Готовый перевод Настучать в бубен / Hit the tambourine: Глава 11-2

* * *

The long deliberation again ended in nothing, and Stepan decided to leave the fate of the final stage of his assignment to luck and fate. No, this time he did not flip a coin, having done both simpler and more complicated things. He just decided to cast a spell on Shera, but it was as strong and insidious as a weak shaman, whose specialty was not love spells but healing. Would the spirit, pumped up with power and a couple of weak blessings of the strengthening type be able to reach the priestess and break through her defenses? Well, then so be it, so fuck perfect execution. If he couldn't, or if the priestess did notice the influence - and it was hard not to if you took your mind off it and assessed your own condition, even if you didn't want to - then it was his destiny to practice breaking the curse of repentance from the Life-Giver.

He'd sent the spirit on the penultimate night before the full moon, just as Shera had finally relaxed and seemed determined not to wound Pann's pride, who was glaring with black eyes and searching with all his might for a way through her defenses. In fact, the black eyes were from a couple of simultaneous projects he'd been working on after he'd “won” all five talents and gotten access to the right reagents. If he had spent a little less effort on preparation and reinsurance if he hadn't been scattered between several goals, he would have already taken the sixteenth level. But the priestess didn't know that, and probably decided to let him lose with honor since he didn't even accept the direct offer to share a bed and discard a bet. Stepan couldn't say for sure whether she was offended, but something of that nature slipped through, though the priestess herself treated his resentment and stubbornness with condescending patronage. He's just a kid, he'll get over it.

In the time before the end of the bet, which was no longer spent on summoning the Veyatel and regular lovemaking with the amorous priestess, the young man had managed to do a lot of things, replenish his collection of summons, negotiate with another powerful spirit of the combat type, secured several ways of invisibility, and destroyed a very brazen spirit of dark orientation. A particularly powerful leech with the ability to eat chunks of aura from the enemy in his knowledge was labeled as an extremely willful and dangerous creature, which must be shown strength, and even then, may not help. But it was able to strike at the level of full-fledged battle charms in the performance of a master of magic with a bias in malefic. The leech had struck him when he refused to pay her for the three living ones that lived on the land around his clearing. He refused quite politely, though without sycophancy, but politeness, even minimal, was taken for weakness.

The defense held. The totems were not even damaged, only one and a half protective circuits burned out when the creature rushed forward, aiming for the shaman's face. Well, if he wasn't completely sure of his absolute superiority and perfect safety, he wouldn't have summoned this horror created by the higher spheres. A counter-strike with a couple of influences on the spiritual plane, - a kind of call, only with the purpose of hitting the spirit and causing it pain, a specific branch of skills of shamans and summoners, - followed by an attack of a couple of watchful spirits, which painfully bit the leech that lost its pressure and immediately fled, and then the attack with a spiritual grip. The third hand took the form of a crab claw with a bunch of spikes, literally tearing the spirit to shreds, although not with the first blow. In a fair fight, this battle would have been a much more dangerous adventure, but Stepan did not call the spirit to a fair fight, but to work, which he brazenly refused. Stepan would have let him go, leaving him a deposit for his trouble, but the spirit misjudged the shaman's aura and strength. He was good and powerful with knowledge, but he lacked characteristics, and it would be worth thinking about ways to increase them in the most correct way possible, so as not to ruin his carefully cherished versatility.

He got a lot of experience for the fight with the leech. Thanks to it he was almost moving to the next step, which was only two or three days of effective training in the previous mode, and that was if he didn't rush the horses, but gave himself a rest. Well, or finish the work on preparation for the first exit from the body and try to wander through the world of spirits in earnest, you can find two levels there, if you take it seriously. But that would be later, when this stupid epic with the assignment from the Autogoddess, which he had agreed to for some reason, was over. Oh yes, that's right, he had agreed to it for the meta-skills, the main thing was to remind himself more often.

Against the backdrop of that battle, a tiny assignment completed in passing went unnoticed, especially since small assignments were no longer given experience at all. Working with the spirits of metal, which needed to strengthen and reinforce at least a dozen iron products, did not cause much difficulty. The most difficult thing was to find a dozen items of iron - his knife as well as nails and horseshoes in the local Lefty's blacksmith shop. No, seriously, the blacksmith in Upper Lyady is indeed left-handed, Stepan had clarified that separately, albeit in passing, Marog himself had told him in that conversation at the inn table. The funny thing was that he hadn't spoken to the blacksmith on the subject nor had he asked him to come to his inner sanctum. He had no doubt they would have let him in, but he still hadn't asked, taking advantage of the remote control of the spirits by simply channeling them by ordering them from his own home. Even if the blacksmith noticed that some of his goods, including horseshoes, were somehow trivially stronger and of higher quality for the same ore characteristics, he would write it off as a random fluctuation.
Левша

As a reward for the fact that his spirits had directly distorted the spiritual reflection of the bullshit iron, making it better than it was in reality, Stepan received a small ingot of nugget gold, saturated with magic and lying on an earth-type magical source, and another nugget, bigger, but no longer gold. Some kind of local metal, perhaps having an analog on earth, but Stepan didn't know enough about geology. The main thing was that this thing was very noticeably magnetic, and also had some magical properties, so it was used by artifactors as an insulating element. This nugget was even more suitable than the gold nugget as an offering to some rather specific and extremely deep-dwelling spirits, who couldn't be reached without such a medium.

He was so pleased that he almost bragged to Shera, but he bit his tongue in time, and she, judging by his smile, thought that the cunning boy had almost prepared his insidious and long-awaited blow. She generally continued to communicate with him as nicely and cheerfully, often allowing him to learn something new about the world around him, but no longer touching the subject of the bet. For this he was very grateful to her, as well as for the way she unobtrusively and unobtrusively pulls up knowledge about the world, which a native of a remote farm could not get purely physically. For this he would have been even more grateful than for the silence about the bet, because he could calmly assimilate the well-known, even if a little biased in favor of the temple of Gaia, but very valuable information, without shying away from asking stupid questions and being called a stupid hillbilly. It made him want to give up both the bet and the coolest part of the reward. Especially since the priestess had repeatedly given him a chance to do it without losing his dignity, but sometimes Stepan was so damn stubborn, and mostly to his own detriment.

The spirit sent to the most beautiful woman, from whom Stepan saw only kindness, was in essence very close to the spirits of healers, but still used mainly by specialists in spells. Crude, stupid, and too straightforward against the background of all that the Earthman had already been able to show, it seemed to him inferior and without the slightest chance of success. Although in fact, given the analyzed properties of Shera's divine protection, he had about a sixty-forty chance, even if not in his favor. He sat down in a meditation pose on his bed, sending a spirit to the target, directing it personally, and looking at the sleeping priestess through another spirit.

If the Sleepwalker's action was not traceable in the aura or outwardly, the spirit sent on a great mission could not boast such an imperceptible influence. The sleeping priestess began to toss and turn, breathing heavily, her body covered with drops of sweat, her hands, even in her sleep, reached for her tits, her pelvis began to wiggle reflexively at her invisible partner, her mouth opened in an almost orgasmic moan.... and then she woke up. Like a somnambula, she got up, threw her cloak over her nightgown, and without even putting on her shoes went where the image of that sweet and passionate boy named Pann was calling her. She would probably have come to him, half delirious with passion and with the vacant, almost animalistic stare of a cat in heat, but then the corner of the chair came into firm contact with the bone in her foot. Well, at least it was not a little finger, otherwise Stepan would not have forgiven himself such a betrayal.

The priestess, bent over with sharp pain and silently cursing, wiped away her sweat and was about to go on her way, even touching the front door, but then she realized that she, almost naked, hot, literally flowing with lust, had woken up in the middle of the night with a clear and very compulsive desire to go to Pann and let him fuck her, fuck doggy style, fuck her lying down, fuck her on top, fuck her in any way he wanted, but fuck her. She clenched her teeth and whispered something that the spirit conveyed in the form of words: “You little, sly, conniving asshole, you almost got me!” and then she sat down on the floor in a prayer position and glowed a soft gold. The spirit watcher, immediately rose higher, avoiding the divine blow, and the spirit that sucked on Shera's aura and spiritual body in the area of her head was literally flushed down the toilet, sending it into the depths of the spheres. Stepan couldn't vouch for it, but it seemed to him in the last images that the spirit sent before its panicked disappearance into the vortex, the classic “bla-bitch-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck!!!”, but he wouldn't dare to vouch for it.

Back in bed, the priestess twisted around some more then pulled up her shirt and brought herself to orgasm in a matter of minutes, before settling down and falling asleep almost instantly. Well, after that, the argument could be considered officially lost on the Earthman's part, and he wasn't going to prove the untenability of someone else's victory anyway. But for another hour and a half, he searched his contracts among the spirits who knew about curses and hoped very much that he would be able to overcome such an effect and remove it. In his dreams, he had visions of a meeting of the “club of anonymous dislike of the Life-Giver”, in which he was obsessively offered the place of honorary first chairman for the period from here to the end of January, and he shot back with a double-barrelled shotgun a la DOOM, now and then inserting quotes from Duke Nukem in moments of special moral and physical tension.

* * *

The prayer service over the grain and other sowing materials was over, and the whole village was celebrating the excellent harvest with joy and cheerfulness, even seeming to have almost forgotten about the recent sorrow that had happened here. Stepan, who had attended the very beginning of the celebration, managed to slip away before they tried to get him drunk again. Shera, tired and not really in the mood for noisy celebrations, also slipped away after him, only to drink a cup with Kirik, completing their deal and confirming the debt scroll already signed for her temple. By the way, Kirik could hardly write, it came out very badly, though he read much better, but he wrote his name on the paper by memory, just as a picture, and not by making it out of separate letters, which made it very beautiful.

“No, you certainly had your chances, honestly.” Is it even normal for his Shera to comfort him, taking silence for brokenness and moral breakdown? “Really, I'm not kidding. I'm still lucky I caught on to something and woke up too soon. I didn't even realize how it happened anyway. I still dream that I'm riding you, and now I'm standing in front of the door, ready to go barefoot and barely clothed outside, to you. That's what you should be whipped for, Pann! You could catch a cold, and then you'd have to pray instead of the ritual over Kirik's grain. You could have cured me, you're a healer, but still, it was irresponsible, you shouldn't behave like that.”

Stepan only nodded, agreed, acknowledged, apologized, and inwardly clenched his asshole in anticipation of the inevitable reckoning for all the good things. Shera herself felt some awkwardness from the whole situation and, chewing her lower lip, looked at Stepan as if deciding on something, and then quietly but firmly said that she was giving him one last chance to accept defeat without finishing the bet because she felt indebted to him and just didn't want to hurt his pride for her amusement. Feeling like a complete asshole himself, because he just about won the bet, Stepan still presses the situation to the end.

“No, Shera, I'm grateful to you, but my pride will survive this month, but my honesty won't.” He seemed a degenerate to himself, and time after time he was asking for a curse, driven by greed, stubbornness, and unwillingness to let the contracts already prepared and paid for a week in advance go to waste. “I promised and swore before the spirits, I tried, time after time refusing your offer, thinking I was smarter than everyone else, I failed in this attempt to get you, only almost made you catch a cold. So I'm going to deserve it, that's all.”

Shera looks at him with an attentive gaze, but he meets that gaze without fear or uncertainty, well, almost. In any case, the carefully chosen phrase doesn't contain a lie, so there's no need to worry about a truth check. The priestess looks as if deciding something herself, and then smiles with an anticipatory and slightly sinister grin, standing on her toes and sealing her companion's lips with a kiss that is long, wet, and not so much passionate as cozy. When she pulls her lips away from his, it's clear she's made her decision and won't change it.

“So pity, but I don't think I'll be able to stay here long enough, the ship will arrive either tonight at dark or tomorrow morning. The amulet from the council is heated, so they are already close. This way they are signaling to officials.” To confirm her words, she raised a small copper and silver plaque on a copper chain, which indeed carried the simplest magic of similarity, reacting to the approach of the base. “It's a pity I won't be able to play with you as I want, but maybe that's what She decided to test me for, eh? Sit on the bed, Pann, and yes, I suggest you take off your pants, just as a friend.”

He accepted the friendly advice, a little pale from the overflowing emotions, among which prevailed the usual anger at his own stubbornness, which did not allow him to turn from the chosen path, even if it was a stupid path, there was no further to go. And what if his attempts to remove the influence would not help? What if they only make it worse? What if he's completely fucked up? What if Gaia detects Stepan's system through the curse? What if she's really in league with the Autogoddess and gives her a sign of an unauthorized chosen one? And if, and if suddenly, and then...

“Don't worry, I've done this many times before, and you know, no one has ever complained..... I mean, they did, but they had a reason, didn't they, my sweet Pann?” Her hands lay on his hips, warm and soft, even caring, radiating a soothing flow of kind and calm power that actually made it easier for him to relax and exhale. “Relax your aura, do not resist my will and Her grace, accept it as it is proper, and do not hide your face in fear.”

Her palms shifted from his hips to his loins, and then to his scrotum, causing his cock to harden quickly, literally against his will and despite all possible exhortations of reason. Slightly glowing golden hands leaned on his balls, pressing them, and Shera smiled a vulgar, satisfied, and so anticipatory smile that it made him think of a predatory beast, not a man, but it didn't look creepy, but so arousing that he had no strength to keep a poker face.

“That's it, sweetie, now I begin to give you repentance, don't resist, and don't be afraid, I will be here by your side the whole time.” She speaks, tightening her grip slightly but not making it painful even in the least, and then she begins to speak, but now her voice is full of power, sounding distant and echoing, bringing with it a piece of the power of her deity. “Let the seed accumulate, let it accumulate, let the young man be filled with excess seed, let the passion boil, let it splash in him, let him overflow with her will, let the loins burn, let their passion be quenched, let the young man erupt with seed, let the seed boil, let it be replenished, let him be bathed in passion time after time, let him bow before her countenance, let him repent in haste from moon to moon!”

With every word she said, a force flowed into his body and aura, alien, but as gentle as possible, so that it was not held back at all by the natural resistance that he had and still had. Yes, now I see why people around him are so afraid of Gaia's curses, why they are so unstoppable. To cause harm with such an effect, one must try very hard, to put in an inordinate amount of effort for the sake of minimal effect. But those actions that do not cause direct harm, but coincide with the aspects and gifts of the Fertile.... they become surprisingly inescapable, even when performed by very fresh novices who have just touched their first priestly ordinances.

All these thoughts filled his head with violent streams and gradually left his head. It was as if he was filled with a warm and soft wave of someone else's power. It removed anxiety and apprehension, leaving only passion and the feeling of an inflated balloon, as he realized himself to be. It was as if several liters of chamomile tea and honey had been poured through his balls and now there were no thoughts left in his head, washed them all away, and dissolved them. He looked at the smiling Shera and thought that he should have smiled back, but he had to do something, and he didn't want to do anything, but the smile crept onto his face anyway. Fortunately, the woman understood exactly what her subject or victim was feeling, so she did not hesitate to throw back the pants she had taken off, calmly and without any ridicule, which he had expected in no small amount, especially given the nature of the priestess's predilections, which could more properly be called a banal fetish.

“Get dressed, Pann, and then sit down.” She said, and he began to do it, feeling his mind returning to him, feeling the strange lazy negativity in which he did not want to do anything, and when he got dressed he took a normal sitting position, and stopped lying like a doll with cut strings. “You know, I didn't mean to bring it all to this, but, in Her name, some men are neither fearful nor cautious. I was honestly going to say no, even now. No, don't think I liked you before when I first met you, but it was only after talking to you that it became clear to me how unspoiled by the big world you are. So consider that I'm not so much doing this for my pleasure as I am giving you a lesson, maybe it will save your life. Later. In the future.”

Stepan's face clearly showed bewilderment, and he felt a slight and slightly muted anxiety. It was muted not only by the remnants of sensations from alien and divine magic but simply because he did not perceive Shera as dangerous, even without magic.

“I told you why I liked my fun so much, why I was so keen to make men dirty their pants, didn't I? I told you, yes, but the ending of that story is quite different from where I left off.” Her smile was soft again, without any predatory nature, but he involuntarily got goosebumps on his back, and he suppressed the instinctive urge to tense his aura and roll all over his body with a wave of magical power, tearing the shroud and preparing for danger. “Those four thugs who attacked me and Aunt Vavia, they all died, but we didn't kill them. We can't. We are almost never able to cut a life short. They were all hanged, for robbery and assaulting the priestesses of Gaia, only they came to the nearest horse track by themselves, on Aunt Vavia's word. Yes, yes, don't round your eyes, Pann, you've got it right, in one of the variants of the prayer, the imposed Overflow of Passion acts in a way that subdues the will. It makes the sinner like a little child who will go anywhere at the command of his mother, who is the Giver of Life, and his elder sister, who will be the priestess who will carry out her will. It is the same prayer, all honestly agreed upon, only slightly modified, more profound in its essence and Her goodness.”

He was still staring at her, trying to understand what she was saying, even though he'd heard what she'd said, but it didn't fit with his ideas of what a priestess who'd gotten her fetishes out of her system would do to a shaman she'd cursed. Her words and her piercing gaze literally broke the template along with the grooves, calling for a slight panic and attempts to find the curse in the aura, which was too much merged with that aura, not showing up under the shaman's senses to a sufficient degree for understanding.

"It doesn't work for long. It disappears quickly, and you also can't order them to hurt themselves, but telling them to follow and hand them over to the guards... yes, it worked, nice and easy. You see, Pann? You willingly let me put this prayer on you, you didn't even resist in the slightest. You yourself didn't even check our pact or my word. You yourself did not clarify the boundaries of the prayer's influence." She smiled brightly, caring and gentle, but at the same time, the boy was a little covered with a belated fear. "Besides, you foolish boy, you were eager to do it, even though I told you not to. And no, I won't kill you, rob you, do you any harm, no. You are a good, really good man, and your grandfather, all my respects to him and his memory. He brought you up properly but did not teach you that you can't trust the world and those who live in it too much. Now you feel good, pleasant and only in the deepest part of your mind a little bit afraid, and remember this fear, Pann, because I like you and I do not want to harm you, as I have seen only good from you. Remember and do not show such stupid and, forgive me Life-giver, absolutely idiotic, as the mind of the sorrowful and crippled head, gullibility and self-confidence. Otherwise, whoever is ever in my place will do this."

Stepan had almost managed to overcome the remnants of tenderness and calmness, almost managed to force himself to tear off the Shroud and strike with a spiritual limb... No, not Shera, he simply could not wish her harm, but himself, right in the center of the loins, next to the auric node of the tantric hearth, trying to damage the basis of the divine influence. He almost made it. Almost, a couple of seconds short of it. Shera unbuttoned the already barely held collar of her dress, exposing her breasts, tits, melons, milkers, and boobs. He saw their every movement, bouncing as they fell out of the tight fabric embrace. He saw it incredibly clear and crisp. He remembered thinking that the effects of the curse could be resisted since the reaction was purely physical and could be corrected and suppressed by medical treatment of the right nerve nodes.

A naive earthy young man, hell, so naive!

There was no resistance, no warning or prerequisites: here he was, looking at those tits he had known so many times, at the pink areolae of her nipples, feeling the faintest shadow of a hand in his groin, squeezing his balls and cock, and then it was cascading. His cock twitched a little. It hardened instantly, two beats of a rapidly beating heart echoed in it, but before it was fully hard, he was already caught up in an orgasm, combined with a tremendously violent eruption right into the clothes that had been carefully filed and dressed. There was no strength to hold back the moan, it was simply impossible to hold it back, the pleasure and the animal desire not to stop what was happening made him fall off the bed, frantically jerking his pelvis in an attempt to slightly extend the already unnaturally long burst of pleasure. He could feel the passion spurting out of him jet after jet, but he couldn't bring himself to at least cover himself, he didn't want to stop, didn't want the pleasant warmth and the feeling of someone's impossibly powerful and satisfying grip on his balls to go away at all. So he thrashed in ecstasy on the floor for an unknown amount of time before consciousness returned to a relatively normal state in which he could at least think.

"How was it, Pann? Did you like it? No, no, don't answer, look at me, darling, look at me." Shera speaks to him, and he hears her, and when he hears, he listens, he just can't help but listen, unable to disobey, even though he realizes the wrongness of his condition in some corner of his mind, but not even a thought of resistance appeared, so he really looked, even without standing up, at the way Shera pulled up her dress, exposing her legs and her pussy, already glistening with excitement. "Now crawl to me, on all fours, like a doggie. Crawl over and start licking, for all the pleasure I've given you, lick and kiss me there, play with my bud with your tongue, oh-oh-oh-oh, you're a skillful boy after all, oh, that's it, yes!"

Stepan, without the slightest attempt to resist her orders, crawled on all fours, without getting on his feet, as she had said, to her crotch, pressed his face into her slightly overgrown pubis, which she was obviously caring for, and began to lick it. Willingly, obediently, gladly even, and he had no doubt that she could have asked him to bark, he would not have refused, he would not even have thought to resent it. His consciousness swam and drifted away, but his tongue and her pussy, her bud, her seemingly deliciously sweet twat, they existed outside of time and space, and so he licked, listening to her moans, but still licking, not stopping even when she pressed his face into her slit with all her might, clutching his head with her thighs, releasing her love juices onto his lips and tongue, almost screaming with pleasure. He only slid his tongue even deeper into her, lapping at the bump of her clit with his lips, trying to bring her as many pleasurable moments as possible.

This went on for a while longer before it let him go a little. He realized himself again as Stepan, not an appendage to his tongue, whose raison d'être remained the sweet Shera's pussy. She was lying on his bed, relaxed and content, fully clothed, even with her dress down, and he was sitting at her feet, on his knees, as she had once joked, kneeling in service to the Giver of Life. Little by little his groin felt uncomfortably wet and moist, streams of seed had hopelessly stained his clothes, and if he didn't want to be disgraced by the whole village, he would have to clean himself somehow, later, when it became interesting to him again, for now he had Shera to decide for himself and tell him what he was even interested in and needed.

“Is it letting you go or still keeping you?” In a smooth and lazy, nonchalant, and calm tone, she clarifies, sitting down on the bed again and carefully making sure not to give him an extra glimpse of her naked body, which caused him some irrational resentment. Noticing his still lost but slightly more focused gaze, she begins to speak. “When you can get angry again, remind yourself, time after time, how many times I've suggested you drop it. Heh, I won't lie, in my original plan I would have used a simple Prayer of Repentance, not this variation of it. Few even among us priestesses are as proficient at it as I am. I learned it on purpose, I swore to myself that day that I would learn it as well. But I'm sorry, I had to rub your face in your silly bravado to make it stick. And a polished flower is the price you pay for that lesson. By tomorrow morning your servitude will be gone like water, and the rest of the moon will be a regular overflow on you, so it's better not to think vulgar thoughts and dream about tits in front of honest people. I'll be on the ship by then, or I'll even be able to sail... Take care of yourself, silly Pann, and don't be so gullible, so, oh, so foolishly naive, okay? I don't want to hear about your ignominious and foolish death one day, just like you. Farewell, then, and forgive me for my lesson. I will not hide it, I have spent it at my pleasure.”

She got up. She helped him up and onto the bed, put a pillow under him, and only then got herself together, and drank the herbal decoction, still warm from brewing. She stood for a moment in front of the closed door but addressed him.

"Are you angry?" If Stepan had been in a normal state of mind, he would have bet his clearing against a penny that the woman was overcome by a sudden attack of shame. "Just answer honestly."

"I don't know, Shera." The answer was brutally honest, only sleepy and forced out because he had to break through the submissive tenderness that had been imposed on him. "I really am a fool for getting into this. You really did offer, almost begged me to refuse. I should have listened to you."

If she began to ask deeper questions, to inquire as to the reasons why he had been so insistent on closing this dispute with her victory in the first place, his secret would be revealed. The realization of the danger that had passed close by, the realization that he was about to tell her everything humbly and candidly, came and went, indifferently met by his bewitched mind. She asked a few more questions, but to his delight, the priestess was interested in something else entirely. She asked if he liked her or only interacted with her because she was a priestess. She asked how he felt about her and her religion, her goddess. Asked, in passing and immediately apologizing, if he had actually helped the village, rather than first helping them get sick and then coming to their aid. After the last question she blushed and apologized for two or three minutes, sincerely and even shamefully, and it was obvious that she was more ashamed of such a question, of having thought of such a thing at all, than of the dishonest and devious trick she had pulled on the young man's will.

He answered without stammering, without trying to be coy or deceitful, without even holding anything back, talking about everything. He liked her, and though at the beginning he had been afraid of her and was ready to fight to the death, and then, after that night, he suspected her of bad things, but in time the sympathy had become pure and full. He talked about how pleasant it was for him to communicate with her and learn new things from her, how pleased he was that she did not mock how little he knew about the world around him. He told how he could not pass by the dying settlement and that no reward - fortunately, it was not necessary to specify that he meant not only material but also systemic - would not have made him work as hard as the opportunity not to let ordinary people die, who also accepted him with all warmth and care, especially against the background of the fact that before that he had not seen much good from people on his way.

They didn't talk very long, less than half an hour, and by the end of it, Shera seemed to feel like a total asshole for her suspicions. Kissing him goodbye, she turned around, in the doorway, grinning again with a predatory grin, and then pulled her dress up, exposing her legs, slowly-slowly opening her buttocks, ass, butt, making him feel the same sensations again, continuously and abundantly down his pants. Through his own moans and the frantic pounding of blood in his ears, he heard her last order, barely audible against the barrage of sensations.

"Sleep, Pann, sleep and rest." She said with a touch of sadness, as well as a touch of anger, and he, already following that order, still heard the phrase that wasn't meant for him. "Why the fuck do I feel like a fucking bitch now, huh? Why didn't he, the little bastard, turn out to be a normal man, cute on the outside and ugly on the inside? Why did I even think..."

Sleep came instantly and this time the young shaman didn't dream of anything.

* * *

Stepan was doing something quite familiar to himself back on Earth, soothing and even a little recreational. He was desperately cursing himself for doing not as it was smarter, but as Stepan had done. This had caused him problems all his life - the ability to lock horns and refuse to recognize the futility of any activity until you've smashed your forehead. For this very reason, he categorically refused to gamble and always took all the achieves in any computer game. Perfectionism in his commitments, multiplied by his willingness to put in the effort and pity for those efforts he had already put in, always forced him to retreat from any goal that he had already started to achieve with a great deal of creaking. It wasn't the worst trait, it was thanks to it, to donkey's stubbornness and willingness to work for his good that he managed to achieve a lot, but this situation also arose because of the same trait.

He woke up the next morning. The first thing he did was to clean himself and be glad that no one had found him in such a state and with stains on his clothes. He even behaved relatively calmly when he learned from Meld, who had brought him breakfast, that an honorable priestess of the Life-Giver named Shera had been taken away by a ship passing the village in the early morning. The ship had only been docked for a couple of hours, but Kirik had managed to bargain with them for fresh baked goods and hot food, as there were still supplies left over from the feast, and they had cooked for the usual number of inhabitants, not taking into account the recent losses. After waving goodbye to everyone around her - figuratively speaking, but in reality just a warm farewell - the priestess took with her a receipt from the headman and left Upper Lyady in a good mood. Now that the sun was nearing its zenith, she would surely be far away from Stepan and his persistent questions.

No, he remained calm even after hearing all this. It would have been strange if the priestess hadn't left by now, but even if she were still in the village, Stepan himself would have left. As long as her cursed influence was on him, he'd better not cross paths with her, even in the smallest measure. Not to cross paths with any beautiful or at least not ugly girl, not even to look at pictures. As practice has shown, if Gaia's grip on the balls tightened, then willpower, self-control or the ability to turn off carnal attraction directly by manipulating one's own spiritual body means nothing - it's not that the victim doesn't have time to use it all, no, the victim doesn't want to resist at all. The memory of Shera's description of the fate of the murderers who had attacked her and her mentor made her shiver and fear finally broke through to consciousness. Not terror and panic, but fear. The kind that, you know, motivated and encouraged rather than paralyzing will and thought. It wasn't fear that had paralyzed his will and thinking yesterday, no.

He had to admit, with gritted teeth and a slight longing to clutch Shera's tender neck and strangle her a little, not to death, that her “lesson” had really worked. He wouldn't allow such idiocy again, and he certainly wouldn't voluntarily give himself any curses or magical influences unknown to him. And he probably shouldn't do the well-known ones either, his knowledge base on love spells had many examples of how a hidden and insidious action could be hidden behind a routine healer's examination or the closing of a dangerous wound. Thank you, Shera, thank you for your concern. Your sweet Pann rated it a ten out of ten! The worst part was that she was right. He'd refused to notice her hints, and then he'd asked her to drop the stupid argument and just spend the rest of the time in each other's company. And maybe not just the rest of the time, by the looks of it, because the priestess might well have been hoping for something more permanent, and he'd seen hints that she might help him move closer to the center of civilization. Yeah, well, maybe from her side it was really the equivalent of a smack to a little moron sticking his fingers in a lathe, only combined with personal revenge and resentment for the de facto refusal to show his feelings. It is difficult to forgive and understand, of course, but even more difficult not to realize his idiocy, close in its characteristics to that of his unfortunate namesake. The unflattering comparison only added shame and headache to the already shitty mood of the young tramp.

But that was all right. He would have been able to survive the lesson he had learned, benefit from it, and then move on without unnecessary moral turmoil and hidden resentments, if not for the fact that all his sufferings and humiliations were not exactly wasted, but much less justified than he wanted. As he had feared, the great and mighty Milferatress of the universe had given the elite meta-skill at her sick discretion, and so it remained elite, but rather... specific. Well, it was worth admitting that it could have been much worse, if he had gotten, for example, the ability to see women naked through any clothes or something like that, but the elite talent was still really useful, it was just a hell of a thing to use.

The skill added to the status was called “small system endowment of characteristics”, allowing... Yes, yes, that's right, to add characteristics to someone's Status, even if he has no system. Just like that, no properties, no changes in the aura, at a level not even available to the local gods. From one to ten units to random attributes, which will allow, with luck, to transfer a completely ungifted individual into the analog of a strong apprentice, or even a weak adept, if all the points go in the Control with the Source. What is there about the ungifted or weak disciples, for whom this gift will be manna from heaven? The effect of the skill was similar even for masters and higher ranks, that's where the shtick! If plus one to the Source for a beginner magician of any direction will be a question quite solvable and depending on not so big money, the same miserable unit for the master - the labor of many years, and even decades, spent mountains of gold and deposits of silver, a lot of anguish and effort, their own and others. After all, the importance of each new unit is higher and higher, and there are ten of them at once.

In general, such a blessing from Stepan's hands could not only begin to kill, here and a full-fledged military conflict many people would dare to initiate, and those “many” who have the authority for such an initiation are quite enough. Only two facts upset the shaman: the impossibility of using the gift on himself and the unreality of using it in such a way that it would not attract grief, fear, darkness, nightmare, horror, and rivers of blood from those who would then go after his head. And the blood might well belong to Stepan, and not to those who came. That is, the gift was both really elite in all respects and, at the same time, completely useless for a loner deprived of connections and a place in society. It was very much in the spirit of the Autogoddess, it would be, but there were also not enough perversions typical for this lady, wasn't it? That's right, that's right, it was missing, so she added some of her own.

In the standard version, this skill-blessing was applied to anyone and anything, even a parrot, but not more than once a month, and the month is counted from the moment of acquiring this very system gift and the unused application is burned. Also not bad, but immediately creating an army of gifted will not work, maximum squad ... or he'll need to upgrade your existing meta-skill to higher levels. In the Milf Mistress modification, the system gift could still be cast on anyone once a month. Just look at the and then wish to bestow it on the recipient, not even a touch is required. The possibility of a miss tends to be zero. The System is focused on the user's desire, rather than a certain “sight”. But, if you impose the gift not just on the noone, but on a beautiful woman, and the one with whom the bearer of the system has already slept or at least had intimate contact, the pluses to the characteristics will be maximum - that is, of course, at once a ten, no less.

The most frustrating thing is that this suitcase without a handle is a direct route to the local high society. For possession of such a resource, anyone, any ruler at all, would build a golden cage the size of a mansion and put Stepan in it for the rest of his life. The problem is not that Stepan doesn't want a golden cage; if someone offered him one, he wouldn't refuse it. The problem is that until he becomes at least a very strong master, or better, a magister, the earthling will not be able to defend himself. He didn't believe in the kindness and understanding of the upper classes of a magocratic class society with a bias toward the right of the strong, because his memories of how he'd been received in Fantrel were still too fresh. The way he'd been escorted out of there was very memorable. You can't go to a pawnshop and try to sell a diamond the size of a hen's egg without giving up the diamond, or even your life. A common man can't demonstrate the ability to shit gold and then avoid being put on a chair next to the toilet and the subsequent eternal diet of protein with laxatives.

Okay, he would have survived that, too, he wouldn't have even sworn much, not out loud, that's for sure. He was still holding on to the remnants of the moral willpower of the man who was staring into the eyes of the one-from-who-is-in-hell-locked-the-gate-from-inside. Another system task, which appeared before his eyes just half an hour after he had almost calmed down and prepared to eat, finished him off. It had finished him off with a guarantee, without a chance to keep calm and with a subsequent motherfucking tirade as long as the road from Warsaw to New York. However, it was not even the fact that he was given an assignment, but the fact that there were two assignments at once. One ordinary and normal, albeit average, and the second also average, from Autogoddess, with another incredibly tempting reward, and this time there were no accidents, everything is as clear as possible. Ah yes, one more important detail, just a tiny problem: accepting one assignment a priori excluded accepting the second one.

System assignment (average): to get rid of the Life-giving priestess' influence on one's own body, aura, and spirit using only one's strength, gift, knowledge, and one's own summoned spirits. Satisfactory performance requires the removal of the influence before the end of its duration; full performance requires success within a week; perfect performance requires success within three days and on the first attempt.

Reward: increased affinity with spirits of life spheres and curses, greatly reduced vulnerability of aural and spiritual bodies to any curses, including also divine curses; at full execution: increase one random meta-skill from those already available, increase one random knowledge from those already available; at perfect execution: permanent increase of the lowest characteristic by one unit (if the lowest value has two or more characteristics, the reward point will be invested randomly).

No kidding, it was the perfect assignment, so much in line with Stepan's real intentions that it was foolish to even think of refusing. Especially now, when Shera had thoughtfully fled away, and therefore would not be able to notice the unrealistic, as for a weak shaman's apprentice, skill in removing divine influences. Actually, as soon as the young man learned about the departure of the priestess, he was even relieved that he wouldn't have to walk around with this bullshit in his aura and subtle bodies for some time. And here he would be paid extra for what he intended to do, and not just intended to do, but soberly assessed his strength and was confident in his own preparation - he would be able to get the curse of Overflowing Passion out of himself temporarily, not for a crime, but by mutual consent, and he would be able to do it safely and without getting hurt in the process.

It seemed like a reason to improve his mood a little and forget about how it had been recently ruined by Shera and his idiocy. It's a great reason, Stepan, rejoice! But Stepan was not rejoicing. He was looking at the second of the two assignments, the one issued by the part of the system that had been modified by the Autogoddess. The swearings were cut off for a moment, and caution and the understanding that the addressee might hear his curses, but the emotional coloring, of course, did not go away.

System assignment (average): to proudly and joyfully bear the blessing and curse of the Life Giver until the effect expires; to lead a daily intimate life, allowing a lover or lovers to enjoy the effect of divine attention with the gifted one. For satisfactory fulfillment it is necessary to give oneself to the caresses of at least one lover who shares the passion and fascination of the priestess who has imposed the effect; for complete fulfillment, it is necessary to give oneself to the power of at least two lovers, each of whom shares the passion and fascination of the priestess who has imposed the effect; for perfect fulfillment it is necessary to indulge publicly in the games and passion indicated at least five times. The use of the gifts of Liarat si Merrinal, Lady of Gifts and Giver of Gifts, loyal servant of Innelas Innelay, is acceptable and desirable.

Reward: a significant increase in the effectiveness of the love spells, a significant increase in the probability of the talents of the seduction branch appearing among the talents available for selection at level up, three free talent points, one of which can be invested only in knowledge, the second only in properties, and the third only in meta-skills, one free characteristic unit; at full performance: multiplication of the standard reward by the number of lovers who shared the passion of the affected priestess; at perfect performance: five free characteristic units on top of the already taken

Having read and reread the rather confusing word lace several times in a row, Stepan sharply put his hand to his head, feeling his out-of-control eyebrow twitching as if it were living its own life. Once again, after reading the assignment, and rereading it using the system help so that he wouldn't make any mistakes, he understood roughly what was expected of him in the assignment. Worst of all, he realized that he could do it. How hard could it be to select a few pretty and demeanable villagers, brainwash them, even without the help of the Sleepwalker, whose summons would not be enough for all of them anyway, with his personal skill, instill a fetish similar to Shera's, and then let them “take advantage of the situation”?

To put, through spirits-sleepers and a couple of specific appeals false memories of how leaving Shera told them herself “in confidence” that the next month from one shaman can be twisted ropes if you show tits. Then remove all moral barriers, add courage, and distort consciousness to avoid rumors or some inadequate actions with attempts to marry a visiting magician forcefully. Here you are, Stepan, a couple or three villagers, every day deciding to “play” with poor Pann, showing him tits and laughing at how he goes cum at the mere sight of them. Polishing slits with tongue and other elements of female dominance over male alpha pride are included in the package, and if any of the villagers is still too unspoiled, you can give her the necessary thoughts through the spirits, there will be both those that can corrupt, and those that will transmit ideas and thoughts from the head of the shaman, convincing the girls to realize these thoughts and images from pornhub as if they had thought up and invented everything. Public games can also be arranged just by paying attention to some and changing the very concept of normality in the heads of the rest. There are only ungifted in the village. No need to spend special forces. The most primitive influences will suffice. Even with the scenarios it is not necessary to think much - the same inn, where the girls will sit down to the shaman at the table, cover him from views with their own bodies, quietly lift the hems of skirts....

Stepan had to influence himself by quickly controlling his subtle body with his spirit. He prevented a burst of excitement so he would not be embarrassed by the picture, still under the effect of the curse from the good Shera. But even in his state of cold mind, his consciousness, cold and calm, was calculating every possible benefit. How many good-looking girls and women were there in Upper Lyady that he would not mind getting intimate with? Five, even seven, if you counted a couple of too-young flowers. But five, let it be: that's still fifteen talent points, five stat points, and five more of the same stat points on top, for perfect execution. The opportunity, having invested it correctly, to go immediately from almost-master to already-exactly-master, to become a full-fledged Senior Shaman and immediately gain very impressive lines in the Status. Those lines on which he lacks characteristics, to increase the same manipulation of his spirit, to acquire a bunch of synergistic properties, to develop up to a triple enhancement of rewards for assignments.... all of this can be obtained in just a month of humiliation, which no one forbids him to erase the memory of all involved.

No one will know.

No one will remember.

Except Stepan.

“Gee, s-s-s-s-s-thank you for caring.” He hissed as if he'd been nominated for the role of Tom Riddle in the Harry Potter reboot, literally squeezing his will into a choice that was a real mistake and one he might regret.

There was no “maybe” about it. He had already regretted that decision, though not even five seconds had passed since he had chosen one of the two assignments. He looked around the village with a calm and confident gaze, calculated where his “targets” lived, most of whom were already either married or betrothed, calculated which spirits to call to correct the consciousness of the victims in the first place, and then turned to his clearing and went forward without looking back. Alas, but whether he was too correct, or too moral, or simply he was so pissed off by the generosity of the Autogoddess that he again sent her offer away, despite all the benefits. He brazenly dropped, deleted, refused, committed an incredible stupidity, and lost a chance for which the local mages would have sold their kidney and firstborn child.

But for some reason, this time, his smile seemed not just angry and motivated, but almost happy. Probably, it was because he would take the lost fifteen talents and ten characteristics from the system himself, one way or another, by more standard means. And for her sick fantasies let the Autogoddess look for some other Stepans. He even knew the address of one such. Ahead was quite a heavy ritual. He must succeed with one and only the very first attempt, which means that he had no right to make a mistake. If he wastes the second favorite chance to increase the characteristics for free and without risk he will not forgive himself. But despite all the difficulties, Stepan had no regrets.

Well, almost.

* * *

THE STATUS OF STEPAN "NORMAL" AS OF THE END OF CHAPTER ELEVEN:

Level: 15

Class: Shaman

Characteristics: (free: 0)

Talents (free): 0

Constitution: 1

Sensitivity: 7

Power: 5

Control: 2

Source: 4

Spirit: 8

Resistance: 1

Knowledge acquired: speaking and writing: Free Cities, academic Neirat, Island Kingdom; advanced developed call practice; advanced fundamentals of spiritual dialog; wilderness hermit; advanced basics of working with healing spirits; advanced basics of casting shamanic charms (GIFT); basic techniques of dream-inducing and dream correction (GIFT); the advanced basic practice of combat calls; basic techniques of interaction with magical sources; basic techniques of countering curses: basic fundamentals of fast call; the advanced basic practice of spiritual operation; the knack of a martial call; basics of spiritual haggling and contract agreements with otherworldly entities; the basic practice of remote control of spiritual entities; basic methods of teaching magical sciences; basic methods of tantric practices; basic methods of territorial influences; basics of work with totems

Minor knowledge: contract with an elder spirit: Sleepwalker (GIFT); contract with the elder spirits: The Shroud of Touch and the Creator of Decisions (GIFT); a contract with a strong spirit: The Eater of Diseases.

Obtained properties: blessings of health and long life; toughness of spirit; resilience of subtle bodies; small mark of spiritual spheres: spiritual shroud of higher auric concealment (GIFT); flexible transformation of the spiritual body; marking of fallen leaves and black roots; a tantric spiritual hearth

System modifiers: peaceful development III; issuance of system assignments III; lecherous development II (GIFT); access to system purchases III; small system endowment of characteristics

Special: Blessing of Liarat si Merrinal, Lady of Gifts and Giver of Gifts, loyal servant of Innelas Innelay: likely to grant additional talents as you level up; grant specific system quests with increased rewards; hidden effects

* * *
Author's Note:

Huh, I'm still worthy! (c)

It was an extremely long - I'm dumbfounded, to be honest - chapter, and the dice were acting crazy. To begin with, the hero had every chance to eat his fish and not to sit on the sharpened spades.

At first, he rolled for social like a god, which made Shera almost honeyed over him, even though she had no help from Sleepwalker or other charms (although there were moments of pleasure from sex under the tantric hearth, but tinyl). There was such sympathy that she - voluntarily, Karl - offered to stop the bet, just not to make fun of the handsome guy, who also gave her a gift that was simply royal, as for a priestess who was always wandering around!

And he had every chance of quietly collecting five points in meta-skills and winning even a mega-skill.

You still don't get it? Look: Shera proposes at the very last minute to blow off the bet and just have sex, period. The hero refuses because he needs Shera to win the argument and leave the village, thinking she's the coolest and the winner. The question, Connoisseurs, is why doesn't he have the most trivial conversation - admit that he screwed up and Shera won and bow his head in guilt. Then the priestess, who is extremely sympathetic to him, would simply accept the rules of the game, saying that, okay, I won, and now come to me.

But no, this genius showed his now anti-social skills, literally twisting the promised priestess's hands to curse him. In fact, he forced her to do it! In the original plan, if MC hadn't rolled for Shera's sympathy for him, she would have just had fun with him in the “basic” version of the curse, said goodbye with a couple of dubious witticisms, and gone about her business. But here, she sympathized with him SO MUCH.

BUT

BUT!!!

BUUUT!!!

Because the priestess really started to sympathize with the hero, she first convinces him not to be stupid for a long time, and then, after he stomped on her feelings a bit, decides to give him a lesson, which is that you, the moron, can't be such a naive moron.

In the end, instead of the final hentai scene, it was a hell of a thing and almost no hentai, Shera got a slight dysmorality and will now be a bit chewed up by her conscience, but yes, the hero did get his super-skill. In the dice, it looked just idiotic, but in the text description, it's even worse. :)

P.S. At last the hero got the knowledge of totems, finally! Already in the comments began to fuss that he should have gotten them a long time ago since he works so much with them. It's done.

P.P.S. The only re-roll I made was for the “offer of the week” decision. I messed up something with the mechanics and it came out that MC was definitely buying super stockings. But I twisted this thought in different ways, not finding any reason why the hero in his character would do such a stupid thing. He will not wear it. Sell it. So, damn, to whom? There were two options: replace the Autogoddess's fitting with something useful or not buy it. The second option seemed to me smarter and more logical. I still can't figure out how my modifiers worked out that way, but we'll fix it, yeah.

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

Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/86785/571708

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP