked toward him with the rhythm of a metronome, covering several meters with each step, ignoring the usual metrics of space.

In the decisive blow, he put all of himself.

For a moment, he truly knew that his opponent was dead. He could almost see, in his mind's eye, how the thin and all too fragile energy of the Dream Realm shattered into broken glass, taking with it one of the fools who had dared to defy the world in droves. The vision melted as instantly as it had come, and the adversary simply vanished into the reflection of the marble floor.

Ferer thought he had escaped preparing another strike. He was already figuring out what reports to write, and what forces to bring in to find and destroy what turned out to be a far worse threat when he was surprised once more. When the enemy came back, dragging something with him, so vile that Ferer could not even find the words, even though he was quite good at sacrifice.

This fight was the scariest he'd ever seen: no plan, no multitrack components, just the two of them and a mob of creatures eager to kill them both. The moment Ferer realized that the boy had his back, protecting him, he almost exploded with rage. The final blow destroyed no fewer than seven of the creatures and should have killed the Hero himself as well.

The blow was a terrible, powerful blow, one in which Ferer put everything he had left into it, splattering the Dreams into ethereal shreds, but the boy surprised again, did the same trick again, instantly changing the type of energies he used. The shadow dome was put up by those on the last crumbs of the reserve, but he put it up.

Ferer doesn't even have any crumbs left.

He lay on the cold marble floor, bleeding from numerous wounds, though not individually dangerous, looking at the slowly approaching masked man, knowing that he did not want to die like that, did not want to, did not accept such an outcome.

The man steps forward, removing the mask from his face. Beneath the mask is not a monster, but a man like him. The man is tired, barely on his feet, but at the same time Ferer does not doubt at all that this boy can withstand another fight when the old mage himself is no longer able to stand up. Well, at least the lad won't take anything out of the Stone except experience, a few levels, and the blows he got in the fight. Torturing Ferer is almost useless, even in this miserable state, and the miserable state of it will prevent him from applying anything that could still break him.

There is not much time left before the arrival of the emergency brigade from the Capital.

Whatever kind of monster, Ferer almost laughed at his pun but could only smirk, this man can't fight another battle.

"I know what you're thinking." In a sort of detached and, for once, human voice, his killer said. "But don't worry, I can get the answers out of you, even if they come to me with pieces of your soul."

And for some reason, looking at the golden glow in the palms of the high-class essentialist, Ferer was in no doubt about it. There was no strength even to commit suicide by magic, or even to bite his tongue off. Only a strange condition matured somewhere in the back of his mind, expressed as something like: how many more tricks did he have up his sleeve? Ironic, but that phrase was usually said about him, Ferer Roche.

In the last moment, before the pain came, he could think, gloatingly, that the farts in the Royal Office would have to deal with the coming storm themselves. That didn't make his plight any easier, but it made it a little more bearable, in the face of total defeat on all fronts.

The boy wasn't lying - he really ripped out the answers.

Authors note:

Twenty-five sheet I've shit in two days.

An excuse to rest, you might say. Like last time, consider this chapter as two, which is just enough volume.

Dices. You've seen Ygra's crits for yourself. The first hundred to go through the rear of Leroy's hundred without revealing herself. Almost a dozen and a half fought aside without even letting herself be seen.

A hundred on the counterattack against Leroy - and it's pure, without the bonuses of 100 and 70.

Hans was the luckiest of all, not even a scratch on him yet.

Losius is alive, but exhausted and a little beaten.

Tarya is alive, but she took too many stray hits. Her shadow regeneration saved her, but it will take her a long time to recover and she will need to be healed.

Hestia.

To the credit of the omak writers, she was not suspected until the very end. It was a success. Only the danger approached from Dream's side, firmly grabbing everyone in the Stone by the balls at once.

And if she and the mountain djigit (who was lucky in life, even now has a chance to survive!) had enough for the nightmare creatures, then the old man who showed up at the fire, who crited, did not spare a very voracious attack on them. Jigit survived by roll a crit too, albeit with bonuses. He pump up there as a mecha pilot.

Hestia caught the near lethal damage.

And failed at surviving the Mist.

I spent the last thirty points to save her, and I got it to 55. As a result, her mind and soul are saved, but what to do with her body - no idea. That's a question for Kostya and his skills.

I would write more, but there is no room in the notes. Good for everyone.

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