Готовый перевод Его не звали, но он приперся / They never called, yet he is here: Интерлюдия вторая: "Следи за спиной"

Interlude Two: "Watch Your Back"
* * *

There are moments in an endowed's life when you just want to sit down and cry rather than solve another pile of problems that keep piling up. There are all kinds of reasons for such a breakdown, from the frankly minor ones, like a badly missed rain, to destiny-breaking ones. When what you've been waiting for so long slips out of your hands, leaving you alone with those very problems. An unpleasant situation, for anyone unpleasant, from the most battered plowman to the great and terrible Eyes of the Eternal.

Siegmund Rooleim did not consider himself a plowman, but he was not happy about it. To be frank, he would have gladly swapped places with this plowman, giving up all his hard-earned and stolen money without regret. Eyes of the Eternal is a difficult position, to which only the most trusted and reliable are placed. He may have once jokingly considered taking the Emperor's decrees and oaths somewhat freely, but his thoughts were limited to that. Sigmund simply didn't have much point in scheming against the Empire because he already had everything. I mean, everything at all. A seat on the throne might be a nice end to his career, but he wouldn't be there for long, and there would be so many problems that it would be better not to think about it.

He was made an Eye by the last Emperor, with whom he had, if not a friendship, then a firm, friendly relationship. The years passed, and the ruler was replaced by his son, and that son was already preparing his heir, but the Eyes of the Empire remained the same. Huge power, almost unlimited influence, the fulfillment of all desires, whims, and fantasies... and an unimaginable amount of work. Continuous, hard, exhausting, and the kind of work you can't trust anyone else. Or not to check, if you do.

Those days, when he was rushing into new secrets and problems with excitement and gleam in his eyes, when with a heart burning with a righteous flame he uncovered another plot or created his own, but already in enemy territory, were so far in the past that even the memory of them is slowly fading. Given his skills and abilities, that's quite an indicator. Having reached the fifty-fourth level, having accumulated untold riches that he had no one to leave behind, having outlived all his friends, family, and loved ones, Sigismund simply wanted to live out his time in peace, years and years ago, having refused to prolong life with rituals and alchemy.

Three classes, none of which were combat classes, allowed him alone to hold most of the secret threads that entangled a fair share of all Alurei. His replacement was not only difficult but impossible to find. The Hero of the Quill and the Web... All those who might have laughed at his name, he, too, had long since outlived. The boy whose name had turned out to be forgotten and cut out of reality, he prepared to replace with almost love. Yes, he was no match for him in terms of ability, experience, or even sheer potential. But it was pointless self-aggrandizement to compare a possible successor to himself. But Second Prince was the best of those who were not him.

The key word here is exactly was.

Reading the reports, Sigmund could hardly contain the urge to bang his head against the table, the walls, and the floor at the same time. He could barely suppress the compulsive urge to start gnawing at the collar of his robes or even the carpet beneath his feet. When the elven diplomats handed over official permission to kill the Fallen Executioner, he nearly choked on his dinner, which he often had to eat right at work. It was nice to look for a catch, but pointless. Just for some reason, this old, rotten snag had been denied the right to be one of them.

This is not a unique case, for he has had all sorts of things in his life, almost all of them, for that matter. But it's one thing for an eared dissident to become untouchable or, say, a fool who got too deep into the realm and turned into a creature. The elves preferred to strangle them quietly on their own, mourning their loss with all the hypocrisy of their race. But if they couldn't do it themselves, they didn't hesitate to hunt them down with their equivalent of a free hunt. The hunt for the Executioner was exactly what began.

The hunt was not even for a liquidator, who had the blood of many powerful and influential individuals on her hands, for whom there would be someone to avenge. The hunt was on for one who had innumerable secrets, techniques, ciphers, and other things in her head, for which even Sigmund himself would have given much. Perhaps if he could have taken her alive, even the unrelenting apathy with which he had been living for the past decades would surely have receded for a year or two. It is doubly suspicious that such a cadre has been handed over to the "short ears."

So she hadn't just fallen into madness, which, with her classes too dark and dangerous to ignore, was a legitimate outcome of life's journey. It was highly probable that in her madness, the Dark Druid was willing to do something the elves had chosen to deny in advance, despite all possible leaks. It's a good excuse to shake off the old days and start digging deeper.

Cause and effect, cause and effect... No one on the continent could relate one thing to another better than Sigmund. At least, that's what they said of him, and he listened and nodded silently. In fact, of course, there were experts at least as good as he was, as well as deceivers whose lies could hide what they wanted. And one particular visionary knew how to lie, knowing full well the most basic doctrine of any covert operation - no one could find you unless they found something to latch on to.

He found nothing.

You can repeat hundreds of times about his age, about how he had sat too long in office, that he had relaxed and missed the obvious... In general, to repeat after those who were now trying to undermine the permanent head of the Emperor's Eyes. He immediately told his immediate superior that he simply could not find out about it. Because he was used to working against fools, against fools who thought they were smart, and against the smart, very smart, cunning, dangerous, and brilliant. And he worked well.

But even all his experience, even all his career, could not have prepared him to anticipate such a situation. No, he had seen desperate lovesick fools seeking revenge for the death of the other half. Eliminations, set-ups, using a convenient pawn - with such predictable personalities, you can do so many useful things that it's amazing. Never love, dear children. Never love anyone! His organization was able to resist a lovesick vigilante, eager to bleed someone of the respectable citizens of the Empire of the Ages, even without Sigmund's participation.

But even in the wildest delirium, the old Hero could not imagine a situation where this vigilante would be someone like the Fallen Executioner! People like her just can't act in that role! She had been spoiling the blood of the enemies of the Eternal Forest back in the years when his great-grandmother lay in her cradle and never even thought of meeting his great-grandfather! This is the experience of entire dynasties!

Would he believe that this creature, hollowed out by years, incapable of compassion, empathy, and regret, who had only a purpose and an order above all else, would be capable not only of love but also of doing the stupid things typical of lovers? If this had been reported to him a month earlier, he would have demoted the informer. He wouldn't even have laughed - he'd seen funnier jokes.

Correlate the death of a small escort squad under an elf bard who wandered into the area of one amusing family ritual the Second Prince was conducting with the fact that one of the continent's most odious liquidators was in love with this elf? Well, he was able to do it. He went through all the archives, turned all the surviving suites of the prince inside out, and went over every action and operation by the second, from the project of organizing a realm breakthrough in the capital of Alishan (an interesting idea, by the way) to the petty baronet beaten by his guards, who unluckily entered the same hotel and refused to leave the dining hall.

Found the link between the dead bard and the one who loved him, checked eighteen times, activated a dozen artifacts, including three legendary ones, checked a few more times, let four separate circles of visionaries check, checked again, drank a soothing potion and went to report to the enraged His Imperial Majesty. He could never get used to the fact that all of them, including himself, were still alive under a shell of hypocrisy and indifference, that they could still feel something.

The Eternal Forest would turn its nose up, proudly silent, insultingly threatening, but the Empire would squeeze them dry. Siegmund did not believe this was their original plan. The Second Prince, despite killing one particular bard, was not an adversary of the Eternal Forest, though not an ally. His death would not benefit them, only war and the deaths of their so-valued kin. But they have yet to prove it so that the grief-stricken Emperor will believe them. Because the artifacts and equipment used by the Fallen Executioner speak of a long and careful preparation at the level of the state. The rejected fugitive cannot have two mythical and at least three legendary artifacts that were formerly in the possession of the Eternal Forest. They will milk the star born dry, which, however, will not even partially compensate for the losses incurred.

And the enemy had not suffered any losses.

Tialrianrelia of the House of the Misty Tree, a branch of the Flower Blue, a blossom of the Eternal Beat - was not a diplomat. No, all elves, in one way or another, gain great experience in scheming and manipulating all non-elves, but this particular rotten pine had surprisingly little such experience for someone her age. She was a liquidator, working clearly to her intended purpose and asking no questions of her commanders - a perfect performer, he should have such.

She couldn't have had any allies to back her up after being doomed by her native forest. There had to be some kind of billet: a treaty there, an oath there, a cache there, a couple of mentally processed sleeper agents there, something she had prepared in her long centuries of a dangerous life.

But there could not have been one among her debtors, bribed or enchanted, one who had come to her aid at the decisive moment. All the interrogations the interrogators had conducted, all the visions the sighted could find, they all pointed to one thing: there was no such creature. Sigmund knew Kryd quite well, personally and through files and observers. Knew his strength and power, knew how dangerous this one-man army was, how invulnerable and unkillable he was. So many have tried to prove otherwise, but you can't remember their names now. But Krade Redjan-Shansir was and planned to be for a long time. He, too, like the Prince, was.

All the interrogations, the twisted memory, and the called-to-respond casts of the souls of the fallen said only one thing: Kryde did not even have time to notice the murderer. The possessor of a legendary hunch and an equally legendary sense of danger simply died without even putting up a fight, without even having time to try to defend himself, without even sensing the approaching death!

Shadow Assassin.

I was a bit of a daredevil, but very rare. They make excellent spies, summoners, and combat wizards, but their assassins, while strong, are very fast to lose the marbles. Standard concealment fields are inaccessible to shadow users, and a shadow assassin's blink is fraught with too much noticeable risk, even if it is terrifying in its effectiveness. All in all, it's rare for such a planar class to appear. There were such individuals in the Empire's ranks, and in the list of enemies as well, but they were all a long way from the level of proficiency demonstrated by the third party.

Sigmund was most impressed by the short report from Mikhel Yernalter, an extremely powerful summoner, perhaps one of the best in the Empire of the Ages, working specifically with Shadows of all shapes and sizes. Very few endowments manage to make a contract with such powerful entities. Mikhel's favorite contract has brought him fame, levels, and glory, though there's still a big question as to who is in charge of their tandem - the old and mighty Shadow, gobbling up those who are sacrificed to it and those whom the caller will point out to him, or the caller himself? In the sixteen years that the two of them have been working together, the creature has grown on free souls.

And so this blob of hunger and hatred was sent to track down the murderer of the crowned blood. In fact, it was the creature that was most often sent after the shadow users, so there was a certainty of success. Not everyone believed the bastard, who had escaped without a trace, could be killed, but he was bound to expose his attempt to escape or fend off the creature, and several independent teams of seers would be able to lead the liquidators to the subversive group's traces.

The Shadow fled, tearing from her amorphous pseudo-flesh the cohesive threads of the contracts she had made, sustained serious wounds, and lost some of her cherished and nurtured strength. But she did not even try to follow what imprint she had picked up. No one had stopped trying to reach her again, but so far, all the appeals had either gone to nothing or called on entirely different Shadows, who had come upon the scent of tormented souls. A couple of breakthroughs didn't cost too many lives, but two full jails of sacrificial material were wasted.

Sigmund had no strong connection to the aggressive plans, and even his grip on the Astral remained surprisingly low, but he knew the theory at a level some other mage could afford. And he knew what Shadows were, as well as what would frighten them. Not a good call, not a good call at all, leading directly to Alishan, where the magic of Darkness and Shadows was far more well known than in the Empire.

Tialrianrelia was undoubtedly sought, but more by inertia. Sigmund personally questioned her survivability simply by virtue of the fact that her helpers no longer needed her. In order for her to agree to be helped and backed up, Alishan squeezed her dry, and even more. The fact that they agreed, rather than simply slaughtering her and taking her most valuable artifacts, was already surprising. On the other hand, if anyone could compel these blackmongers to follow the deal from start to finish, it would be a person of her caliber.

The shadow user, judging by the analysis of the mages, priests, and seers, had simply dragged her into the depths of the Realm. So deep, in fact, that half of the shadow users in the Eyes were cursing unbelievingly, and the other half was graying on the spot. It didn't look like a suicide by the doer, which meant something was covering the Alishan freak down there in the depths. Were they crazy enough to start a cult for one of the Ancient Spawn of the Twilight Realm?

The new Alishan agent caused much excitement because of his sudden appearance. Persons of this caliber don't appear out of nowhere. They never do. Unless they are Summoned, of course. It seems his intelligence had been conveniently misinformed when it was led to believe that the Chained One summoned thirteen years ago was a mere Unhero, almost immediately sacrificed because they got a real Unchosen one, no less.

All of Alishan's other Heroes and Summoned either didn't fit the declared strengths or were summoned too recently to have time to mature to a sufficient level. The only thing left was the near-forgotten summons when one of the younger Khans got a powerful fire class, and no one else saw the summoned one. Apparently, Hamil An-Teraal got the class on his own, which they decided to use to nurture their trump card in secret.

Alishan is constantly at war with whatever crawls at them from the Great Desert. No one on the continent could more easily conceal the pumping and elevation of the Summoned in that meat grinder without revealing it to the Eyes of the Eternal. It was an approach that became the main version of the events. Alishan had a huge grudge against both the Eternal Dynasty and Redyan-Shansir personally. And no one else benefited from the massacre in the capital. The situation on the borders, of late, had become increasingly aggravated, and a new hot phase of the conflict was inevitable. Against this background, the loss of so many high-level figures becomes catastrophic.

And that was only the first layer.

Surprisingly, the information about the Alishan assassin did not come from the Eyes or the agent chains and spy cells around the world, including Alishan. The information was literally brought on a silver platter in advance, even before the assassination attempt, but the Empire underestimated this information, just as it underestimated the situation itself. For this mistake, Sigmund was ready to strangle one of his deputies, who control agents in Melareth, but he was not in a hurry to absolve himself of the guilt. Especially since he had already strangled him - such failures are not forgiven.

The story that occurred in the territory of a once-nurtured ally caused a certain amount of resonance. Even a couple of investigation teams were sent to help Arial, but that was the end of it. The Resonator of Chains was destroyed cleanly and professionally, leaving no trace, which had faded even further by the time their group arrived. Now most of the Eternal Empire's attention was focused on a different question - whether the dynasty of Melareth's rulers would change in an hour and whether they would change it themselves.

Reports of Face Under the Mask that had been spotted in the border kingdom were, of course, obtained, as were official documents from the King's archives, trying to convince his patrons that the loss of the facility was the result of cunning intrigue and not his sloppiness. He could hardly believe it. But he believed it nonetheless.

And the funniest thing here is that the version lay on the surface. The Sorz mentality was very similar to that of the average Alishan, even if there were enough differences to go around. And though the former slave traders who had set up their kingdom in the borderlands were not so dependent on Alishan, their alliance was very strong. How strong could an alliance be with the continent's greatest slave traders, if not the world's.

Now, looking at it through the prism of what had happened, Sigmund saw a certain inner logic in it. To send the un Chousen one to Sorz to work on Melareth's territory from there. On this side, destroying the Resonator was not just an attempt to screw up the Eternal Empire but a preparation for the main action. Requests have already been sent to Melareth, from where a delegation will be arriving in the next few days. We'll need to review all the materials in that case. Perhaps Fallen Executioner was involved there as well.

It wasn't even the strength or skill of the shadow assassin that worried everyone but the suddenness of his appearance. No one, not even elves, could sabotage foreign territory better than Alishan, but still... Starborns were known as masters of pinpoint and silent eliminations, but when it came to the need to stage a massacre in the middle of an enemy's capital and manage to get out of there alive, you had to look the other way.

Many believed that Summoned had not survived his mission, just as the Fallen Executioner had, but it was too unreliable. There was something that drove the contracted Shadow away. The possibility that it was just an ancient creature that happened to float by and took the fleeing Shadow is a possibility, but only a possibility. It's too lucky, too timely, and too unlikely.

Coincidences occur only when it is impossible to find a pattern.

Sigmund had at his disposal three palaces, a dozen mansions, and a whole galaxy of departmental premises. It was not even a matter of craving for luxury, which had long since faded along with all his other feelings, but also the position, which, as you know, obliges. Nevertheless, he preferred to live literally at work, simply arranging his lodgings in the main building of the Eyes. Not too lavish, in comparison to all those palaces, the living conditions paid off threefold with security and the ability to "take work home" without worrying about issues of secrecy.

The central hubs of the Imperial Secret Service were protected at the level of an Imperial residence, so one had to fear something like the coming of an evil deity, but not a common assault. And careful and regular checks on everything and everyone kept away from the assassins, of whom there had been more than a hundred in the last three years alone. They did not come for him alone, of course, but they came, some on assignment and some sent on a suicide mission. It's the same kind of punishment the Alishans receive for failures, mistakes, mishaps, or simply for not liking your superior's face.

That is not to say that Sigmund's life was never in danger, rather the opposite - sometimes it was safe. He was useless in combat, and never once in his life did he take part in combat operations. All three of his classes were good for his job and nothing else. The rare Scriptor, the epic High Operative, and the legendary Web Controller - his path to the rank of Hero was standard in terms of level sets and class choices. He simply walked to it, albeit without direct risk, long, methodical, and completely ruthless to himself and those around him.

And yet, at that very moment, that night, something awakened him from his sleep. Something unformed and elusive. His skills of situational awareness and environmental awareness were enough to argue with high-level visionaries on an equal footing, which also helped to guard against attempts on his life. These skills were silent now, not voicing any alarm, just as the closed fields and the signal amulets that ensured his safety were silent.

But something woke him up, didn't it?

With a lazy wave of his hand, the room's lights came on, revealing the spartan furnishings of his bedroom. A bed, clothes closets, a table, and chairs, and that was it. His office was more cluttered than he'd ever done before, but he'd learned long enough not to carry a single piece of paper into the bedroom, or else it would become an office, too. Though, it was much more pleasant to work lying down and under a blanket.

The highest Perception picks up the quiet creaking of the stone walls and the barely perceptible hum of the magical protection that filters the air for breathing and dozens of other purposes. Everything was perfectly fine, but somewhere on the edge of consciousness flashed a lurking unease. Someone else, less beaten by life, might have put it down to a simple workload, anxiety, a bad dream, or an overactive imagination. Someone else would not have lived to be his age when he could even call some elves suckers and not go against the truth.

A few seconds later, two five of the guards were already gathered in his room, covering him with a dozen barriers and rifling through all the crevices in search of what had awakened the sleeping Hero. Nothing was found, but Siegmund changed his place of sleep and residence at the same moment, not even packing his things - there were enough such rooms in the department premises where he spent his time.

To wake up for the second time in one night with that very feeling of not knowing what was going on was not strange. It was a reason to be alarmed. The hero didn't know what or who was causing his anxiety, but he knew for sure, his life was in danger. Even if he imagined it, all too often his anxiety had turned to blood. Getting out of bed again and turning on the lights, he was about to call security when his sensitive ear picked up a barely perceptible noise.

That's about the sound of a drop of thick liquid - sauce, honey, alchemical ointment - falling against the marble floor. He had long ago undergone the training to distinguish a thousand different sounds, and his career had only sharpened this skill, adding to his memory vault. All in all, if before he still allowed the thought as if his senility had begun to plague him, now those thoughts were gone.

The crystal of the signal amulet cracked with a low chime.

It is worth explaining that the present chambers of the Eyes of the Eternal were not only magically protected but also physically protected. It would have been difficult to get in unnoticed, but it was still possible. Exactly as long as no attempt was made to use their enchantments. Alien magic would have to stir the defenses just like a drop of blood in a cauldron full of predatory fish.

It would take years and years of work by hundreds of talented craftsmen, even if no one would interfere with it, not just to bypass such a defense but to silence it even for a moment. And the protection is regularly tested by thousands of times-tested humans and non-humans so that it can be gradually rendered unusable or at least simply studied.

Add to this the fact that quite a few of the department's rooms were located in separate spatial folds or just deep underground, which could only be accessed by a portal, and you realize that it is easier to destroy this place than to break into it. Sigmund's thoughts began to accelerate at a tremendous speed, causing his subjective time to stretch harder and harder.

Because the guards were in no hurry to move into his room with a blink or at least to enter through the door. The defense did not go into defense mode, covering him with barriers and destroying everything else with battlefields. Everything remained unchanged: the silence, the incomprehensible foreboding, and even the sound of another dropped drop of something thick.

Eyes Eternal was about to shout and activate a dozen amulets at once - there is no soundproofing here, so the guards would quickly come running at any suspicious sound. No matter how the defenses turned out to be fooled, they couldn't be completely disconnected. No one could cut this place off from the rest of the world completely, even with the help of a traitor in the ranks of his closest aides... in theory, at least.

The sound of another dropped drop was also accompanied by the barely audible rustle of the air rushing to the sides as it washed over the body of the walker forward. Siegmund was not a fighter, but his level and overdrive allowed him to defend himself with at least a few heartbeats, and the protective amulets of the legendary set, unremovable even in sleep, only added to his survivability.

He turned on the toes of his bare feet, instantly attacking with an extremely concentrated arrow of mystical essence that could turn any matter and energy into dust. But the amulet simply refused to work, as if for a brief moment turning into an ordinary trinket. He was still in a moment, and the amulet came back to life, but the moment was lost. But Sigmund did get a good look at the man who had come to him uninvited.

It looked... perfect.

The fully nude humanoid was like a billet statue made by a great sculptor. There was no face, nor was there any hair, gender features, or other irregularities. The creature's completely snow-white body had no distinguishing features at all. It was not felt magically or intuitively, being present only in the visual spectrum. Also, with the sight of this something, his intuition sent a premonition of some dire misfortune. It was as if, until that moment, his abilities had desperately tried to shout to their bearer but could not. Even now, the feeling of distress was distant, barely perceptible.

Breaking the distance and reactivating the defenses, since the amulets could only incapacitate one heartbeat, were the kind of reflexes he had hammered into himself with an iron stick. You may not be a fighter, but you must be able to save yourself, as his mentor, now considered a historical figure, once told him. In his execution, such a technique takes almost no time at all.

And yet Sigmund didn't make it.

"Greetings." Said something completely sexless and completely devoid of emotion in a voice as perfect and melodic as it was alien to the concept of life. "And goodbye."

And then Sigmund Rohleim died before he even realized his death.

No one saw how the features of the strange creature blurred, how it bent over the lifeless body of the murdered man, whose death was not detected by the defense systems of his residence, how the figure turned into a stream of thick liquid, poured into the body of the dead Hero, how it rose to its feet, not the body of the Hero, how it looked around, and then went to sleep, perfectly copying the gait and reflexes of his victim.

If there were someone here who could read lips, he would be able to see how no longer Siegmund inaudibly uttered a single phrase.

"Sovereign will be pleased."

But this phrase was neither heard nor seen by anyone who could have prevented the speaker. Likewise, no one heard the same phrase repeated by several dozen high-ranking Eyes who had been working for the Empire of Ages for years, or even decades, giving no reason to doubt their loyalty.

And certainly, no one and nothing could see that somewhere out there smiled faintly at what was called the Sovereign.

* * *

All sorts of things are said about the bearers of high levels and similarly high positions, especially about the reasons that prompted them to race with infinity, which gave them these levels and positions. Some go for recognition of their merits, some for the strength and authority that this strength gives, some just chase the gold coins, and everything else for them is already bonuses, not the main goal.

Areya Fern, with a pure heart and before any altars or oaths, could say that she desired to spend her holidays exactly as she had originally intended them to be, which motivated her to become stronger. Going into the army services, the daughter of an imperial officer followed the path laid down by her father, where it was trivially easier for her to build a career. Though her class wasn't so much combat as it was quiet, she was welcomed into Army Intelligence with open arms. Good and relatively quiet service in the central regions of the state paid off even a relatively risky role - scouts were often buried.

She would have remained a tomboy who grew up with the kids in the yard, not even reaching her twenty level, if it hadn't been for the damned abuse. You see, gentlemen, but ordinary townspeople and peasants only have about a dozen holidays a year when they can be off work quite officially. Well, there's less work in the winter, but you still have to work from dawn to dusk and sometimes even at night.

The Army of the Empire of the Ages was advanced enough that officers, even if grassroots, were allowed to rest at public expense for another ten days a year, not counting holidays. Soldiers were entitled to far less and only for faultless service, but she still came from an officer's family. Let's skip all that the pretty girl had to endure while serving in the company of brutal men, thanks to her character and upbringing perfectly helped her to don't give the fuck, and her father-centurion allowed her not to be responsible for that.

Not without bad incidents with those who were much more influential than a simple centurion, but her service flowed quite calmly and smoothly. If it weren't for the aforementioned Decade of Idleness, which was rightfully available to her. Scouts in the Empire's army had always been scarce. Even when serving in the provinces, where military conflicts are not too numerous. Especially if serving there, since the much-needed scouts, trackers, and lurkers were dragged to the borders, where their talents were needed. Daddy covered for his daughter as much as he could, not wanting to let her go into the meat grinder, where her kind had a bad habit of dying.

But she didn't get her Decade of Idleness until her third year... only to be yanked back to the garrison right in the middle of a vacation because of some inspection. There's a lot to be furious about, especially since they'd literally dragged her out of bed, even if she was the only one there. But even if there had been two or three or ten of them, she still would have taken her out.

Enraged enough to have her first serious quarrel with her always-understanding and supportive father, she silently threw her petition for transfer to the frontier service on the desk of the garrison commandant. Judging by the words of those who had been there, these boys, stern and defiant, were always given their Decades of Idleness in time, for there had been precedents.

After ten years, several campaigns, hundreds of skirmishes, and thousands of opportunities to die, Areya was ranked second, promoted first, reached level thirty-second, and piqued the reasonable interest of the Eyes of the Eternal. A mere assassin, of which there are so many in armies that they could be mistaken for branches of the night guilds, did not worry the secret service. The owner of the epic Liquidator and Combat Precog - very much so.

With her entry into the Eyes, her promotion, and the title of an aristocrat - her father had one, but it was inheritable - Areia was entitled to choose not ten days but twenty-three. Twenty-three days of rest and excitement that would not be diluted by blood, dirt, dancing with death, and all the other nice things she had grown accustomed to during her service.

But, surprise, there was always an extra job for a very talented woman with the right skills but without influential relatives. Yes, often, such work was much more interesting and enlightening than the usual army service, but it was still a job. And the Time of Idleness still went to others but was very difficult for her to win. And if it was won, it was with great difficulty she managed to spend it in idleness from beginning to end.

Because it is always necessary to trace that one, to drown that one quietly, to draw that one out of the trap, to lure that one into it, and to guard that one for a couple of weeks, because her father is hunted by the Alishan murderers! And who better to send than the talented, executive, and not-too-noble Areya, who has almost no record of failures? That's right, no one!

With her fortieth level and her status as a full-fledged noblewoman - a status she had been dragged away by her accumulated enemies - she smiled and smashed the faces and limbs of anyone and everyone who tried to stop her from going on a legal binge or pulling her out for the next important job. She could have started doing that before, back in the thirties - she would have been forgiven a lot, but she was too unlucky to get into a department where every first was nobler than every second, and the sound names made her head hurt.

It is a frequent situation when Eyes is formed from the noble sons-daughters of slackers, diluting them with talented, but not at all influential personalities, who will have to do the work for which the aforementioned slackers will receive rewards. However, the very fact that she got her levels already showed that it was better not to make her angry. She would kill. As a matter of fact, she killed in duels, or in the back, if the duels were rejected or put on brethers.

And now she can distinguish by taste and smell dozens of types of poison, hundreds of varieties of love potions, and can recognize the initial signs of the influence of a high-class Slavemancer or Whoremancer. It feels as if the image of the deadly and dangerous Secret Service assassin is more potent on some mentally sorrowful nobles than an alchemical stimulant. Had it not been for the blatant patronage of the smarter Eyes, who understand Areya's talent and potential, she would still have been poisoned or sent to her certain death. Although both managed to happen a couple of times, but the poison didn't finish her off, and she managed to do the deadly tasks. And anyway, have you often tried to poison a precognitive?

Those years are long gone, and today's Areya Fern can send even a full-fledged Eye, let alone a lesser agent, on all sorts of bad routes, but the situation in the capital was such that she couldn't help but think back to the beginning of her career. She had been yanked right out of the bath and almost kicked to work. True, the woman was chased by her immediate supervisor, who had the same forty-first level and a black eye.

She had to go, so what else could she do?

Being a pre-cognitive is not only the ability to be ready for any attack but also the need to work in conjunction with clairvoyants of all stripes, amplifying their abilities. The woman herself could not see clearly into the future for more than a few minutes, which, however, did not prevent her from being used as a prop in the circle. All the broken visions and nonsensical images go to her, as does the headache - she had often been sent on similar tasks before.

The fact that someone dared to put her up to a similar task now shows that something is very wrong in the Eternal. Well, if the explosion and the massacre in Imperial Park weren't enough of a hint. Strange, she'd been given at least a couple of hours to finish her bottle of wine instead of being yanked out of the house by a direct teleport.

Now, on her way back to the house after four days without sleep or rest, suffering from a headache caused by overstretching her precognitive system, Areya sincerely wished that all those involved in the whole mess would turn their intestines upside down and start chewing with their asses and defecating with their mouths. She was usually much more creative in her swearing, but she'd run out of swear words on the second day. At least she wasn't poisoned by potions, or a couple of the newcomers had been dragged off by the healers. Maybe they'd even be able to drain them after all they'd been through. She was not buying her own alchemy for nothing.

Araya's mansion was located in a presentable residential area, albeit far from aristocratic quarters. At one time, she did not want to move there, although the second mansion presented by the Imperial Office was much larger. She restricted herself to hiring servants to prevent the garden from overgrowing and the walls from becoming dilapidated. Otherwise, one might insult the giver... who was considered, albeit formally, the Emperor since the gift went through his entourage.

When she entered the house and gestured to the maid to prepare the bathroom, she went to sleep. As she passed the kitchen, where, to the grumbling of the cook, she grabbed a few smoked sausages, checking them for poisons, she nodded to the young lad who was leaving the kitchen. The nephew of her solicitor, who watched over the house in her absence, was a bright boy with whom she might otherwise have exchanged a few words. Only twenty winters old, and already a level fifteen and an uncommon class. She, too, had started in a similar way. True, this boy wasn't an assassin, but a far more peaceful and versatile Adventurer, but still.

She went to sleep just like that, without even undressing from her uniform, leaving the prepared bath to cool down.

She woke up because she was hungry. A couple of sausages chewed on the go did not satisfy her hunger but only whetted her appetite. Her head no longer ached, and the quiet rustle of unfulfilled events indicated that the class had returned to relative normality. There was unpleasant weakness in her body, but she felt surprisingly well. The alchemist hadn't lied about the restorative tonic's quicker recovery - she shouldn't mix it with the usual booze, but the effect was excellent. Otherwise, she would have taken a week to recover, and now she was almost back to normal.

She got up and stretched softly, stretching her stiff muscles, and walked over to the small mirror in the corner of the room, assessing her condition. Long periods of lack of sleep and hard work didn't add to her beauty; there was no lying or embellishing here. Areya had taken several rejuvenating formulas in her time, so she looked as young as she had in her youth. Such a look helped rather than hindered her work - not many people expected a trick from such a person. Bonuses in the form of regular indecent suggestions and the need to check food and drink not only for poison but also for charm potions came with it.

Black hair with small flecks of dark red dye, the typical mark of the capital's youth, the kind used by the daughters of rich merchants who are not watched by their wealthy parents. Not this appearance was considered obscene, rather too provocative, but it allowed her to get into places where a grown-up aunt would arouse suspicion. In fact, she didn't like being serious and prim - her job was serious enough as it was, at least give her the appearance of a belated teenage rebellion!

Much more questions were raised by the tattoo on her arm, gradually extending to her shoulder and back. The intricate design, created by a true master of his craft, not only strengthened the ability to intuitively sense danger but also helped to detect unnecessary impurities in the food and air. Not an alchemical scanner, which is relatively easy to fool if you know how, but a full-fledged intuitive insight that simply lets you know what you shouldn't eat and what you shouldn't breathe.

For a pre-cog, which is so hard to kill in direct combat, all sorts of long-playing poisons are considered a major threat to life. She can't look far, but blocking her visions is much harder, as well as deceiving her. It is the slow-acting poison that is the easiest to conceal, and then, even after considering her death, there is nothing she can do but prolong the agony. That's why she bothered in her time with this tattoo, finding an independent and trusted master with the right level. The Eternal Empire was not the Empire of Arms, where combat tattoos were more common. Her master, however, was not narrow-eyed but black-skinned, hailing from some desert tribe. Not that she trusted these guys that much, but at least he was human. She certainly wouldn't trust her body to some elf or beastman.

Her lazy thoughts, combined with breathing exercises and warm-up, were interrupted by a catching irregularity. The house was too quiet, unaccustomedly quiet. The servants were asleep, of course - it was the middle of the night - but the silence was not nocturnal. It was different. The kind that comes with the activation of the sound barrier that covers the whole building.

She kept no special protection on her house, reasonably believing that those who could get close to her unnoticed would not be frightened of the protection she bought for money. Her reputation and influence allowed her to check out those craftsmen who didn't sell their services for gold, but then there would be no escape from listening. For the chance to keep an almost official eye on her, her superiors would even put up protection for free. She was relatively new to the imperial elite, so she hadn't had time to build up any serious capital. And her reluctance to seek patrons only made things worse. On the other hand, patrons sometimes found her themselves, soberly assessing the prospects of friendship with Areya.

The lack of good protection showed itself in all its glory. This was not the first time she had been attacked in her home. Twice before, she had had to change her house to find a new one. No, of course, the command knew where she lived, but a certain anonymity was assured by the change of lodgings. Everything else was taken care of by her class skills, preventing her from being caught unawares. How many times had they tried to catch her in bed, tempted by minimal protection and remoteness from well-guarded areas? Already she lost count. But for every murderer or corpse they took alive, they managed to get some dividends. From equipment for assassins to incentives for the service. True, a fair share of those who ordered her death was not foreign enemies or rebellious lords but all those to whom her temper was up to their necks. And not all of them could ever be held accountable for what they had done, oh not all of them.

A deep breath and the world breaks up into a circle of separate images.

Areya picks up her daggers and leaves the room, immediately going into stealth, hiding the sound of her footsteps and presence. The corridor is empty, and so is the rest of the house, not counting the sleeping servants. She is not lazy to check on a couple of gardeners, but they are just asleep, breathing deeply and measuredly. There is no sign that they have any health problems. She walks out of their room back into the hallway, and her legs buckle, her hands let out daggers, and her eyes go dark. A tattoo belatedly burns, warning of what appears to be a multi-component alchemical slurry in the air, and a shroud of unconsciousness falls from her eyes, preventing her from applying her intuition...

Areya rushes to the bed faster than lightning, opening the secret vault and quickly pouring into herself three powerful alchemical antidotes at once. The combination of drugs, perfectly chosen, especially for her, is not only almost harmless but also removes from the body any other compositions and potions. She is not able to use it often, and not only because of the crazy price, even for her, but now she feels a slight chill in her lungs when the first component of the complex compound disabling composition stops working.

She then pulls out a rag mask from the same hiding place, covering the lower half of her face. The cloth is covered with invisible runes that not only filter the air she breathes in but also create a subtle field that prevents poisonous - or any other - particles from touching her exposed skin. The woman put on gloves of young wyvern skin on her hands and hung a whole set of throwing and not so throwing iron on her belt. The jokes were over - those who could get that close to her deserved to be taken exceptionally seriously.

In her mind, she weighs her options, contemplating trying to sneak out the window and not mess with her attackers. On the other hand, the surprise attack has already failed, and in direct combat, the lurkers are not equal to the far more battle-oriented Liquidator. Unless the unknown detractors have not sent their liquidator not inferior to her, or even several at once. The decision must be made instantly, and she takes it almost without thinking...

A circle of images and there, she slips out of the window, crossing the garden in a few moments and observing the complex and cunning barrier that covers the entire house and the surrounding area. A short and very deep blink takes her beyond the barrier, and she is already hiding in the darkness, sounding the alarm through her amulet. Except the amulet is silent, unresponsive to attempts to activate it. On the other hand, she's already gone, and there seems to be no chase after her.

The circle continues, but now Areya does not go to the window but signals through the amulet, which, just as in the version that did not come true, does not work. Quietly, like a shadow, she walks across the perfectly studied floorboards of her house. The fabric of the mask heats barely perceptibly, reflecting the attempt to poison her. There is absolute silence in the house, broken only by the breathing of sleeping people. But then another movement of Areia's touches something incredibly delicate, like a cobweb brought by a draught. Immediately a sense of danger erupts, and the liquidator herself recognizes the touch of a signal thread of the highest quality, blocking with her daggers the attack from around the corner...

The circle still stretches on, but Areya bends at the last moment, almost biting her boots, avoiding three beacons at once, hovering motionless in the air. Such spiderwebs, combining magic and matter, are great for countering lovers of silence, but not when their presence is known. A figure standing around the corner, covered by an invisible cloak and his skills, dies before he cries out, stabbed in the heart and eye.

Silently laying the body relaxed in death, the woman sprawls out on the floor, crawling under several more strands of signaling. The fisherman's game, as her mentors called this technique, is to slowly penetrate the target's dwelling, gradually fill that dwelling with your billets and traps, and only then attack. Ideally, all preparation would not be necessary at all, and the fish would be hooked with the first strike, but if it failed, the neutralized and turned against the victim's defense of the home walls would be a decisive help.

They were perfectly equipped. But they were no match for her on her field. Far from being novices, at least twenty-five, but to her, they were like inexperienced children, honestly. The second intruder dies just as quickly and ignominiously, getting sharpened by activated skill steel in the temple, but still managed to crush some amulet in his fist at the last moment. Her gut told her that the alarming...

The second dies, struck by a barely glowing dagger to the temple, and her hand grips with a steely grip on the palm of her hand that had reached for alarming amulet. The quiet crack of a broken wrist is no longer needed - death has taken the one trying to warn his comrades much sooner than he realizes the pain. The blood pounded quietly in her head, and the headache that had never fully gone away began to show its effect again.

The Fan of Probability requires tremendous concentration for prolonged use, but it pays off. A few more accidental jerks and desperate attempts at signaling, which these guys seemed to put far above trying to save their lives, could only be avoided by canceling what was to happen a moment later. The Misdirection helped only once when the victim, imagining herself to be a hunter, almost managed to breathe out a colorless cloud of something in her face. Other than that mistake, she made no other.

All the power of her class is revealed exactly in such situations. The cost of a mistake in high-level assassin battles is always the highest. Areya's advantage was that she could afford to make a mistake without making a mistake. She lost the lion's share of her strength in encounters with powerful deceivers who could override even her precognition, but there were none here. There were few of them around the world if truth be told.

But the people who attacked her were clearly consulting with someone similar. Her hunch was silent, her intuition was barely able to make anything out, and if it weren't for the ability to turn to a Direct Simulation of unhappened, Areya would have had no chance of removing the interference quietly. And after all, they clearly expected her to be exhausted from her work and unable to use her second class for at least another week. It was not for nothing that she did not inform superiors that she had spent the rarest potion of her personal reserves. She wanted to because she would have recouped some of the cost through the department's accounting department, but she was just too tired to do so, and she postponed the fuss for later.

Less than a minute had passed since her awakening, and she was already on the verge of a nosebleed. But her house had an added decoration in the form of eight corpses, blood still to be cleaned. She hadn't even tried to take them alive - it was easier to strain necromancers than to take the risk. At the very least, she would take the very last one alive, but certainly not the first people she encountered - a disabled agent could wake up at the most inopportune moment.

Eight bodies, one for each section of her house space. But if she understands anything about elimination and abduction techniques, there must be a ninth one nearby now, closing the standard "three by three" formation. And if he didn't catch her eye or in the circle of images, that could mean a very unpleasant fact.

Her intuition, which did not help at all during the night's adventure, did not help even now. It was the years of experience of someone who had been in a similar situation more than once and on both sides of the conflict. And so, Areya fell silently to the floor, sprawling on the surface of it and going into a low dash, simultaneously swinging her daggers at the intended vectors of attack. And even hit someone, alas, who managed to meet the steel with her steel.

A U-turn and another deceptive feint allowed her to stand exactly in front of the obviously insecure opponent. His class is unknown but clearly, as a lurker as his comrades. His level is also unclear, but only she knows from experience that a fighter in turmoil and uncertainty is no match for her, even with her foresight turned off again. It's time to take the information bearer alive and then a long and persistent search for those who have worked so hard for her.

A test swing of the dagger was taken for another block, though this was sudden - they don't block such blows. She had already prepared to receive a completely sudden blow with lightning magic through the blade, but instead of lightning, something else happened, incomprehensible. A flash of golden light seemed to bind her and the intruder, causing Area to break the distance. She could have tried to strike, but fatigue and exhaustion had already played a part, forcing her to make a mistake.
111

She almost managed to reach her opponent's face in a leap backward, tearing off the hood and the same cloth mask as hers, but it didn't bleed. The typical aristocrat's pale face was wrinkled in a genuine panic until a strange amulet on a chain wrapped around his forearm glowed with the same golden light. The expression of dangerous and desperate hope clearly indicated that the jokes were over, and the woman was about to strike in earnest...

"Don't attack me!" With these words, the amulet in the form of an amber drop glowed even brighter, dispelling the warm golden light of the night darkness.

"Okay, I won't." A little irritated, Areya answered, leaning her back against the wall and trying to regain her breath, bringing her premonition back into working order. "Do you want to go to the cell yourself, or should I force you?"

On the outside, this brat looked like a typical imperial man from the picture - short black hair, thin and straight features, a noble profile, and all that. In a crowd, she would have taken him for a Duelist or a Brether, but certainly not someone of the lurker classes that aristocrats traditionally didn't want to go into. Someone's bastard? Quite likely, for it was a common practice to put strong-blooded men in jobs where you couldn't send your official kin.

"Let's not go anywhere. Let's talk here." The absence of the blade at his throat clearly seemed to have restored both his arrogance and confidence, but the liquidator's attentive gaze found no attempt to pull his paws to the handles of the knives on his belt.

"Let's talk if you will answer." She found no reason to object. "Who sent you? What for? Contacts? Tell us everything, and you won't have to die so painfully. Unless they decide to turn you over under oath as a collaborator."

"So, we went to the harlots." The man she was talking to said, somewhat uncertainly, glancing up and down at the dimly glowing amulet. "I swear."

"Excuse me, what?" Areya gasped, imagining the whole company sneaking into the nearest brothel, in full combat gear, and with all the precautions. "Don't tell me you've got the wrong address. How could anyone ever mistake my house for a brothel? You'd have to be blind and completely drunk."

No, but if you tell anyone, they won't believe you. She wouldn't have believed it herself if she hadn't witnessed what had happened. The full nine, in combat gear, mistook the house of the imperial liquidator with a brothel, entered in the first readiness and combat formation, and so died almost all. It is true what they say, that Eternity has seen everything imaginable!

"No, no!" She shouldn't have hidden the knives because that asshole's face was begging, if not for a second smile, then for a good kick in the teeth. "You're Areya Fern, aren't you?"

"Obviously, yes." Along with the answer, she immediately picked up, suspecting that the coincidence might not have been entirely coincidental.

He glanced again at the pulsing gold amulet, which was a distraction, and then seemed to calm down even more, smirking the kind of smile that would make her look for love potions in her drink and break the noses of her overly self-important coworkers.

"Well, that's where we were coming to." With feigned surprise, he explain to her. "Everyone knows that Areya Fern is quite a wench. Cheap, greedy, and horny beyond measure. She'll do anything for a handful of coppers. And if you show her gold, she'll do anything. She's as greedy for meat as a victim of succubus blood!"

She's such a mess. Working from home in her position was foolish - it was already a rumor. She usually prefers to go to the Harbor District or the Merchant Quarter of the Copper Circle on her own. There are so many girls in the ports and markets that it's easy for her to get lost there. A regular sucker, not a cheap slut, with good looks and a knack for presenting herself, she was in short supply. Not that she needed gold so much if you remember how many who offered bribes and patronage she sent to the devils. But that was on duty, and this was after hours - an extra penny and a treat. It's hard to live with a constantly wet cunt, while maintaining a reputation as one who doesn't give to anyone. If only she knew who had managed to connect that girl and Area Fern herself, the forty-first level Liquidator, and shut them up forever. And how she sometimes wanted to accept a couple of proposals and finally spread her legs, instead of tolerating and suppressing her desires, but all conspiracy...

"I won't apologize for your friends." She only lets her face crease a little as she assesses the number of cocks that have passed her by. "They're degenerates for coming into my house. I don't know what to do with you now, you pussywalker."

"What do you mean?" He asked with the same painfully feigned amazement, rolling the gold round in his fingers that had instantly caught her eye. "Let me put you on the four. Now that you're here?"

After catching the tossed coin deftly, Areya thought for a second about how not to cross her two jobs, but then she gave up and decided to work off the gold first and only then to cover her tracks. Perhaps with a generous client, because if she drove him to breathlessness, it wouldn't count as assault. Eh, how many times she was offered to take Seductress courses, but no, insulted and called a duel if insisted! And how much she could learn useful for a second job!

"But hurry up. I have to go to work in the morning." The woman declares in a normal tone, not daring to insult the client, pulling down her enchanted uniform and regretting that she did not have time to rinse. "If you want to fuck ass, then warn me, okay?"

With that last phrase, she tried to smile her most depraved and seductive smile, which somehow came out strained and unaccustomed. She leaned one hand against the same wall she'd just leaned against, and the other pulled back the crescent of her bulging asshole, revealing a perfect view of the already moped slit. The pragmatic part of Areya hoped the guy would cum quickly, but the lustful part demanded a long marathon with a full set and use of all her orifices. Too bad he was the only one who survived or her holes could have been used all at once - more enjoyable, and the coin would work out faster.

In one fell swoop, he entered her, causing a convulsive wave of pleasure. The nameless client grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head back, revealing her neck. The old-time assassin wanted to be indignant, and she just didn't like the rudeness, but then he started to fuck her, and all the complaints went to waste. A familiar throbbing amulet flashed in front of her face, and the man breathing hotly in her ear began to speak.

Some people apparently just like to humiliate whores by telling them what whores they are. As if she would hear anything new in those words. The truth is not insulted, and certainly about her lustful whore nature Areya could tell about as much as she had heard. Though this fool's fantasy would be more suited to a slavemancing lover than to the average client.

Really? To cum from a butt slap and fall hopelessly in love with whoever slaps her, becoming willing to do any betrayal or risk for his sake? This is already a fairy tale from cheap novels for lovers of playing with other people's brains or an application to the level of about half a hundred in the specialized class. She hadn't read the former, and her client, who had just given her her third straight orgasm, was definitely not the latter. With a growling groan, he poured into her hole, groaning loudly and with pleasure, as if pouring into her all the accumulated tension after the beginning of such a stupid battle.

"You scared me, Lady Fern." He said it in the suddenly elegant language of high society, not the coarse, primitive language he'd spoken before. "Very much so."

She was about to tell him to shut the fuck up, demanding that he fuck her again, and if she got lucky, she could ask for an extra penny, even if it was copper, but then three things happened at once. She turned to face him, keeping her palms on the wall and her buttocks up. The client swung his arm, clearly about to slap her buttocks, as if following his fantasies. And the third detail was a crossbow arrow that pierced the poor man's skull, an arrow enchanted to burst, which turned the client's head into a red slurry. It's a good thing he was thrown to the side first, or else she would have had to clean her ass out of his brains, too.

She should have changed position herself, pulled out her daggers, and assessed the situation, but a whore is still a whore even in this situation, so she only made her used dignity more prominent, remaining in the "ready for service" position. For some reason, it seemed very important to her to hold her busy pose, pressing her hands against the wall and waiting for a slap on the buttocks, just like in the fantasy of the dead idiot. She didn't hear the click of the bowstring behind her own moans and heavy breathing, either, though.

"Hello, Mort." She smiled invitingly at her housekeeper's nephew. "How long have you been watching? If you were in such a hurry to get your dagger into my sheath, you needn't have killed the first one. I'm not going to be picked off, not if the people who pick me off are going to die so often.

"Lady Fern, come to your senses. Something's wrong!" Red as a freshly boiled crawfish, the boy clearly wanted to fall under the ground, trying to look in any other direction but always returning his magnetized gaze to her nakedness.

"Of course, it's not all right!" Areya was a little indignant. "No one fucks me, and there are nine corpses in the house of those who are supposed to be doing it. By the way, would you like to do it yourself? I'm already used, of course, but the back hole is still intact, and you, as an acquaintance, with a discount. Ten pieces of silver, is that a good price?"

Mort shook his head in a way that made her think for a moment that her neck was going to explode, and the red hues on his face grew brighter all at once, even though it looked like it couldn't go any further. Honestly, no amount of stat would be enough to stand in that position forever, but Areya couldn't get past the laziness and the sluggishness to make herself stand up.

"What? Expensive?" She squinted her eyes slyly and continued to press on the panting boy. "Well, how about a nickel, then? At least a copper one? Or don't you even have that kind of money?"

"Damn you, Lady Fern, wake up!" His shriek was a falsetto, and if it hadn't been for the barrier around the house, it might have roused the neighbors... and if it hadn't been for the sprayed potion, it would certainly have woken the whole house.

"By the way, how did you manage to wake up?" Areya asked in a suddenly serious tone without changing her position. "And your shot... it was about thirty, but he couldn't dodge it."

He groaned desperately and bit his palm. The still embarrassed boy adjusted his clothes, hiding the tension in his pants, then ran both hands over his face as if to shake off some kind of obsession. Areya heard fragments of several very sophisticated swear words, among which there was even a phrase she was unfamiliar with.

"I have an endurance achievement that increases resistance to poisons and the rate at which toxins are released." He said lostly, trying to turn away but not to turn away from the one he was addressing. "Uncle Irnon... he let me sleep here tonight. Only tonight! In the morning, I would have fled before dawn! It's just that the guards are so fierce now. It's dangerous to wander the city after dusk. I wake up, come out of my room for a drink, and there's a corpse lying there. And then the noise came from the living room. I sneak out, and I see... He was doing something to you, Lady Fern!"

"Of course he did." Areya hummed, correlating what she knew. "What, strangling a dragon while peeking since there's no money for entertainment?"

If the alchemy was made just for her - although it seems that those who came to get her off for the night need not do so - then such a property of the body could also help him come out of sleep faster than the estimated time. And if he really sat there for a long time, behind the wall and out of the direct line of sight, and then attacked only at the moment of maximum distraction, then, in principle, his successful shot is not so surprising.

"Gods, I'm going to be executed for this." Now Mort started whining, which didn't suit him at all. "All right, all right... We need to get out of here, Lady Fern. We gotta get out of here, quick."

"Okay, slap my ass, and let's go." She only agreed because she feared for the health of the guy who wouldn't stop blushing.

"Or we could just go..." This was already so pathetically said that it even made me smile.

"Nope." Areya protested in a mean voice. "If you're so broke that you can't even afford copper, you might as well rub your hands on something else's, or you'll die a virgin."

"- Devils, what's in it for me? I have money! Any tantrum sooner or later could turn into a battle rage, but she hoped the guy wouldn't lose his mind completely.

"So, you're squeamish after the others?" The woman clarified, noting this fact to herself. "Then I don't have to invite you to orgies. Well, come back later when I've cleaned up and have another night off from the service."

"Whew... Okay. Lady Fern, would you stand up and walk with me to the nearest guard patrol?" Cautiously, as if stepping through a trap-filled ancient dungeon, the adventurer asks.

"That's easy! What kind of strange questions are these, anyway?" Sincerely, she is indignant. "Slap my ass, and let's go wherever you say. If you pay me extra, we'll do more than that. All right, I'll give you a free blowjob, pretty boy."

"Oh, holy Eternity and all the gods that are and will be, may I not be killed for this later!" With this peculiar prayer, the boy's palm rose uncertainly into the air and sank on Areya's soft skin.

For a second, the world stopped, curled into a point that settled somewhere deep in her body, burst into a stream of dragon fire, melting her consciousness in the fire of the most amazing orgasm imaginable, and then gathered itself back into the world she was used to. Only now, something about it had changed. Areya Fern was absolutely certain of three things: she was a whore, she liked fucking best, and best for money, and the boy Mort was the one she lived and would live for, the one she would die or kill anyone for. It didn't raise any questions like the sunrise or the process of breathing doesn't raise any questions. Just one of those truths that must be accepted and lived with, impossible to go against, and not to be shaken in any way.

"Please, Lady Fern, come to your senses, huh?" Mort, unlike her, felt nothing but burning excitement, equally burning shame and the realization that his life was in great danger.

And Areya had really come to her senses. No, she was still a whore, and she was sure she could easily get laid for a dozen coins... if Mort didn't mind. And sex was to her one of the main drugs of her life, as necessary as water or provisions. Neither was the absolute love and loyalty that had turned her into an instrument of someone else's will.

But that strange veil prevented her from understanding what was happening to her, making her believe everything that the already dead spy told her... It disappeared completely and allowed the liquidator, who had seen a lot of trouble, to realize the extent of her failure. For one thing, she was glad - not only had she belonged to Mort, but the bastards who'd come after she, get nothing. On the other, more professional, she wanted to run around and smash through the wall with her head.

If only she'd been that naive little fool from the Army Intelligence Service. She could have been trapped and hunted by mental magic, though only a few could do such a thing so quickly. But to turn someone with her level, perception, intuition, and training into a corrupt wench in a few phrases? This was no joke or self-discovery - an artifact in the hands of a "client" was worth more than the lives of the group and the whole city block that came after her. And more expensive than the lives of Areya, to be honest.

"We're in the shit, Mort." Her clothes were on in an instant, and a moment later, she was kneading her stiff body. "Let's get out of here now while we still can."

To send such an artifact to a mission without a backup would be impossible folly, which means that the artifact is bound to come after it, as well as both of them. And while Areya could, with luck, escape the battle, Mort, unfortunately, would only be able to die.

"But my uncle..."

"No buts!" She interrupts him, barely suppressing the urge to press with authority, as she is used to working with overly willful subordinates. "They are simply out of their minds from the sleeping potion. It is much more important now to get to the Eye, to report to them what happened..."

And then you don't even have to be precognitive to realize the fate of Mort, at whose mercy a person of her caliber found herself. No, you have to think hard about how to get around the subject in an interrogation and how not to get caught by those who can look deep enough. She has enough administrative resources to hide the guy away until things settle down. The main thing is to convince him to be quiet. If it gets out that her mind was under the influence, there's no way to avoid a full scan. She might be able to keep the staff mentalists out of her head, but who knows how much influence she'd been under?

In theory, it shouldn't give off any flashes, or else she would be identified almost instantly, but that's just a theory. Maybe they wanted to turn her into a one-time suicide bomber, for whom a long conspiracy is not necessary at all. She was already wildly lucky in that the last survivor turned out to be just a clinical idiot. So incompatible with life is this lust that there's nothing to say. If he hadn't decided, intoxicated with the power over another man's mind, to fuck his victim, Mort would never have been able to bring him down with a single crossbow shot in his life.

"It is dangerous for us and for them to stay here." She carefully wrapped a cloth around the faded amber and placed it in the container on her belt without interrupting her explanation. "I understand there are many questions, but this is neither the time nor the place."

"But... aren't murderers and slave catchers handled by the guards?" Her sudden love asks perplexedly. "Yes, and they won't let us into the Eyes... if we find them at all."

In all this fuss, she had simply forgotten that the boy knew nothing about her. The landlord suspected something, but he, too, preferred to remain silent, not to share his dangerous suspicions with his nephew. From this side looking, her desire to go exactly to the Eye really seems strange.

"They'll let me in." She interrupted him briefly, trying to figure out whether to squeeze the signal amulet again. "Come on, keep up."

The amulets still didn't work. That could only mean the other, the receiving one, was destroyed. Or not destroyed but temporarily blocked. She would have thought of some trick used by the night visitors or, rather, another artifact. Areya could name a dozen ways to inconspicuously disable all the amulets in a particular area. A couple of them were even discreet and quiet enough not to wake her up by the very fact of their use.

But it would be too naïve to think the attack on her had been made without the mole from Eyes, even if that thought was wrong. She had often been tried to be set up, but an action so brazen, with such means as the medallion still in her bag, simply screamed this was no longer the usual attempt at revenge or threat. Not even the thought of failure was allowed here, so backup had to go at all levels, including the use of double agents. It is possible that they were not even aware of their status - the same artifact hinted at that directly.

As she passed another inconspicuous building - fortunately, Mort was silent and generally behaving like a model adventurer following a more experienced mentor - she pulled another alarming amulet from under the slightly protruding stone of the paving stone. The hunch was still silent, and the effort to activate the Fan was too much of a pity - it would take at most another dozen seconds, and then it would really take a week to recover. She just had to turn her head and rely on her own experience, which had helped her more than once before.

Alas, not this time.

She was going to use the alarm, then wait for backup at an agreed-upon point. She had enough liquidators and assassins of all stripes at her disposal, even though she was only a senior officer. Debtors, apprentices, comrades, and allies - all of whom she had limited confidence in over the years of service and bloody work. They had helped her in situations where even she could not do it alone, so the situation did not seem hopeless.

It wasn't until they met in the middle of an abandoned pottery factory on the outskirts of one of the craft centers. Areya had deliberately taken the boy outside the Eternal for fear of fiddling with him in an environment so saturated with foreign surveillance and all sorts of spies. Far from being a girl, she knew powerful artifacts could also be tracked, especially when used. That's why she put it in her personal isolation container - to avoid accidents. Even now, she could easily be found by the trail of such trinkets, but that would not be done quickly.

That's exactly what she thought.

They stepped forward without hiding, though they were disguised, probably created by amulets. Three men of not too high a level, with all the hallmarks of a typical mercenary of average untidiness. They were well equipped, but their habits and mannerisms were very distinctive, easily discernible to the trained eye. The leader of the formation was a familiar face, even if it was now concealed by the same cloth mask as her own.

Kenai Ettle hardly ever crossed paths with her on the job, but his face was familiar enough that she could recognize a fellow operative by his gait and body proportions alone. An ordinary, classic even, spy from domestic intelligence, level about thirtieth. High credentials, a lot of experience, and truly gigantic ambition - all the things a spy and agent needs to succeed in the service. The ability to lie and betray with a smile on his face in the name of the Empire is not taken into account because this is such a base, without which even the attracted staff will not be taken.

In general, in another situation, such an encounter might even have been pleasant, if not for one small but. Kenai shouldn't be in this place, and she'd recently had very specific thoughts about the presence of moles in the department.

"Why didn't you go to the agreed-upon point." The question, the tone, and the very attitude of the spy just screamed that he wasn't expecting a fight, not at all. "And why isn't Minir with you? He must have..."

You know, there are those moments in everyone's life when two things come over you. One, you're a fool. Two, you're in the shit. Now Kenai clearly understood exactly these two truths, comparing the absence of someone who was supposed to be there for her and the "failure to come to the point." She would wonder later why the experienced agent hadn't sounded the alarm about such a failure to appear. But now she, like her interlocutor, realized only two things - she had, after all, been traced unnoticed, and now a traitor was standing before her.

What followed was not a battle but an execution. Kenai was not a fighter at all, and though he had a few clever tricks up his sleeve, they were too few. His escorts were clearly not of the caliber to help him in battle. Kenai was the very first to fall when she moved toward him with a quick blink, choosing the most successful of her five choices of attack. The one in which she thrust the dagger into his spine, safely paralyzing him. Anticipation, after such exertion, thanked her with a new migraine, but she didn't need it anymore. Not one of the mercenaries, including even the owner of the single-shot lead shotgun cunningly hidden in his sleeve, even managed to scream.

She turned toward her prisoner and ignoring the surprised exclamation of Mort, who hadn't even realized the battle had begun, saw the prisoner take his breath away. Died. Though he could not physically have died from such a wound. This trick Areya had practiced so many times that she could have done it blindfolded, even without the use of a Fan.

"Not good..." From her absent-mindedness, she even spoke out loud.

"W-what happened?" Something had to be done about poor Mort because his career as an adventurer was not prepared for such problems and adventures, and if he snapped, he would easily ruin himself and Areya, who did not want to leave him.

She turned to the boy, already preparing the standard soothing phrases. Contrary to rumor, she knew how to quickly bring a panicked rookie partner to his senses, a skill she'd had since before she'd joined Eyes from her home army. She turned around... and died as her heart and brain were pierced by two phantom daggers that emerged from the void...

Feeling her spine crack, Areya twisted, letting both blows pass her by, for in the variations where she did try to block, the enemy blades simply passed through the enchanted steel as if her blades didn't exist, slicing through hot flesh. She did not see the assassin, even as she died facing the blades. Only a barely perceptible shiver of air, even to her perception.

A break of distance and she dies right on the move, not even noticing the attack, but still in time to hear the quiet cry of Mort, who received a fatal wound a moment later...

Trying to strike back was useless - as if you were hitting a void. She poured the epic artifacts with power, both her own and borrowed, but they caught nothing. She would have thought the subtle mirage was a hoax, but simultaneously with her desperate throw, the mirage itself struck. And unlike the reaction to her attacks, these strikes were just as deadly, intangible, and unpredictable. Her intuition and sense of danger were not just late. They were silent, as if there was no danger at all, despite her throat being ripped open all the way to my spine...

A blow to the throat forced her into a blink, only to die on her way out, again before she could see the invisible assassin...

A double blink and roll allowed her to escape with only a couple of deep cuts on her back, though her uniform was enchanted for good measure. The immaterial blades, however, sliced through the armor as easily as they had slashed through her flesh in conscious simulations. A crossbow bowstring rattled, releasing an arrow in the direction of the blow, but Mort's attempt to help was as futile as her blows.

Blood was streaming down her face, the result of the nightmarish overexertion. Areya could have died of a brain hemorrhage at any moment. Her already overstretched abilities continued to work, taking years of her life. She did not have time to pay it back, dying again, being cut open like a fish - from her groin to her throat...

A step back and a deceptive volt saves her again, but the sense of doom squeezes her heart too tightly. She's just not good enough to fight this... with it, whatever it is. She can't strike, she can't block, and she can't even dodge, only dying a couple of times in simulations, exhausting herself more and more. For a moment, Areya realized that now that's it. She would no longer be able to fight or live. At least she wouldn't have to deal with command and hide the changes in her mind. And the loving hearts died in one day, like in a bad fairy tale.

A dozen years earlier, she might have tried to make a mental plea to the Deities, but now she had long since believed in anything, and the battle required all the effort she could muster, so she didn't even have time to despair. Life is not novels about knights, false publications of adventurers' diaries, or love lyrics. Here help never comes at the last moment and those who are weaker simply and uncomplicated die. This must be fun for Irnon when he wakes up - a house full of corpses and no nephew or hirer.

The last thought even made her smile as her legs buckled at the knees, and the terrible weakness made her drop her blades and slam down the Fan that was still working by some miracle. She couldn't see the attack of the still invisible blades, and she wasn't looking, but she still saw something entirely unexpected.

The daggers that appeared in midair, just as they did out of nowhere, flew through the empty space. But at the same time, the gray haze that covered these weapons of murder and bloodletting had some effect other than its absence. The air shuddered even more, and then the shudder flickered, moving away from another pair of daggers covered in the same gray magic.

And then, two figures appeared in the middle of the alley. The first, huge and massive, wrapped in a heavy traveling cloak, stood with its back to her and probably belonged to the one who had saved her life for some reason. Someone from Eyes? Perhaps she was once again the bait in some special operation, only on a different, higher level? In any case, she was still breathing, as was Mort, who had settled out of her sight.

The second figure did not belong to a human being... It did not belong to any kind of endowed, monster or creature she knew of! An incredibly graceful, eye-piercingly beautiful snow-white figure of something faceless and sexless. And the absolute intangibility of this figure, and its complete absence in all her senses except sight, clearly indicated exactly who was trying (very successfully) to cut off her life.

"Greetings." The creature's sexless and emotionless voice was perfectly audible, despite its lack of a mouth or lips to utter the words.

"Hi." The man answered in a muffled, soaked half-groan, in a manner more befitting a frontier bandit than a capital dweller. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"

Instead of answering, the creature disappeared again, and the stranger followed. With a quiet clang, the intangible blades met with the usual and clearly good-quality long and thin daggers. And then began a real fight, the likes of which Areya had only seen a couple of times in her life, and even that from a distance.

Despite her high level and good grades, the woman's arsenal was completely lacking in truly powerful attacks. In her opinion, a properly applied light slap will often be much more useful than a blow with a steel club. That, come to think of it, could be considered the fighting credo of every assassin, and, indeed, of every other dancer or dodger. The Cape Bearer must have been not informed because he confronted the invisible and impossibly fast killer with AoE blows, forcing him to take materiality and fight back rather than play hunting for a defenseless victim who can't even hit him back.

Dust.

Gray, fine and clogging up every crevice, the dust rose into the air and began to age everything around them. Areya was afraid for herself and Mort, but strange spells didn't affect them. It certainly wasn't geomancy, though the earthworms knew a thing or two about using dust barriers. It was something very, very dangerous, deeply conceptual, and constantly changing its vector of attack.

The creature would disappear but reappear where it had stood a moment before or move obviously not to where it wanted to go. It pierced the face of the cloaked stranger with its blades, but the stranger, clearly mortally wounded rather than deceived, reassembled from the dust, unharmed. She saw his death reflexively turn on the fan which almost cost her her life, but the simulation just malfunctioned and failed. She saw what had not yet happened. This man was rolling back what had happened.

Dust beat its blades and raised barriers, forcing the creature into close combat, where the human daggers made it feel uncomfortable. It responded with dozens of invisible blows, among which there were a couple that reached their targets. The blows were met by strange armor covered with the faces of frankly unfriendly elders who seemed to be making more and more angry faces. The man responded with whole spheres of dust, within which the dance of gray particles seemed to falter.

Watching the attack frozen within such a sphere, equally invisible but now outlined by a dusty outline, Areya came to the shocking assumption that a bearer of the power available to the Crowned Bloods had come to save her. Not that anyone besides them knew how to play with the Immutable Law, but if you encounter such a cad in the middle of the capital of the Empire of the Ages, it's reasonable to assume the most obvious option.

For a moment, she thought the man had lost, having stumbled and missed the double attack before she could roll back his wound, but it turned out she wasn't the only one. The creature that had emerged next to the man trying to clamp down on his punctured throat pierced the enchanted armor in several places at once, clearly using an amplified strike. But the body, instead of disappearing into a cloud of dust, scattered into a cloud of that dust, from which he emerged unharmed and real. But now it was a decoy that was used, just a very high-level one, so good that it was almost real.

The creature was frozen as a motionless statue in the middle of a very large sphere of dust. By the will of the man standing motionless beside it, all the excess dust began to flock to the sphere, clearly preparing to turn into something dangerous to the alien existence. Smoothly rising to her feet and hesitating for a moment, Areya stepped closer, stopping just short of their savior. Not behind her, no - she had the good sense not to try to get in the back of a likely fellow liquidator, only a very high-level one. Already behind her was Mort, but he could do even more than that now.

The creature struck suddenly and very hard.

It is a creature, not a faceless thing.

It didn't change externally, but what had previously been a complete void in energy perception began to radiate. For a fraction of a moment, Areya's mind and body tried to comprehend what she was about to experience, and then it got her. The pleasure of being one step away from agony, the lust that blurs the line between reason and madness, the pain that brings only the thirst to continue the torment over and over again, the ecstasy that is followed by nothingness, into which she longed to jump more than anything, the desire that is more important than life and death-all this came over her mind in an instant, sweeping away any self-control at once and without the slightest resistance.

With a half-strangled shriek, she falls on her buckled legs, releases her raised weapon, and shudders in the most powerful orgasm of her life. The most beautiful and probably the last. She felt the damned flurry of high-ranking Devil literally drinks away at her soul. The idea of resisting was somewhere far away, and Areya's whole will was focused on diving headlong into ecstasy. Forever.

The stranger struck, turning a sphere of dust into grave slabs that collapsed on the still-silent creature. And though it showed no excitement, its attack did something to it, forcing it to stop the song of its Vice, loosening its death grip on Areya's mind and the somehow miraculously still-breathing Mort. If it had had time, it might well have commanded it - under the Fleur, the very notion of will is simply absent. That's why this undoubtedly iconic technique of the inhabitants of Hell is disliked. It can turn an army on its comrades at once. And all the knowledge, skills, and honed tactics will go to the devil's side. This is not the usual slavemancing, which, more or less, can only produce obedient puppets and shadows of their former selves.

The creature ceased its influence only for a brief moment, but that was enough for the man to step inside the sphere and grasp the monster's face, devoid of eyes or any other feature, with his bare hand. And then, instead of losing that arm along with his soul, he struck. Dust streamed from his fingers, flowing into the creature's body and turning its flesh into ash.

For the first time since the conflict had begun, the thing was seriously pissed. No, it didn't shriek in pain or horror, but it twitched visibly, trying to break free of its grip, and all the dust around it became harder than rock at once, preventing it from moving freely. When the grayness took up half of the creature's head, it blinked again and simply disappeared.

The sphere had fallen, as had all the other dust.

A moment of blissful silence and peace.

"Why the fuck did I even get involved in this shit?" The man's question was somewhat abrupt, which made Areya, still reeling from the attack on her mind, flinch to her shame.

"B-because you've d-decided to nobly help us and save us from being devoured by Hell?" To her surprise, Mort hadn't even turned gray, and he hadn't lost his mind or his soul, though his underwear and hers needed to be changed.

"Hey, pretty lady, why the fuck were you covering for the kid?" He was a very insolent, though respectful, address, but Mort was ignored. "He's obviously not a nobleman, the level is weak, and he's not worthy of being a witness. And I know you. Your Peeper always values your skin above the lives of those around you."

That was what the Eyes were called only in criminal circles, and it was circles that were too close to the frontier, which made the plebeians living there lose their fear and gain foolish self-confidence. She didn't want to point out the insult to her interlocutor because Areya wanted very much to live.

"I..." She didn't know she was lying yet, when a slightly glowing lilac crystal waved in front of her face, signaling the activation of a disposable artifact. "I won't answer under the Cry.

I wonder where she got the nerve? In any case, she could have tried to deceive the Liar's Cry, prepared and full of energy, but not in this condition. And to say that Mort is now more important to her than her life, her service, or anything else is a direct way to take him as a hostage.

"Girl, I'm not going to fucking beg you." The man shook his head. "I'll just turn around and walk away, and when that asshole comes back with his friends, you can dance them off by yourself. You suck it?"

The impotence made her want to either weep or stab the bastard in the femoral vein, but she was already too old for the former, and the latter would only end in a very humiliating death.

"I have an artifact in my container." The words had to be squeezed out of her with a terrible mental squeak. The mento-corrector is no lower than a legend. I was affected by it, programmed, but before the imprinting could be secured, the guy shot the last of the capture team in the head with a crossbow. He really just happened to be in a bad situation."

All Mort could do was look from her to the asshole in bewilderment, and he seemed to be able to understand something of what she was saying. She deliberately spoke in as complicated a way as possible - well, as much as she could afford to under the gaze of the liquidator waiting for answers - hoping that the not-so-literate Mort would not understand what she was saying. Not that she was against his authority over her, but this, alas, was no place for fantasies. Especially after they'd both nearly had their souls sucked out.

"Really?" With utterly genuine surprise, the big guy checked the glow of Cry and then shifted his unreadable gaze to Mort. "Fuck, you're not bad!"

While the shocked Mort was coming to his senses from the realization of the responsibility he'd been given, the man who'd saved them began to gather his knives and wipe away the traces of the battle with dust clouds. Either he couldn't remove them completely, or he was too spent on fighting what was clearly not the last fiend in the Hells hierarchy, but even so, Areya suspected it would be difficult to read the picture of events here.

"Okay." Like he was struggling with himself, he said. "This is the first time I've ever seen such a fucked-up spectacle in my life, though I thought I'd seen a lot of shit. I'll take you fuckin' lovebirds out of here."

With these words, he lifted Areya and Mort by the collar of their clothes and dragged them somewhere in the alley, at the same time taking and hanging on his back the crossbow lying on the ground. She wanted to be indignant at this attitude since she could walk if she didn't hurry, but the stranger, who hadn't even told them his name, stepped somewhere in the wrong direction.

Before that day, Areya had never traveled straight through a plane, confining herself to either portals or momentary transfers, where you don't spend even a fraction of a second on another plane. Now, Areya realized for sure she would have loved to continue to be unfamiliar with the experience. Preferably until she died of old age. All that remained was to close her eyes and not to look anywhere, not to see the dust-covered, trampled by myriad boots of the Road, which had neither beginning nor end.

"Y-you-honorable, m-may I ask you a question?" Mort, who was squinting in the same way, tried to address the guide.

"Well, go ahead." He answered with a certain tension that indicated the difficulty of movement, but not so much as to cause panic in the passengers dragged through infinity.

"And if we, uh, break the artifact, l-lady Fern, will she come to her senses?" Quite a nice attitude, but it certainly didn't fit right now, even if we forget that she certainly didn't want to come to her senses.

"Hardly, little one." The man replied, thinking it over for a while. "You can try, though. If you can take it away and throw it here, the artifact won't last long."

"Lady Fern, will you please throw that disgusting thing away?" No, she will gladly listen to him, but only if his orders are not harmful to him.

"Ahem, ahem, a devil's artifact, ahem, ahem, a beacon, ahem, ahem, fuck." The guide muttered, immediately whistling merrily.

She would assume that he just wants them to get rid of the artifact voluntarily and then pick it up - so strong user of the Road, if she correctly interpreted her feelings from this place, it would not be difficult to find the trinket afterward.

"By the way, lad, aren't you afraid that when she comes to her senses, she'll snap your neck, too?" He asks Mort with a discernible sneer, eliciting a wave of mild approval from Areya. "Not even out of spite, but as a dangerous witness?"

"Y-you know, fuck you, sir." With surprising ease and amusement in his voice, the guy says. "My dad taught me that brainwashing is evil, and brainwasher are better seen dead. I don't give a fuck if I think I'm a shit myself. If they kill me, fuck me, there'll be no one to cry over it. I'm a fucking adventurer! Like I believe I'll die of old age."

"Gee, kid!" Despite the rather insulting treatment, the bouncer didn't even seem offended. "You can die of old age here and in a few minutes. But I hear you."

With a jerk, he tore the artifact container from her belt, tossing it into the wall of dust that surrounded the road. Areya, who dared to open her eyes, immediately closed them back, trying to keep her mind stable. The Road and the Trails - these two planes, which many scientists would consider one, just in two forms, are relatively friendly to visitors. Or rather, they kill the unprotected with the same painful guarantee, but having an affinity with them, you can stay here long enough and even take your comrades with you. It is hard to think of better specialists for sending raiders into enemy territory. But even under the cover of such a powerful Wanderer, just looking at this place is monstrously creepy and alien.

Meanwhile, the man stopped and dumped their bodies on the dusty ground, creating a sort of island of stability on the Road. Not the easiest trick, either, though it's pretty well-known. Areya was just now remembering all the facts she knew about such specialists and, at the same time, trying to match the bandit face of their savior with the Path and Time adepts she knew. So far, she couldn't find any.

"All right, lad." The big man lifted Mort by the shoulders, put him on his feet, and hovered over him with his full height, forcing the woman to reach for her scabbard, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. "What's your name, anyway?"

"M-mort, son of Volaan, I am a craftsman, a glassblower." Despite his stammering, he answered without looking away... at least, without wishing to turn his gaze to the world around him.

"Well, there it was, Mmort." Suddenly the vulgarity of their savior or captor's voice and manner of speech was gone, and he resembled a wild beast, ready to leap. "If you have the balls to give her back her will. Get ready. The distortions of the fiends are strong, and that thing we just fed to the Road was the foulest I'd seen to that day. But while that stuff is still fresh, I can partially roll it back, take its time and mix it with the dust. Since you have control of the binding, I'll take it out of you."

Areya struck quickly, silently, and precisely, as she had done so many times before, trying to hit the articulation of the enchanted armor in which this assassin moved so easily but only managed to scratch the cloak, then curled up on the dusty ground, if that was the ground at all. A blow to the solar plexus and another to the ear wasn't enough to knock her out, but she wouldn't even be able to stand for another ten minutes.

"Shouldn't we start with Lady Fern?" She could barely make out Mort's incredulous question amidst her thirst for breath, combined with dizziness and the aftereffects of overexertion that had overtaken her.

"Her level is over forty, boy." The negative shake of the head she picks up intuitively rather than seeing, as does the shocked look of the boy who realized her strength. "If I start ripping it out of her, I'll have to cripple her first."

"H-h-how do I know you w-won't take c-c-control for yourself?" The threat in the adventurer's voice was not at all comparable to that of his interlocutor, but it was a threat that was met by a hearty laugh that turned to laughter.

"For a mere craftsman, you seem to know a lot about these things." He laughed, and then he was just as serious and intimidating again.

"My sister and her friend were bewitched by a traveling brainiac, and he took her with him." He said calmly but with aged anger, causing her sincere respect, separate from the unshakable loyalty. "We were too late to understand, and then there was no one to catch up with."

"Oh, boy. Well, then, look, Mmort." He started kneading his hands, which were gathering more and more gray dust, at the same time as he was explaining. "You wouldn't know about that. You have to believe... ...though you'd better hope so. It's a pity you're so normal. It's easier to take time away from those whose lives you don't intend to spare."

With those words, he simply jammed his hands into the chest of Mort, who was convulsing and whose face showed an easily discernible agony. Areya tried to force herself to get up, to fight, to save and protect, but her limbs felt as if they were filled with lead, and her head exploded with light-noise mixtures time after time. All that remained was to watch in helplessness as her love died in the hands of an assassin. She should have attacked him when he hadn't already taken them out of reality, thrown them into the alien's plan, but she'd hoped he was an Imperial retinue. When it was clear she'd been wrong, she hope for a miracle. And there was nothing she could do. She just couldn't.

And after that thought came the real pain.

It was like gold worms bursting out of her eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth, shining, beautiful, and ugly in equal measure. The Wanderer reeled these living threads around her gray-coated fist, using Mort as leverage. With each tug, she felt herself being turned inside out, but she couldn't even lose consciousness. Agony gave way to familiar pleasure, hatred to love and admiration, pain to ecstasy, but somehow, by some miracle, her soul held on to her body, unhurriedly crumbling to dust.

She awoke to a ray of sunlight shining on her face, and she suspected it was not of the same day as the day on which these adventures had begun. Anticipation felt like a dead stone and a continuous migraine but did not threaten to kill her with ruptured vessels, there was a treacherous weakness in the body, and the general feeling was closer to "bad" than to "good". But after the experience, such little things didn't seem to matter.

Trying to sit up on the bed, she could barely contain her moan, but it was enough of a creak to bring the boy, who was Mort, into her field of vision. She still felt some sympathy for him, much more noticeable than before, but she no longer considered it the norm to be his whore. And she didn't want to be a whore anymore, to be honest. That is the very idea of going to the port and dressing up as a slut and having fun was a very noticeable desire, but it was just lust. A new and extremely powerful fetish, but not a rewriting of the mind at the root level - if someone now offered to sell her asshole for a gold coin, he would choke on blood from her slit throat much sooner than he would finish making the offer. Her personal life, however, will have to be diversified.

An extra check, preferably by a private mentalist, will definitely be done by her to avoid accidentally, and "accidentally," forgetting behavioral algorithms in her mind. But at first glance, this brute kept his promise and really gave her back her will. Which raises a very important question for her, or rather a whole bunch of questions.

Who is he anyway?

What the heck is going on in the Eternal that the high ranks of the Eye are almost openly working with the Higher Fiends?

Why did they come to her in the first place?

And, finally, what did Areya Fern step onto once again without even noticing it?

It's like being young again, honestly!

"Put your happy face away, Mort." She grumbled, trying to sit up and ignoring the outstretched hand. "I'm grateful, honestly grateful. But I have too many questions in my head right now to express it properly."

"No need to thank me, Lady Fern." The boy just shook his head as if he didn't know what he'd done and in what situation.

Even her closest allies, if they were in a similar situation, would, at the very least, consider leaving it as is. Very seriously they would have considered it, and only a few of them would have dismissed it out of respect for her, not out of fear of punishment when it came out. And that's not counting the few who wouldn't think twice about it! And yet he did not hesitate for a second, which shows an amazing level of naivety and stupidity. She would certainly have taken the risk if she had been him.

"That's enough." She interrupted him, still managing to sit up. "I said I was grateful, and I said I'd return the thanks. You don't have to shake the air with empty words."

"And I said you didn't have to thank me for it!" He yelled in her face, triggering a reflexive attempt to hit him, which, due to his painful condition, turned into a barely-kept balance. "Anything but that."

Looking into his eyes, Areya nodded silently and finally stopped seeing him as a petty fool with the book knight syndrome in his head. She did not understand his motives and reasons for his actions, but at least she was ready to show respect to the one who showed it to her. Even if she thought his actions were frankly rash and right to the point of being wrong. A young middle-ranking adventurer who came from the merchant would never understand a veteran liquidator who had been through the flames of war, the blood of loss, and the venom of high society. But she too, as it turned out, could not understand this adventurer.

Let it be.

"Where did this... did he even introduce himself?" She changes the subject.

"No, he never did, not even a nickname." Mort was quick to pick up on the change of subject. "I've been here twenty-four hours, Lady Fern. We're somewhere in the slums, in the southern district, but I don't know where; I've never been here before."

"There is something wrong..." Areya summarized.

In that condition, she would not risk going to the command now. Even apart from the fact that she might be detained because of the effect on her mind, there were other problems. The most important of these was the fact there were servants of Fiends sitting in the department. In the Eyes of the Eternal! A ridiculous assumption, but she could no longer dismiss it after her life had been miraculously saved.

It is usually the lower and middle classes of human and non-human society that fall into the ranks of the Hell zealots. It is such who are seduced by the devils with their promises, such who have no will to refuse their gifts, such who the Fiends can see among their servants. Their influence, though very dangerous, is viscous and difficult to detect, but it is quite easy to spot those whom they have enfolded with their poison.

There have been entire aristocratic families that have sold their humanity for emptiness and deceit, there have been entire guilds and trading houses, and even entire towns have worshipped this abomination. The latter, of course, is in very neglected cases. But to infiltrate their agents into the Eyes? Right in the Capital? With all the paranoid inspections and regularly changing scanning mechanisms? With the constant vigilance of independent groups of seers?

This is nonsense!

A nonsense that almost made her cum out of her soul.

Is it possible that all this is a set-up by an unknown party, to whom belongs the rescuer, or "rescuer"? Yes, it is possible! But this is all too complicated if it was possible to enslave her from the beginning and not worry. It is far more likely to assume the existence of several forces at once, one of which she was caught in the clutches of, and now, if she understands anything at all, there will be a process of re-slavery. Why it was necessary to free her rather than enlist the far more susceptible and completely inexperienced Mort, she still didn't understand, and that bugged her.

She considered the most unlikely version to be the one where they were actually saved by a randomly passing high-class Wanderer. It was so delusional that she could hardly even believe she was seriously considering it, but he was a Wanderer nonetheless. Their class is very strange, disliked by all the secret services collectively, and uncontrollable by force. That's why she suggests this option without putting it aside. Exactly the Wanderer could have accidentally come by his Road exactly to the place where she was dying. Once they reach high levels, they always remain very willful bastards, hard to control and command.

This does not invalidate the fact that he could have been sent here, just counting on her and her colleagues from the Eye of Understanding to think this way. She is, after all, the Eye of Elimination, which will be easier to deceive than the hardened wolfhounds of the analytical departments, who suspect even their own shadow of treachery and duplicity.

However, so far, she has not been recruited and has not been incited to dangerous things for the Empire, as well as to seemingly non-threatening ones. There is time to probe the interlocutor and form an opinion. Since he hasn't killed them yet, nothing is finished. In any case, she would prefer to lie in bed and recuperate for the time being. Especially since the same seers will probably be looking for her. All traces, or as they call them, images, would have been erased by the Road, but anyone could be found if they wanted to. Here she remembered the murderers of the Crowned Blood and mentally corrected herself - almost anyone. She would certainly be looked for, which meant she had to be found.

The main thing is that those who found them weren't the same guys who found them last time.

Otherwise, the Wanderer, who decided to interfere, might not be there.

She turned her gaze to the side and noticed the Wanderer, who had clearly just entered. If he'd dropped his stealth, she might have seen something... Though remembering his demonstrated skills, she wouldn't have seen anything.

"What do you say? Who do you play for, and what do you demand?" There was no strength to follow the protocol, and he did not follow it too much if you remember the manner of communication. "And what should I call you? Mind you. If you don't give me at least the first call sign that comes to mind, I'll pick it up myself."

"I'm nobody's." He ignored the threat. "I am my own, you might say. I don't need anything from you, I warn you. I've left some road dust around the house. It'll hide from the seeers... for a while."

"Priestly technique?" Areya raises her eyebrows in surprise. "There aren't many pure plane users who study them.

"More like a magical ritual based on a priestly prayer." He nodded in response to her hunch. "I'm not going to ask you to keep quiet about anything, and you won't think twice about lying."

"Aren't you afraid for your incognito?" Barely suppressing the urge to arm herself, the woman squeezes out, frankly afraid of provoking this man but unable not to probe the ground.

"I can get away from any pursuit." He waved off the supposed threat. "And I have a suspicion that all of you will not care about me very soon. There's the assassination of the Second Prince of Eternity, and the unrealistically suspicious actions of your Eye, to say nothing of the Devils. I'm worried that it might burn in the near future."

"Do you feel something?" She stared breathlessly at her interlocutor's face, searching for the slightest hint of emotion. "What's coming?"

"No." He answered surprisingly gloomily. - I don't sense anything. At all. I'm not the only one who doesn't sense anything. It's more frightening than that. I'm not a Seer, not an Intuit and that's understandable. But there are a huge number of clairvoyants of all kinds gathered here. And they're not sounding the alarm about the Hell breaking through, are they?"

She was silent instead of answering, and Mort, who was sitting against the wall, swore in a very obscene manner. She was trying hard to keep her mind off the subject, but it all sounded too much like the truth. She just wouldn't risk going to the Office in her condition. For one thing, she wouldn't get there. Second, she didn't believe they would let her go in.

Usually, she's not mistaken about these things.

A figure appeared in a deserted section of the Copperbelt shopping district, where a heated battle had recently taken place, but about which almost no one knew, and those who did know did everything they could to keep the knowledgeable to a minimum. It appeared instantly, without outward magical manifestations, simply beginning to abide. The figure was graceful, beautiful, and impersonal in its beauty.

Next to the figure stood three others, who had been waiting in that spot for about ten minutes. The heavy cloaks of coarse cloth that protected them so well from the night wind hid their expensive robes and enchanted armor beneath them. These guests, whose faces were concealed by hoods and masks, would have been far more logical to see at a wealthy social gathering or a ball in the Imperial Palace. The figures were silent, but one of them, the central one, asked in a tired and resigned voice:

"Was the Sovereign displeased?" The slightest tinge of interest and indifferent humility in those words.

"The Sovereign was displeased." Confirms a pale figure, then disappears from sight, and in the magical perception it did not show anything before.

After a few seconds, the three figures silently walk away, and the cover, hidden among the rooftops and alleyways, without which they have not left their houses for a long time simply by a social position which, alas, is obligatory, follows them.

Somewhere far away and close at the same time, said gentleman acknowledged with mild displeasure that plans, almost completed plans, almost accomplished goals, would have to be accelerated the least bit.

* * *

A good mercenary never asks unnecessary questions or even unnecessary thoughts. Then such a mercenary would be fed, clothed, well-staffed, well-recognized by his employers, and, most importantly, alive. The Four Shields was a squad not too numerous but famous enough and not squeamish to work in a somewhat gray area, which at times was replaced by true blackness. One who was not caught by the hand might be considered innocent, especially if that hand, should suspicion arise, would generously pay off those who would shake off the trappers. Or prove the innocence with blades and magic, if that's cheaper.

The squad was originally named after its first four founders, all of whom were Shielder class, which greatly influenced the early stages of the squad's career. They took on mostly defensive contracts, taking part in various border skirmishes and wars of noble lords. It was a lucrative business, though risky.

Once, the risk was too great, and the squad was beaten and left without money. The heir of the dead employer flatly refused to pay for the labors and losses of the Four Shields. After that, all four founders died in a heated argument over who the fuck was to blame, and Burge became the new head of the company. He didn't change his squad's name because to change a squad's name required an official registration procedure, without which a squad of armed men in the Empire of the Ages was considered thugs and other outlaws rather than a respectable mercenary squad.

Yes, you didn't have to bother. In the provincial and frontier areas, it was easy to get by without a badge and even closer it was enough to pay a much smaller sum by giving it to the Governor. Not personally, but through his men, of course. But you would have to pay anew in each new province. And most importantly, the Four Shields badge has already been paid for!

That's how they worked. They stayed out of combat, trying more to work with guards and deliveries, but they did not hesitate to ambush them at the behest of their anonymous employer or without the behest either. Berge had to cut the zealous heads off several times to keep the squad from degenerating into another outlaw gang, the end of which was always the same.

Three years ago he found a real gold mine. That's not to say that he was sought out on purpose, but the employer needed specific people with the right skills and experience for a long-term contract, and Berge and his Shields fit that definition perfectly. And a relatively carefree time began - the employer needed them, who was not going to eliminate them in order to find new ones immediately, and he kept people in a fierce glove, not allowing them to say too much and shutting them up forever if they did not understand the first and only warning.

Of course, he guessed that it was what they regularly carried under false documents, which each time had different seals of influential people, but always turned out to be real. The squad mage had identified the rune pattern on the long wooden crates, which ensured healthy sleep and air circulation. He shared his observations, though only with Berge, so he lived happily ever after. It wasn't just crates they were carrying - there were cases, boxes, caskets, just letters and documentation and, of course, perfectly legitimate goods. Apparently, they were only given them when Shields was going to be checked seriously.

Burge kept quiet, drove, made, guarded, and killed anyone who attempted to steal the goods. There weren't many of them, come to think of it, and almost all of them were just unlucky outlaws. In cases where more serious people were interested in Berge and his band's transports, one message to the man from his employer was enough, and then they lost interest. Sometimes, along with the person who was interested.

The old rascal kept his men from feeling impunity, made sure they didn't attract attention, and generally did exactly what was desired of him. He did it without asking any questions. Time flowed, gold multiplied in stashes or bank deposits, and Burge himself was thinking of having an accident and retiring. Though he was not going to even think of divulging the secrets he knew, the innate pessimist could not believe that he would be allowed to retire. And the spent mercenaries had better kill themselves, or they would be killed for real.

This was to be his before before last order because he had everything he needed, including a corpse from a provincial vivisectionist who looked exactly like him and an appearance-change operation ordered from another magician. The lady even offered to change the sex, but Berge was not yet so hungry for a new experience in life that he would agree to it. The man did not doubt that his deception would be uncovered, but he would be too far away by then to really look for someone who knew no special secrets and was doing his best not to find out.

The long wooden crates, which this time had to be carried out of the usual queue, this time had a much larger number than usual. That worried the mercenary a great deal, for a change in routine, was always a sign of trouble to come. The exception only confirmed the rule. He'd like to think it was just a one-time glitch, but when your employers started demanding triple the number of victims outside the usual schedule, it was hard not to join them.

Were the mysterious employers one of the guild wings conducting undocumented experiments in the chanceries, necromancers preparing an army of their own, or rebels feeding a summoned creature to kill the Emperor? He did not give a shit, and he will not give a shit. The main thing is to be out of the way at a time when it smells like it's about to go bad.

Like, for example, right now.

The group of mercenaries had no time to be surprised. As they passed through another alleyway, several dimly glowing pink spheres fell on their heads, and then a flash of light disabled every single one of the armed men, who had relaxed considerably over their years of the quiet life. Even Berg, who wore a level twenty-two, was not invulnerable to magical attack.

They disarmed the mercenaries silently and deftly, poured more reliable sleeping potions down their throats, calmed their horses, stacked the men next to the boxes, covered them with cloth, took their places as carriers and guards, and continued to the very near goal. This time there was no time to assign a new delivery point, and the mercenaries had outlived their usefulness.

As the morning wore on, the young-looking redheaded ritualist began to wipe his bloody hands and clean his work clothes. He had to try really hard to use all the material, but the Shroud that had been cherished for so long not only did not go to pieces, but it strengthened, making further work much easier without losing its invisibility. The subtlest influence was hidden in the magical background of the capital, and so far no one could notice it, and those who could simply not going to look for what they had no idea about.

"The Sovereign will be pleased." Quietly whispered the young man, whose age was older than other third-rate aristocratic houses, leaving the ritual room to the janitors.

Approximately the same thoughts and words were whispered by his colleagues at another thirteen points inside the walls of the Eternal. Colleagues of lesser importance and talent did not fail, and the terrible mystery remained a terrible mystery.

But not for long.

Few merchants can afford to keep their own personal Seer, no matter how shitty Seer might be. Alas, Torch of Tanai was a merchant who was quite rich, very clever, and quite cunning, and Congar Bernt was a Seer, maybe not bad but certainly unlucky to the extreme. From his little investigation, his grandfather had pissed off Lady Fortune or one of the deity's priests - some generic bad luck curses don't appear out of the blue.

He lost his inheritance through a fraudulent scheme involving administrative resources, a team of burglars, and two lush-breasted Seductress who kept him in a state for a week where he had no time to see where his inheritance was slipping away. By the time Congar had recovered enough to appreciate the depth of his ass, he was left in every sense of the word with a bare ass.

So he didn't have to open his own business but was hired as an assistant to one of the tradesmen. The work was not too dusty and fairly money, and the curse, which had lost its power in two generations, had been lifted with the help of Malefic, advised by Torch. The loss of money and opportunity was still pitiful, and the man did not like to think about it.

The merchant, proficient in several near-intuitive class tricks, had been wishing to match him with his daughter for months, and Kongar was thinking of agreeing to it. True, he had not forgotten to check himself for love charms - burning on hot broth, you begin to blow even on icy gruel. Maria was a pretty girl, shapely and very sweet... a fool. On the other hand, this wedding would not only bind him to the Tanai House, but it would also open the door to the family accounts of this house. Congar understood that Torch understood that, and even Maria might have understood something there.

With the new finances, it would be possible to invest and make deals, and then, perhaps, it would be possible to get a trade prediction class, closing the gaps in the work of the trade analytical, which Torch owns. Together, with family ties, they could advance considerably in the financial hierarchy of the Capital. All the way from the Copper Belt to the Silver Belt, where both money and connections would be of an entirely different order.

If he is lucky for once in his life.

Kongar didn't like this deal from the start, and it was precisely because it was too ordinary. The intermediary who ordered the whole list of very rare spices, which are also used in the creation of some alchemical drugs and poisons, was trustworthy and reliable. Another thing is that this case seemed deliberately grayish as if someone carefully tried to create a picture of a not-very-honest, moderately greedy, and sufficiently contractual client engaged in some near-illegal activity.

Searching for a Vision and Finding a Motive, he had used enough times to be relatively certain of his assumptions. There was nothing in this transaction that would become unpleasant or dangerous to Torch and his caravan house. Of course, his skills are still too far from even closing the first rank, and he is by no means an elite seer but merely the possessor of a somewhat unusual branch of the administrative class. In all likelihood, his suspicions were the result of sleep deprivation and paranoia after the inheritance, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Once again activating his Searching of Vision - he tried to keep himself constantly alert, if only without endangering his health, trying to gain more experience - Kongar felt that something had changed on this attempt. His skill was imprecise, weak, fuzzy, and could be fooled even by the average person if the right precautions were taken. Don't tell anyone unnecessary information, don't leave your stuff lying around, don't entrust all the data on your projects in one head, and all that. Even such basic opposition, even some of it, was insurmountable for a man.

Yes, he was considered a full-fledged seer, not some intuitive who could only win at dice, let alone ordinary warriors who had only premonition of danger at their disposal. But ninety-nine out of a hundred full-fledged Seers (very rare birds, in fact) were just that. They have unsure and inaccurate visions, vague predictions, and regular mistakes due to misunderstandings of their visions. Unicums that, with a single glance, without long rituals or deadly fatigue, can see into a person's past and future are so rare that they serve not rich merchants (just from a copper belt!) but mighty Guilds or Crowned dynasties. If they do not serve the prophets themselves.

Nevertheless, Searching for Vision is one of the most basic skills available to both ordinary and elite visionaries, though they use it with varying strength and skill. There are plenty of exceptions, but it is indeed a common skill in one form or another. And one of its characteristic features is not only the extremely low probability of a successful, clear, comprehensible, and truthful vision but also something else. With some very slim chance, this ability can not only send a vision but also collect scattered information, scraps of phrases, conjectures, and glimpsed details and put them in the mind of the Seer.

Hence the rumors of spoken Prophecies and Omens, which came from the lips of, in general, not at all distinguished seers. It happens sometimes, that's all. Congar was now remarkably close to such a "critical success," though it was far from a full-fledged Prophecy. A second more, and he seemed to understand the mystery behind the ordinary transaction, even if only a minuscule part of it, a piece of the mosaic.

This is the problem with complicated and multi-stage plans and conspiracies. Sooner or later, some seer will notice something. That's why all sorts of tricks, false images, and redirected attention are used, but there's always a chance that some random seer might notice something wrong. Probably without any harm to the overcomplicated plan, for it would be only a fraction of the mystery, but it would still be a clue.

With a quiet rustle, an ordinary room spider fell on the face of a man frozen in a kind of trance, sitting in his own room, inside a special ritual figure.

That frantic swearing, which marked the interrupted trance and escaped secret, which promised him at least a level, and at most, a free point of development in a class skill, woke up not only the servants but also the neighbors. The oddities of yet another business partner were forgotten over a headache, a nosebleed, and an emotional breakdown that had to be poured over with a couple of pitchers of wine.

The mystery remained secret.

Likewise, it remained a mystery to others, even if the way of keeping it was always different, but never suspicious. All in all, a common everyday detail that so often haunts humans and non-humans throughout their lives. One cannot hide from it, just as one cannot hide from one's own destiny. No one is immune to unfortunate accidents, not even the cleverest and most talented.

The experienced Interrogator, who almost caught the thought by the tail, used a Bold Assumption, beginning to stack several seemingly unrelated cases into one, but slipped on the wet floor, barely keeping his balance. And the thought was gone, and there was no evidence there, only conjecture and suspicion, which even for an Intuit seemed too far-fetched. Even if there was a connection, it was only a showdown between two rival Trading Houses. There was enough evidence for that, and it was carefully hidden but still found, not deliberately left in plain sight.

Another Interrogator, no longer a state investigator but an employee of a magic guild, was sitting in a cozy meditation chair, thinking about a strange change in the usual flow of ritual reagents, which had risen considerably in the past year, although those buyers who used them were strictly known to number. Is someone pocketing an extra kickback? Or maybe the competitors were preparing to set up a subsidiary guild and stock up on supplies for their warehouses already? But then the financial flows must have been distorted... though they must have been hidden much more carefully.

That's actually a job for Guild Economists, Fence-sitters, and Treasurers, not for the Inquirer, but in life they often have to pry into each other's duties. He twisted the thought around in his head some more, but then the misted bottle of chilled wine, into which fortifying potions had been added, slipped from his palm. The fairly pumped man's reaction was enough to catch the vessel before it tipped over, but the thought was lost. The usual memo addressing the Treasurer, though detailed, led him away from the truth.

The thirty-ninth-level Seeker of Truth, sitting in a screened and barred room, guided by his will the entire circle of seers, among whom there were no middlings - only hard professionals with vast experience. Others, you know, are not accepted into the Eyes of the Eternal, trusting them to continually check all the details of this fine-tuned mechanism.

They have seen much, even if a good deal of the secrets were hidden from them by their colleagues in the same agency, as well as by the many artifacts, barriers, and ritual protections. It is difficult to maneuver through this maze in such a way as not to miss a spy's attention but also not to find something they are not allowed to know. The Seeker, despite his legendary class, was far from number one in the hierarchy of the Seer's Eyes and therefore was well aware that closed areas were either considered by far more trusted and powerful ones or not considered at all. The Eyes knew perfectly well not to give too much information in one hand, so the constantly overlapping teams of sighters were a necessary evil.

His concentration was unwavering.

His attention is a sharpened scalpel, cutting through the web of events.

His will is a red-hot needle that pierces any veil.

Routine inspection never became routine for him, no matter how much time passed. Especially after that terrible massacre in the Eternal that they had missed and failed to prevent. Sifting through the decisions of some individual Eyes with a fine sieve, he looked for any trace of treachery. And he found none - the intrigues, abuse of power, attempts at subservience, hidden and not-so-hidden machinations, but no betrayal. All this would be recorded and used by the higher ranks to keep in check the enterprising subordinates, who themselves only dream of becoming higher ranks.

For a moment, it seemed to the Seeker that in the kaleidoscope of other people's desires and motives, the face of the recently eliminated liquidator flashed, whose killers were now being sought by several other groups at once. Having begun to shuffle the circle of images, he continued the search in a new direction - without surprise or unnecessary emotion. The presence of a mole in this case, voluntary or not, was a proven fact, for two of them had already been found and tied up, right now turning their memories inside out.

In all likelihood, he's just picked up one of the wandering links that lead to the captured double agents, but it's never a bad idea to check. A sip of the vision-enhancing potion and a particular part of the picture of events begins to be scrutinized much more closely. Truth and Lies, an ability of the second rank of his class, allowed recognize the answer to some questions, if only in the form of extremely short "yes" or "no". The main thing is to ask the right questions and to distinguish between attempts to deceive the asker.

The skill drained his reserves and was also quite painful to apply, but he had no more reliable way of quickly verifying fresh suspicions. The purest cognition, very problematic to reflect or deceive, is used by an extremely determined individual. He had long ago outgrown the level at which anything could distract him, cause him to stray, lose his train of thought and ruin his technique. And there was nothing like it in this place, in this deliberately isolated room, cut off from reality and serving as an amplifier of their abilities.

It was at that moment another unfortunate accident occurred behind the wall, in the form of a rather large storage crystal that had been dropped and broken. And it broke, even though it was carried in a container. The fall of this container was so unfortunate that it fell apart with the crystal.

It was just an accidental drop of weapon oil that a passing operative wiped on his blade, who wasn't supposed to be in this department today. A slight delay in the cleansing charms, which not the first day tried to fix on their own, not wanting to bother with the documentation to call the professionals. Just one step too wide, causing the man who carried that container to fall forward and lose his balance. Because you should give such tasks to those with dexterity, not flimsy and clumsy wizards!

Neutral magic storages, despite the rumors, rarely explode. Or rather, there is an explosion, but compared to the wasted power, it is quite tiny. There were no casualties unless you count the monetary deductions from the wages of the crooked loser. A couple of burned palms and a bunch of crystalline splinters they'd have to get out by the healers. The magical flare, which activated all the alarm systems and put everyone temporarily on alert, was another matter.

The seers inside the isolated amplification chamber barely noticed the incident. The Seeker, of course, understood everything, but his concentration was high enough not to lose the thread of thought and keep the technique. But one of his assistants, holding the load of the circle, had a rather ambiguous title, which allowed him a much brighter awareness of magical currents. And here, he lacked concentration.

The Seeker of Truth, deprived of his support in the form of a disintegrated circle, was unable to maintain control over the force used, abruptly cutting off contact. His honed professionalism was enough to not only avoid injury but also to cover his allies, avoiding a couple of unpleasant injuries to himself and them. His indignation was expressed with only one disapproving glance at the culprit, which was perfectly enough to convey his irritation to the other Seer. There was no point in making a scandal, for the Seeker was well aware that the injuries that nearly occurred were the fault of the dumbasses outside their workplace.

Half an hour later, they all caught the right rhythm again, went into a trance, and continued the search exactly where they had interrupted it before. Only now, the truth they had found was no longer touched by other secrets. And all the images of Areya Fern that they found coincided with the information they had already received, containing nothing new.

There were enough adventurer guild members who saved more lives than the most virtuous paladins without getting involved in adventures. For example, the Endless Watch was one of the few reasons the adventurers' guild representatives in the capital were tolerated rather than banished to the frontier.

A whole plethora of very specific visionaries with highly specialized classes allowed them to estimate with unprecedented accuracy the presence of all sorts of monsters and beasts, predict their appearance, and find their weaknesses. Without consulting with these guys rarely passed raids in the most terrible lairs. Without their tips could not evacuate towns and villages from under the hammer of the attacking horde and, in general, help humans and Inhumans to survive. For a not modest fee, but still, but still.

Right now, one such Watcher was walking down an inconspicuous and little-visited corridor of the central office, diligently holding a huge plate of jam-covered pancakes with shaking hands from overexertion. Not too high physical attributes turned an ordinary task into a real feat in the name of gluttony.

As he approached the next section of the corridor, he turned to the flat surface of the wall, knowing in advance that there were no unnecessary witnesses nearby, and then, with an attitude and slight exaltation, he proclaimed:

"Everyone says the beaver is a giver, but is the beaver really a giver?" And then I ducked into the passage that appeared in the wall, or rather, through a section of the wall that had lost its materiality. "Heavenly names, what kind of sick bastard makes up these passwords?"

Instead of the usual consonant grumbling of his colleagues, who were just as sick of saying all sorts of nonsense, he was met by the frantic matting of his boss and mentor, who was trying to pick bits of fruit out of his hair, obviously caught there from a small dish where these cut fruits were lying.

Technically speaking, they are not supposed to use the passageway that leads to the corridor - it is too often used by those who should not know about the secret ritual-amplifier room of the Watch. But the kitchen is just a short walk from there, and the much more secure secret passage that leads to one of the empty offices of the administration building, through which they get to their workplace every morning, will take much longer.

"What happened?" Putting the dish on the table, letting his hands start working normally again, he asked his colleagues.

"Loon caught a vision and meditated, and Carl had a fruit slicer and caught a vision, too, right on the move. And there was a fruit slicer in his hand, the one that Loon now had in his hair. Now, Carl is hiding in his lair, and Loon is threatening to tear out his liver and use it to tell fortunes." The last member of the foursome answered him, not taking his eyes off the enchanted cards with drawings of all sorts of monsters.

Fless's class allowed him to know from a picture of a monster, especially one like this one, where there were more such specimens, and the chances of encountering them were much higher. For him, almost all his work was like that - playing solitaire cards, or staring at those cards, trying to get through to his intuition.

"A double vision and such a fiasco." He nodded, shuddering sympathetically and understandingly as he imagined the magnitude of the setback and the migraine that would follow. "But I brought pancakes!"

After about five minutes, the temporary quarrel was forgotten, and the four sentries began to pay tribute to the skills of the guild cooks and to discuss the ass of the new high-level cook who had recently joined the staff. The never-captured visions were all but forgotten.

* * *

William Parpiconti sincerely believed that Lady Fortune had kissed him on the mouth in life. With no special talents, no pedigree, and no heavy purse, he got on in life the way he could only dream of getting on in life. And all because he once punched one insolent clergyman in the face who thought too much of himself.

Then, in the tavern, where he was sipping on cheap wine, wondering where and to whom to sell his blade so that he could continue to drink wine and preferably a little better, he noticed a trio of either mercenaries or adventurers who had retrained as mercenaries, pressing on an old man. The old man looked rather lost, tired, and jaded, and he evoked a touch of sympathy from Wilhelm, who felt the same way.

There was also a priest of some light god, but it was the priest, not the god, that interested Wilhelm. Just recently, just a few days ago, one of them, out of sheer maliciousness alone, had framed Wilhelm up against the guards, who had given him a hefty fine. It was a good thing he had something to pay, or else he would have had to sit in jail in a company, not at all befitting an honest man.

The priest was very different, but the drunken man didn't care about such trifles, so he silently got up and went to beat his face, saving his soul mate. They gave him a good kicking - there were three of them. But he was not in debt, too, giving each a black eye (one under the right, the other under the left) and the priest both of them at once. When he recovered, shook the dirt off his clothes, and spat on the closed door of the tavern from which he had been thrown, he met the old man's pensive gaze.

A shabby suit, thin gray hair, and squinting eyes that looked a bit blind, like an old clerk from the magistrate's office out for a stroll. The clerk lifted a heavy monocle to his face, looked at Wilhelm through it, blinked a few times, and offered a part-time job. The man, who had drunk his last money, accepted with sincere enthusiasm. And so he became a guard, a porter, and, at times, an interlocutor for the strange old man. By the way, he still had no idea what to call him, referring to him by the neutral " Chief" or by the more friendly "Old Prick."

The grandfather paid well, didn't get into any trouble, required little or no activity from Wilhelm, and generally seemed to have hired him just to have him. The old man also had a lot of secrets, which Wilhelm, who was almost freely paid, ignored and did not even think of finding out. Even if he were the head of the secret guard on the run, Wilhelm wouldn't give a damn!

The old man also had a strange book, which he often read and made all sorts of notes in it in the margins. He only once asked the old man, "What do you read?" If it's love affairs, he knows some good authors whose descriptions are so juicy that even a dead man would get hard on.

"The legendary artifact." Answered the old man, scratching his nose. "You can read any insufficiently protected reports and trade reports within a certain radius. And you can read protected ones, too - it copies them directly to the pages of the book."

If he expected Wilhelm not to believe him, he was wrong-Wilhelm believed him immediately and unconditionally. If he expected it to make any difference, he was wrong, too-Wilhelm still didn't give a shit about other people's secrets, as long as they didn't disturb his wine-drinking and wooing the pretty maids. The old man, by virtue of his age, didn't care as much about their forms as Wilhelm did about the legendary artifacts.

At a certain point, the old man began to walk very gloomily, spending more and more time in his book, scribbling all sorts of tables on an expensive batch of paper after another. Even the meals had to be carried to the chief, and he had to feed him, almost by force. The old man could hit the servants, and the strength in his old body was not bad. Wilhelm was also punched a few times, but unlike the frail girls, Wilhelm was used to getting punched in the face and was not shy to twist a dish of mutton stew on the old man's head in return. Then he would get another round of blows, but his employer would still eat.

At a certain moment, the old man began not only to work with the book but also to send letters and, in general, began to close the window to his room at night, although before, even in the fiercest frost, he covered it to the maximum, so that the snow did not fly in. Wilhelm began to drink one more glass of wine at night, just in case, to get a better night's sleep.

Then the old man was visited by some dingy fellow with a face that made you reach for the sword on your belt and clutch your wallet with the other hand. They met like old friends, and the man who arrived punched his employer in the face without a word and immediately flew into the wall because of the lightning strike from the amulet, which worked faster than thought, clenched by the old man's fingers.

The old man, who had fixed the dislocated jaw, turned to the still twitching and sparkling guest, clearly intent on kicking the paralyzed body. He only kicked him twice, and then the amulet crumbled to dust. The old man got another punch, drew another bolt of lightning from the new amulet, called the guest bad words for spoiling property, and sent Wilhelm off to fetch drinks. Then, apparently having made up, they locked themselves in the old man's office, along with the records and a lot of food and booze, from which for two days there were foul language and mutual accusations of bestiality.

Then the scowling face came out of the office, kicked the door open, punched Wilhelm in the face, and was gone. The old man followed him out, handed his guard a vial of healing potion, and then thought for a while and said in a cheerful tone.

You know, Willie, it's time for us to get the fuck out of this city.

Is he stupid, or what? He was told to get the fuck out, so he had to get the fuck out. He just went to make the fired servants happy with their excellent allowance and to collect his favorite novels.

"Who was here?" He asked in between, dragging some bags and trunks to the wagon he had bought for the move.

"An old acquaintance." The old man wrinkled his nose. "Used to be an employee of mine. Now I owe him a favor, and I gave him some tips on the old stuff he's looking for."

"Oh, well, that explains why he's so mean." For a former employee not to want to punch his former boss in the face, you have to be very kind and not vindictive.

And with a face like that, he definitely no a good person.

Especially if he starts claiming old debts from you.

* * *

"We were unable to find the Wanderer." He summed up his hour-long report as an unassuming man dressed in an inconspicuous cloak that suited an aristocrat as well as a merchant or even an adventurer at leisure. "He disappeared."

The person to whom the report was intended was silent, not making any movement and not letting the speaker know how his words were treated and what was in store for him now. However, he had no idea what else he could do in this situation, so all he could do was wait for a response.

"What about Fern?" He asked in the same calm voice he'd always used as long as anyone had known the man.

"Supposedly eliminated, but to be fully certain, it would need to unfold the Webs, which would cause a weakening of the Shroud." And he added, a little hesitantly. "I didn't risk taking responsibility."

A man in a soft armchair, very venerable in age, dressed in a very homely manner, rose gently to his feet and strode to the wide stained-glass window that overlooked the morning view of the capital. His face showed for one brief moment a slight irritation that was only a shadow of the rage boiling inside.

Areya Fern and everything associated with her was one huge lump of stupidity, incompetence, and unprofessionalism, multiplied by a hundred and elevated to infinity. The successful assassination of the Second Prince not only stirred the murky waters of the Eternal City, forcing the Shroud dangerously close to the point where it could be damaged. It also forced them to act rashly, employing untested or unreliable people. And this could not but result in a series of small fails, which, fortunately, could be quickly closed and hidden.

Before the incident with Fern.

Her recruitment was the obvious solution, simply because the brash and willful bitch, deliberately put herself at the mercy of much of the tangle of connections and reciprocal agreements. In all of Eternity, it would have been hard to find another possessor of such a high caliber who would have allowed such carelessness. Virtually unprotected lodgings, no guards or personal retinue, and an unwillingness to accept the patronage of others - she was simply asking for the arrival of unkind guests.

No doubt he was aware of what had previously happened to those who felt the same way, but he paid no attention to it. A liquidator of her level might have been lucky long enough, but not against the force behind them. If they had worked the original plan, Fern, with all her experience, powers, and controlled strike teams, would have just fallen asleep one night only to wake up entirely their in the morning.

If...

Covering the gaps in the plan, they had not been able to allocate sufficient forces for her recruitment. They were, undoubtedly. They were, but they remained reserves for emergencies. The situation could change at any moment, and they all needed something to close the breach, shutting up unnecessary witnesses forever. So they had to work not for sure, but with a clever combination. Alas, the one entrusted with the execution of the combination considered himself too cunning and the others too stupid.

It was not difficult to assign Fern to one of the Circles of the Seers in all this mess. It was a little harder to get her to the point where overexertion would completely block the use of her most dangerous abilities. Adding a few harmless but minimal-effect additives to the potions given to weary seers was really hard - they had to work with seers and right in the heart of the Eyes of the Eternal.

From the report that had already come in triplicate, it was clear that Fern, who had never trusted anyone, had not only bought her own compositions but had also purchased them from several different alchemists and potionsmiths. As bad luck would have it. That day she drank a compound made by one of those they did not have time to visit. It didn't stop the additives from working but weakened too much.

Fern shouldn't have woken up that night. She shouldn't have, period.

But she woke up, and the damn self-righteous moron sent an underprepared group after her. She slaughtered the Alishan cranes in their nests. Some lurkers who had lost the element of surprise are nothing to her. The mighty gift, a sophisticated artifact that had been given to the leader of the capture team, was useless if there was no way to activate the link.

Doubly useless if a man too quickly recruited, not having had time to go through all the necessary processing, could not keep control of his desires and miss a stab in the back. A foolish blow, foolish as the death of the one struck, as much as the failure of theirs - a practically captured Fern had slipped from their grasp, though she could no longer think of resisting.

And then came a fair of stupidity, a parade of idiocy, and a triumph of incompetence, the description of which was almost physically painful to read. Hasty processing is, after all, deadly, and perhaps we should give it a rest. And already not the cleverest agent, after realizing his passion began to go even crazier. He simply follows the call of the artifact, not even taking with him a normal guard. What were those who treated them thinking they let him out of their arms with assurances that his condition was satisfactory?

If only. There's that "if" again! If the kidnapping had been a success, then the processing of all involved would simply have ended as normal, removing frivolity and impulsiveness, and correcting the loss of some of their thinking abilities. Those who have fully accepted their service are no inferior to their former selves, but it's a damned "if"!

Fern, in some obscure, even after all the analysis, way managed to throw off her control and just slaughtered a rather valuable for their plans man. His death evoked a clear and necessary response - there is a time to save effort by holding the cards up, and there is a time to use those cards without delay. After the life and soul of Fern and the very boy who had managed to shoot the leader of the capture team in the head came the Messenger.

For an entity of this caliber, it would not have cost anything to kill one mortally tired or even completely fresh liquidator, take the artifact, and eliminate witnesses and traces of the battle. And that's where the Adept of the Road intervened. An adept, strong, experienced, and a complete stranger. These wanderers, searching the world for their purpose and gathering road dust, were never considered strong fighters. They had their dangerous tricks in abundance, but it was tricks. Tricks to buy time to escape, and they were better at escaping than anyone else in the world.

This one had enough cunning, too, along with the insane fighting power that allowed him not just to survive his encounter with the Messenger but to force him to retreat. In doing so, he reveals his nature. After that fiasco, the Areya Fern incident had lost much of its significance. Whether he killed her or not, the very fact that they saw and experienced everything serves as ironclad proof of the need for them to stop living.

Reserves had to be pretty much wasted, pulled a lot of strings still have to be somehow severed, but the situation was kept under control. Fern was declared dead in an assassination attempt by her enemies, whom she, like any liquidator, had amassed in time, and the investigation of what happened was either entrusted to trusted people or sent on a hastily created false trail, which stuck straight into the Shroud.

If she survived, if she chose to appear, she would probably now simply be detained and put in a dungeon, where it would be much easier to get her. Fabricating a rather sordid story of her dastardly treachery was not so difficult. At least this attempt helped in some way because as long as the crowned blood demands revenge, it's quite easy to settle your scores. Even if it had to be done with a woman of such outstanding caliber and talent. Had she been in the thick of things, had she exerted her influence, had she enlisted her debtors and allies... but she wasn't in the thick of it.

Many people will be looking for answers to inconvenient questions. By pulling strings, they had to shake up those who could not be eliminated or shut up without making more noise. Some would be recruited, and some would be bribed, but they had bought time, precious time. The plan was almost at its final stage anyway. By the time they figure it out, at least consider analyzing the strange events, the orders, the requests, and the debts demanded, it will be too late.

They should look for those answers, find, if not Fern's body that had gone missing on the Road, then find proof of her death and some information about the Wanderer. It would be a great help, but they can't. The Web can't touch what the Shroud hides, or the two structures would conflict, with unpredictable results. The cursed answers will have to be sought on their own in the old and time-honored ways. At least they have a chance of finding those answers.

Looking for answers...

What good is it to look for them if the Sroud is unshakable and uninterrupted, protecting them from any attentive eye? Direct causal manipulation throughout the capital and its environs simply will not allow us to understand, to grasp the thought that leads to them and their plans. And no intuition, no honed techniques, or clairvoyant classes will help - no attack, no influence, no direct intervention that would leave a trace. And other traces promptly disappear and become part of the Shroud, as soon as someone gets on their trail.

In order to spot traces of their activities without knowing what to look for, you have to have incredible skills, extremely powerful abilities, a will of steel that will not allow you to be distracted by the interference created by the Shroud, and a terminal stage of paranoia, in which you expect the cataclysm even if you go to the latrine. And also to be a completely unaccountable element in their grand equation. Such mighty clairvoyants undoubtedly exist, but they are in plain sight. They have enough problems of their own, and specifically for each of them countermeasures have long since been established. Those of them who are too far away, in other countries, can hardly notice what is even close to the center of the whirlpool of events they cannot see.

The man silently shook his head and sent the speaker away, unwilling to show any other sign of disapproval than this single gesture.

"To work according to the plan that was announced, the sixth version of it." That was his only answer.

The speaker left his chambers with unprecedented relief, and the man only now allowed himself to sigh wearily and raise his eyes melancholically toward the ceiling. You are never immune to two things - those who turn out to be smarter and more talented than you, and those who are simply too stupid to predict their actions properly.

"The Sovereign will not be pleased." Barely audible, as if complaining about life, the man said, returning to his work.

The man did not know that there was, after all, an individual in Eternal with the right skills, the right class, enough anonymity, some motivation, and the very paranoia to expect the apocalypse when he went to the latrine. Simply because that's the kind of person who could have had such a story. Fortunately, or unfortunately, this person had enough problems of his own to pay attention to the small oddities and the barely discernible fleur of sweetness and rot that Shrouded the capital.

Had enough yet.

* * *
Author's Note:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o5SkB4y5Do4VuKJajnICjSMIbQGoyHpG/view?usp=sharing - Areya, only without the piercings.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18zCo0tn7bJMa1QenqQ0_I-yM4jMqb0zf/view?usp=sharing - A variant of the Areya concept, only the hair is darker.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fHMPddsO3mWPm_0C5tBXA85UX23rIkGx/view?usp=sharing - Shyngys Reaction.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W7fpO3_J4bWNjakTJ6qRlHl1e246O1fH/view?usp=sharing - When the messenger is invisible, he looks something like this.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17FImyX1yMXBP7ZLcp65On5J_rXpvx9jP/view?usp=sharing - Or this.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r8Pu3oRug3bWM1iboZaRGqSkoZ3pTixa/view?usp=sharing - A young-looking ritualist.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17fbeMi6Aq-qpK1MffVLukv3rUNtKSOcS/view?usp=sharing - Four Shields, while they still lived.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aKHe5ocqnUTBCwddwpadicWwskbUp3Cy/view?usp=sharing - The concept of the big boss's face from the last part of the interlude.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B_XxVsTmVrZsgYCgGEbFZcXn913EoMTR/view?usp=sharing - Wilhelm. Don't be fooled by the battle look. He likes to drink. Don't be fooled by the boozer look. He knows how to kill.

There are so many dice. I'm crying. Oh, man, forty pages! I only wanted to roll the dice!

I'll throw it in the comments, because it won't all fit in here.

P.S. Proofreading is almost non-existent, so I'm unguilty. I'll correct the PB tomorrow.

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

Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/80370/552780

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP