Chapter 15

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The night, the barely visible lights of the stars, which are not yet hidden behind the clouds, half of the moon peeking out from behind the clouds, which adds charming glare to the water surface, fresh river air, and a noticeable chill that winds under his clothes. The latter was aided by a summoned spirit, which insulated Stepan sufficiently to allow him to walk on deck in his shirt alone. However, he preferred not to walk, but to sit in a comfortable corner at the stern, in the company of Cherz, who was silently smoking a pipe. The ship's magician smoked not tobacco, judging by the smell, but also not an analog of hashish, just some other herbal collection, saturated with magical energy, and, if Stepan's Sensitivity did not fail, it was Cherz who prepared and saturated this mixture with power. Well, so it would really be useful for him to incense this stuff. The smell of this collection was very pleasant, sweet, and cherry - if the young man was a smoker, he would have asked to share a pinch or two.

The quiet and peaceful environment of this night was exactly the same as the previous six. There were no urgent matters, no dreadful deadlines, and no constant development and growth using new approaches to old topics. There was no special opportunity to call, if only for small things, tasks had to be skipped, as well as special purchases in the System Store, and in general, the experience gain expectedly slowed down to almost zero. This should have been annoying and for the first couple of days even irritating, but then Stepan caught a deep meditative calm and peacefulness. The desire to rush, to do, to improve, to redo and go round and round again had not disappeared, still remained with him, but now it was as if the young man remembered how good the simple routine of doing nothing was.

He sat on a wooden bench, his cloak tucked beneath him, letting the summoned small air spirit drive away the clouds of magic smoke, leaving only a barely discernible note of berry flavor. And he, like Cherl, silently contemplating the reality unfolding from new sides, saw no need for words or action. Complete relaxation and falling into nirvana, and without any substances unrecommended and illegal pills. The dark walls of the coastal forest and thickets, whose views were already imprinted in the retina, quietly whispered splashing waves, in which it was almost possible to hear the universal secrets, and the developed shamanic spirit was in such peace that if it were a dozen points lower, one could expect to raise it by one.

Stepan secretly expected that he would quickly get bored and annoyed by the long view of the monotonous landscape overboard, but nothing of the sort happened. Even on the contrary, to be honest, because with every day and hour, he was becoming more and more at ease with his soul, more and more vividly he understood that even though he would have to return to hard work, - and he would definitely return, wishing it fervently - but only this rest from everything was strongly necessary for him, vital if not for his physical, then for his mental health. Meditative contemplation, interspersed only with rare and brief conversations - in which he showed no special interest in conversation - meals, visits to the toilet, and occasional healer's tasks. While earning his free passage, the young man healed several cuts, bruises, a sore tooth, and frostbite along with pneumonia in a sailor who had dozed off almost undressed. This confirmed his qualifications and finally broke the ice of distrust between him and the ship's crew, led by Bastius. Even his taciturnity did not surprise anyone, for there was a certain Silent Man in the crew, from whom an average of two or three phrases were heard in a month (and he was often confused with a mute), so that the river voyagers called the passenger-healer temporarily seconded to them, and, of course, behind his back, they called him Not-Silent Man.

Everything was fine, everything was even a little bit beautiful: the scenery, the people, the occasional coastal fishing villages, fishing boats, or boats rafting upstream. During these encounters, everyone tensed up and took up arms at the sight of strangers, but parted peacefully. The general mood and even the weather, which was only once pleased with a quick rain. Everything was perfect, but only until tonight, which, frankly speaking, disappointed Stepan. He didn't quite get his bearings at first, but the skills and grasp at once of a specialist agent and a master fighter got him back up and running quickly. A few discreet calls to the spirits that sat in his bracelets and rosary beads, a few more quick calls to the already contracted entities, analyzing the information received from those allies who are always with him in case of betrayal, and then the young man begins to act. Well, not exactly act, but rather hint that it was not him who needed to act.

"Look, Cherz, aren't there any villages around now?" Lazy and lost, all lost in himself, he clarifies the already known. "There shouldn't be any people around?"

"No, Pann, it should not, we are now in a remote part of the river, the terrain here is either too hilly or swampy, the land does not give birth well, and there are also magical beasts, tribes of green too, even if not orcs, so goblins." The lazy explanations of the ship's mage are full of complacency, he doesn't see Stepan as a competitor and has already made sure that the guy is a competent and polite interlocutor, who will gladly listen to answers to his questions. "There's no sense for villagers to settle here, the land is bad on both sides of the bank, and it's hard to survive. It's the most dangerous part, my friend, that's why I don't sleep. Here, meeting anyone on the water can be a real pain in the ass. Breakwaters, bottom-dwelling assholes, they love this kind of place."

The yawning mage, despite his yawning, stares ahead with very clear eyes, occasionally using magic vision. He does not remove his protective amulet in Stepan's presence even after these days. He thinks the young man does not see and does not know that the man who knows something about working with ready-made amulets, almost a dozen years older than his young colleague, despite his very youthful appearance, always adjusts his amulets in such a way that they strengthen the hemisphere on the side of their guest. Not that he saw Stepan as a traitor or a murderer, but he showed a healthy paranoia, having already seen more than once how deceptive the behavior of scoundrels and treacherous bastards can be. Frankly speaking, such an unspoken and non-threatening readiness to fight even appealed to the Earthman, winning him with its calm attitude. He liked it on the ship in general, the people here mutually respected each other and very carefully watched their words, because there was no escape from the ship anyway, and you still had to live with these people. Even his things, for the safety of which Stepan feared a lot, having put three layers of protection, of which only one was obvious, no one tried to touch them, as they stood in a dry corner of the hold, so they continued to stand there. Probably because of this mutual sympathy with the ship's crew Stepan did not keep silent now, though the smartest thing would have been to just take his things and jump overboard.

"Well, then it's clear whose boats are those, loaded with people, hiding in the reeds on either side, half a league ahead of us." He nods to himself, as if talking about something routine, pointing his finger in the right direction and squinting his eyes suspiciously. "We even hid from the eye, but they didn't think of a defense against the spirits. Are they waiting for us, or don't they care?"

Cherz hovered involuntarily for a few seconds, blinked like an owl awakened in its nest, reflexively finished puffing the pipe, and then bulged his eyes as if he wanted to turn into an owl, coughing up the smoke and releasing the puff from his mouth and nostrils at the same time. Throwing the pipe on the deck, knocking himself in the sternum, and coughing, he muttered something indistinctly and began to rummage in his belt pockets, taking out some glass and looking through it. At the same time, the moon finally disappeared behind the clouds, and a wave of activity passed through the aura of the magician, who did not forget to strengthen his back with a shield.

"I can't fucking see, but, uh... it's too smooth, yeah, it's too... Fucking bitch, Pann. You're good, good!" Barely shouting the last phrase, managing to yell it in a low whisper, he launched himself from his seat quickly and decisively, kicking the sentinel group and waking up the captain without shouting or yelling. "Bastius, Bastius, damn you, get up, get up!"

The recently dormant ship was no longer drowsy. The people on it began to scurry back and forth, not noisily but very busily as if it were a single organism that had been kicked in the balls by someone. The association with a disturbed anthill or even a hornet's nest was involuntary but was very persistent. The men were arming and waking up quickly, putting on light leather jackets or even sleeveless ringlets; shields had already appeared on the deck from somewhere; the elders and Bastius were giving commands in a loud whisper. The Silent One, the same one, was busy putting the bowstring on a short but very stiff battle bow, someone was pulling crossbows from the hold. Stepan, as if temporarily forgotten by everyone, continued to sit on the stern and crunch popcorn, though in fact he was working even harder than the others, sending out his scout spirits, shuffling the elements of the rosary, selecting a team of defenders and attackers for the coming battle.

He did not doubt that he would have to help in it, not only with healing afterward. When he'd said that the disguise had been weak against the spirits, he'd been understating things a little. It was weak against his spirits, against a well-coordinated pack of bloodhounds, the kind of spirits that could hardly be contracted. But the river breakwaters' camouflage itself was good and respectable. If Cherz hadn't known where to look and hadn't been paranoid enough to prefer waking everyone up for nothing to not waking them up and then getting caught in knives, even his strange lens wouldn't have helped. He had noticed, as Bastius realized from his words, only the strange uniformity of the void of the magical background at the indicated point, not the obvious clue of an impending ambush trap.

No one laughed or swore at him for being overly cautious, and no one would reproach him for a false alarm if it turned out to be false. This was the river, the mighty and cruel Dantra, there was no concept of excessive caution here, and you could get some sleep at lunchtime if you lived to see it. A few minutes later, as if by magic, the captain and his mage, as well as the first (and only) mate-relative found themselves on the same stern next to Stepan. All three of them were already dressed in protection. All three of them looked stern and worried, though the older men hid their excitement better than Bastius's nephew.

“If it turns out that there's an ambush waiting, a purse of silver for you, Pann.” The captain of the riverboat informs him in passing, though with significance, lacing up the fastenings of a heavy, riveted jacket with a high collar, in the pockets of which a couple of already activated amulets lie, protecting him from weak and primitive spells. “And if you're wrong, it happens, don't worry. If there aren't at least five or six false calls to arms on a voyage, it's not even a voyage. But I can feel it in my gut you're not imagining it, the breakwaters, those bastard bastards, are definitely there. And I don't like the fact they've hidden so well. Albeit only from magic, with vulnerability to shamans, but hidden! I paid gold for Cherz's lens, enchanted by a very expensive jeweler, and ше still couldn't see anything. It's not good. It's not good. Get ready."

Stepan didn't have time to say anything in response, because he was distracted by a powerful pat on the shoulder from Cherz, who had already taken out his battle staff and put on his fingers a pair of strange and obviously large rings, most likely trophy ones. The mage himself, not too strong, but an experienced and battered Apprentice, only slightly weaker than the potential Stepan was showing, no longer seemed complacent or relaxed. Eyes squinted, pupils dilated, glinting in the glow of the last rays of the moon almost hidden behind a new batch of clouds. If you meet him at night you'll be twitchy for a week. He looked maniacal, and his smile matched it. Not a grin, but a thin string of tightly compressed lips, one corner of which twitched in a jerky and unpredictable rhythm.

“I'll try to break through the net.” He said in a low hoarse whisper, kneading his fingers and breathing evenly. “The Bead are big and toothy fish. They're hardly waiting for us. They have nothing to wait for. I'll accelerate the water under us, we'll pass quickly, if we have time. If we do, they won't chase us, they'll wait for the next merchant. Who's not so sharp."

His words and deeds were not at odds. He was an experienced gifted man who had more than a dozen voyages under his belt, but he did not shine in battle. However, he could control the flow of Dantra better than other adepts. He boasted so much and believed in the boast, and in general, traders preferred to avoid fighting rather than to fight on the river. The specifics and differences from the sea. Even if they managed to win, they would get only a light and fast dinghy, and the ammunition of the killed, no trophy ship, maybe even a loaded one. So the point of risking and fighting for nothing when you can just bail. In short distances, rowboats with a landing party of boarding parties can give a good run-up, especially if they come in facing or sideways against the current and waves of the Dantra, but in a long race, they're guaranteed to lose. Especially if they try not to enter the side of the merchantman like a shiv in a kidney, but to sit on his tail. From the stern it is very convenient to hit from bows and crossbows, hiding behind shields, there is a place and shelter, but in the dinghy the enemy will be as if in the palm of his hand.

The river under the bottom seemed to quicken, the separate thread of the current became more alive and agile, the ship began to speed up, and the oars of the sailors, who were no longer trying to disguise their movements, drove Bead forward. And for a moment it seemed that everything would go quietly and there would not be another epic conflict, which Stepan did not fucking need, but which he would have to solve while trying to conceal himself. The boat was accelerating more and more, the river was carrying its travelers down, too fast for the enemy to react, too fast to give them a chance to regain their senses. It was not for nothing, not for nothing at all, that the sailors, when they heard the alarm, ran about the deck bent over, and instead of loud orders there was only loud whispering and slaps to the confused! At the moment when the outlines of two boats, each carrying at least half a dozen thugs, appeared out of the reeds on one side and a small pond on the other, they had no time to intercept them.

"Let's go, let's go, good one, take us away, take us away," Cherz said this to the ship with a woman's name, or to the river itself, generously, not without haste, investing the reserve, while Bastius had already thrown up some amulet that rose even higher and shone brightly, so that he did not need to hide his information. "At least forty, the good boats, and they no the trash. The illusion was powerful, so either they were gifted or the amulets were good. We wouldn't have fought them off, Bass, we wouldn't have gotten through, we wouldn't have gotten through."

The captain realized it himself, throwing up a few more illuminating amulets, giving him a clearer view of the enemy. Especially the fact that both boats were sailing, each at least five meters long, surprisingly fast, much faster than just oars could accelerate, as if they had a motor attached to those boats. But the quick reaction and timely warning allowed them to pass the narrow place on a high-speed dash, and further, they would get away. Stepan realized that these dreams were a little bit of dreams much earlier than the sad truth reached the captain and his magician. The problem was that he realized it too late anyway and had no time to fix it: even though he had summoned an assortment of scanning entities and sent them to work as soon as the seriousness of the situation became clear, he almost missed another group of the enemy and, what was worse, let them get too close to the ship.

"Bitch!" Cherz hissed with anger, twitched and his eyes bulged more angrily than ever before when the Bead jerked sharply and lost almost all of her momentum, starting to turn sideways, causing several people to fall on the deck and one of them to roll overboard. "They intercepted. Mine. Bitches! Charms. Pulled out of the current, pulled out of the fucking current!"

Stepan had noticed them too, the fucking divers, but it was too late. They were almost beside the Bead and had already begun to cast their spells. Before that, they had been covered by some obscure veil, including from the spirits, and Stepan had underestimated the likelihood of an attack from below. If they were on the sea, he would have looked more carefully in the lower hemisphere, but on the river, he could not expect such a good swimmer. If he had a little more time, he would call for additional groups of sensors, spreading them in a wide ring not only over the river but also under it so they would notice the enemy in advance. Then he could call Squidward quietly and forget about the attackers from below, but the moment was gone, and now he couldn't call for the octopus without being noticed, especially if he called quickly.

The floating group of the enemy did not approach, did not attack, and did not stick out beyond the masking cloud, so that Cherz did not realize that it was not the boatmen, but the submariners who had got him. The boats were rapidly catching up, despite the fact that their speed had even dropped a little, and the men on those boats were armed and very serious, really not a bunch of trash. That raised a legitimate question as to why such an honor to not the most prominent merchant, because so many gifted, and on the second boat, a strong apprentice, almost adept, stronger than Cherz, both above and below the water, these are not random raiders. Such crews as Bastius told Stepan, do not hunt the first traders they see. They prefer to work for a specific target, and the Bead was not such a target. Well, or these guys just decided to make a quick buck, time and the interrogation of the survivors would tell.

"There is no banner, nor is there any sign of the gang." Gloomily, very gloomily and barely suppressing despair, Bastius stated the obvious, and then, seeing the question in Stepan's eyes, deigned to explain. "If without a banner, then they will not leave any witnesses. It was still possible to let them unload the goods and open the treasury. If you make a deal. But this shit, it's like a direct statement that they're gonna cut. And the signs have been removed so there are no witnesses. Prepare yourself, shaman, support Cherz with what you can, I don't advise you to hope for a capture."

The swearing ship's magician was rapidly tearing off the top layer of planks from the stern, under which was another layer, and on that layer a ritual figure, remotely resembling a very strange hexagram, well carved and even silver poured into the cuts. He poured some powder into it, right into the cut hollows, trying to do it as evenly as possible, but it was not very good. The rocking of the boat, which was not dragged by oars anymore, because everyone was armed, was interfering, and it was as if it was caught in a trap of unfriendly water. Though it was all right, the shaking and rocking did not interfere as much as the untargeted and not especially powerful lightning came from two hundred meters. It was definitely accidental, Stepan could vouch for that, there was no control or guidance unit, and they were aiming at the keel. But the thing hit Cherz, stopping at the last moment in the barrier of his amulet, making him spill the powder and swear terribly in a language unknown to Stepan.

"I'll hit them then?" He clarifies, raising his hands and staring at them with a defocused gaze as if looking through them. "I have a spirit, my grandfather's method, you might say. He used to summon this contract."

"Don't be a fool, Pann, it's a long distance. What can you do there? They have boats enchanted with the amulet, I'll give you that!" Cherz growls with rage, interspersing his words with curses in a couple of other languages, trying to start his ritual amplifier without blowing it up with him. "You better infuse power into my ritual, so at least we'll last a little lon.... ger. Holy shit, your grandfather, and I didn't believe Kirik..."

Stepan did not pour the reserve into the ritual draft, a classic method of strengthening one's charms in all schools of high magic, if only because he sensed that due to haste and mistakes, one more vector of investing forces would make the draft and the machine gun point blank burn out, if not explode, then burn out. Instead, he slowly and unhurriedly manifested over the folded palms slightly glistening in the night darkness silhouette-illusion of a boat coming from behind. The one with more attackers, at least two and a half dozen, and where the stronger gifted one almost an adept rather than just a sturdy apprentice, sat. It was better protected than the front, but when could that stop an attack from the spirit world, especially if the attacker was a very strong minor spirit, almost to the next rank, and with an exotic specialization with extremely unpleasant aspects?

Stepan could understand the hysteria of both Cherz and Bastius, who were choking on their swearing because it was hard not to be hysterical when a small illusion boat seemed to grow old before your eyes, covered with mold, rot, even small mushrooms, and then the shaman's palms simply clenched and crushed the illusion into small splinters. It seems to be nothing like that, but the real boat, which is large, went through exactly the same metamorphosis, to the great displeasure of the passengers, among which there were enough of those who put on their ringlets and therefore swam a bit shitty. The gifted magician even went underwater as a stone, because his high and dandy boots to the middle of the thigh, which even before the illusion of the boat was called by another spirit, suddenly began to weigh fifty kilograms each, and also the magic was pulled out of the reserve, vampirized like a powerful leech.

"Yeah, my grandfather was a tough guy, and he didn't take jokes. Not at all." Stepan willingly tells the pure truth and nothing but the truth, pretending that he is shaky from fatigue. "A powerful spirit, however, only against river boats, namely boats, not ships useful, but it often happens with spirits."

Yes, indeed. This entity, which Stepan nicknamed the Sadness of the Dead Wharves, for it was the image and name that suited the spirit best, was born of forgotten and abandoned riverboats, which for various reasons had been left on the shore, doomed to rot slowly, year after year into oblivion. And to summon such a miracle it was necessary to sacrifice no less than five handfuls of corpses from the hulls of five different boats that had taken a similar fate, one per boat, and it should have been the forgotten and abandoned ones, and not specially reagentized. Without reliance on the System Store it was difficult to call such shit to obedience, because at the expense of the bare reserve and will induce to contract this very capricious entity was problematic and risky. However, the young man was not going to tell about it, just as he was not going to tell that his reserve had not really sagged and he was not tired. Why should he be tired, if he had paid for all the work of the spirit in advance, and he had spent only a crumb of his reserve on summoning and drawing up the images and decrees of the target, nothing more?

The situation, as a result of Stepan's little improvisation, became noticeably more stable and not so threatening. The Bead's crew could fend off one boarding team with weaker magic, as well as some simpler fighters. Especially considering how morale had sagged after their companions had been epically sent off to swim - alas, not everyone in the front boat saw it - and then Cherz finished his ritual enhancer, took his wand out of its holster, and chucked two vials of something unhealthy down their throats one after the other. A moment later, slowly and sadly formed front of him, right in front of his face, an ice core, resembling a lemon in shape, but the size of a watermelon, and then flew with good acceleration towards the enemy. The core caused only moral damage because halfway through it was like being slapped by a telekinetic barrier, taking it aside. Meanwhile, one of Stepan's one-time contracts, a very strong spirit, began to cautiously approach the pirates who were floundering in the water and had lost their transportation. They were too heavily clothed, but some of them would have swam out, but almost at once, they were all struck with a terrible weakness and a piercing cold. This spirit drowned only and only pirates of any kind, whether river, sea, ocean, or even lake, but it worked on a large scale and imperceptibly, especially at first. In theory, it could be used to drown a pirate even in a puddle, or a home bathtub, but only if the pirate was active and regularly went to his native biome.

An effective, albeit not particularly showy and colorful tactic.

Hardly anyone's going to swim out there.

But Cherz was not allowed to work free, though he was not struck by a gifted man standing on the bow of the remaining boat, who was just beginning to prepare something of his own. They hit him from below. The same guys, through whose disguise Stepan had almost penetrated and could even count them roughly, which he did not like at all. The counting turned out to be sad. The tentacle of water rushed upward with the swiftness of a snake rushing to its prey, aiming at the aura of any living creature, the brighter the better. Both Stepan and Cherz had an equal chance of being embraced, but the shaman was closer to the side over which the tentacle had swung. The Earthling, due to the sensitivity and constant observation through the pile of spirits, managed to notice the moment when the weave went from passive to attacking phase, and for the first time the Earthling used the clock modification, slowing down time for himself and thinking feverishly.

Thinking about deflecting now, fending off a blow, or letting the enchantments grab Cherz altogether, he could certainly do that. Yes, he could, no problem at all. The problem, as they say, is another. Underwater sorcerers need to be calmed down somehow because they are not weak apprentices, but at least a couple of full-fledged adepts. And Stepan could do it, standing on the deck and calling like a madman. It's easy enough to finish Squidward's summoning and help him a little. But then he'd either have to sink the ship with all the crew, or knock them all out and correct their memories because it wouldn't work without knocking them out, not on this scale, or just wipe the conspiracy clean. My grandfather told me to pretend to be weak because it's a big world, there are a lot of evil men in it. It's better they not to expect me to be such a tough guy, eighteen years old, organizing all this.

Or he could let the tentacle attack, embrace him in a fatal embrace, and drag him to the bottom. In reality, of course, the tentacle would not drag anyone to the bottom, it was just silly, Stepan understood this even without the knowledge of a battle shaman. On the contrary, such spells are used to quickly break ribs and spine, hit a victim on the deck, turn it into a full-fledged corpse, and direct the tentacle to a new target. But if he could just override the spell - he had the right water spirit in his bracelet and two more in his necklace - and let himself be dragged away, it would be much easier. Explaining how he managed to fall overboard and survive there, or even “fight off” the attacker, is much easier than explaining the destruction of the enemy group. The main thing is to kill them all as quickly as possible, without unnecessary special effects, so that the fight is not seen from the board, and tell everyone there was just one weak apprentice with a wand.

Yeah, that's exactly what he'll do.

It has to work, it can't be otherwise.

Well, there was a third option. He could take the most valuable of his belongings right now - including gifts from the Dark Lord, because he couldn't afford to let such things out into the world - jump aboard on the opposite side and get away, putting a spirit of some water-type into himself, or even summoning an entity that would carry him through the paths of spirits. It was unlikely they would catch up with him, but it still made Stepan uncomfortable. Bastius turned out to be a normal and even a bit nice man, not without sins, but certainly much better than the average statistic of this world, and he treated Stepan quite well, without any rotten thoughts and intentions, just like the rest of the crew. Of course, one could take into account the fact that only a complete moron would behave badly with a healer and be rude to him, but one thing did not cancel the other.

The seconds stretched to the time specified in the meta-skill description. The tentacle easily pierces the first layer of protection, the air barrier long carried only for distraction and camouflage, sinking into the second, purely energetic one. The tentacle shrank around the full-body armor that resembled barely visible ghostly tree bark, and sharply thickened at the end, pumping up water and covering half of the body of the shrieking Stepan. A sharp jerk, as if something was trying to stop him, the enemy's weave carried the shaman right off the stern to the screams of Cherz and Bastius. The first almost destroyed the new ice core because of that, and the second tried to break the tentacle with a good saber with some enchantment, almost hitting Stepan's spirit. If the young man hadn't already strengthened almost completely his tentacle, easily breaking the weave and intercepting the control through his spirits, the captain might have succeeded.

After another second, only circles on the water remained of the shaman who had fallen into the seemingly black water of Dantra.

And so further events passed completely unnoticed, without unnecessary, annoying, and attentive eyes.

Almost unnoticeable.

* * *

Once underwater, Stepan finished his preparations at the same moment, bringing them into active form. He knew that he was going to sail along the river, and it would be strange not to prepare himself for the challenge properly: updating or revising the old positions of his arsenal was not limited to the boat killer alone, there were other entities specific to such conditions. A blink, and he could breathe freely underwater, or rather, his lungs always self-provided oxygen, and his reflexive attempts to inhale did not let a single drop of fluid into his trachea. Exactly the same moment, but in another line-consciousness, he is all sheltered by a new spirit-protector, letting go of the weaker underwater naturalist. A murky cloud of mud appears around the shaman, transforming his figure into a humanoid and blurry thing that can't even tell his gender or height. The same moment, but in a different form, and new, new, new summons come to his call, ready to kill, protect, or save the shaman who called them from anyone, as long as the shaman stays within their contracts. The shaman finally ceases to hold back, ordering his spirits to literally tear off the enemy's disguise, at the same time, taking advantage of the high sensitivity himself, seeing without eyes, hearing without ears, and sensing with his spiritual body.

//“My constant jokes about a spherical-in-a-vacuum master of combat magic don't seem so funny to me anymore.” - Stepan's first thought comes absolutely calmly, not knocking him off his rhythm, not interfering with his reflexes and mastery of another's experience. It was the ++resilience of spirit, the phlegmatic character of the earthling, the very experience, and, of course, the need to act, not to panic. However, with the full power of the multiplicity of awareness, he was quite able to do both, and there was room for much more. The plurality allowed him to perform all his tasks at once and not to be late, because these fucking swimmers were clearly not happy about the sudden arrival of their guest, not at all, Stepan was offended by such impoliteness. He was mortally offended.

To his consolation, the wielder of the brightest aura was not a master. Certainly not by the standards of the System. An Adept, just very strong, experienced, and clearly ready for battle, not taken by surprise. He was slight, a couple percent at most, stronger than Rumorias “Explosive Character” Krellb, only the aura was composed in a very different way. Emphasizing Power in the first place. While the late necromancer emphasized Control, their Sources are almost identical in power and volume. Add to this the characteristic swirls in his aura, indicative of the potions taken before the fight and, it seems, the amplifying ritual completing the picture. Next to him are three of his disciples or companions, two of which are full-fledged adepts, weaker than the leader, but still confidently holding that rank (one of them, it seems, female), another one is just a strong, very strong Apprentice. They too had strengthened, but not as qualitatively as their leader. The alchemy was definitely simpler, the swirls in their aura, discernible to both him and the spirits-watchers, have a dirtyish tinge, characteristic of the intoxication of subtle bodies by powerful, not gentle alchemy.

The weakest of the four holds behind the backs of the quickly and decisively reorganized opponents, but in his hands not just a wand, but a controller, a control structure tied to... uh, perhaps a golem, if Stepan wasn't mistaken now. It looked like a mixture of a catfish and a shark, hollow, as if it were nothing but backbone and bits of armored segmental plating, while inside it was nothing but emptiness and magic, no, water and magic, a kind of propulsion-generator. A captive water elemental, small and weak, but fully-fledged, having a tangible water body and long entrenched in reality. Obviously, it was the golem that stopped the already accelerated Bead, because for an elemental such a task is not a task at all, they are too friendly with the currents, and controlling their native element is so natural for them that both humans and spirits lose to them in this. In fact, the spirits of the elements and not only the elements seek to gain a foothold in reality and become an embodiment of the element because it will give them a combination of a material body, power over energy, and the usual perception of spirits. The enemy is not that dangerous. The same hyper-elk, met during the memorable escape from Fantrel, was much more unpleasant, many times more unpleasant. But this entity is in its element and it is controlled, so it will hit exactly on target.

Against a normal mage, even a master, such a toy, especially underwater, would be an unpleasant surprise. And with the support of the rest of the company, even more so. But Stepan, to his luck, is not a mage, but a shaman, and such creatures are not so scary for him, especially if he has the right knowledge and tactics, so it turns out that he is not in trouble now. Probably. If he survives. The enemy looks very dangerous: dressed in identical armor, reminiscent of a fantasy version of diving suits, only enchanted and fortified, with water breathing masks on their faces and a set of amulets, with battle wands, and everyone also has a spare, in their hands... Suddenly, the idea of taking these guys for a fight no longer seemed so clever, and the idea of escaping seemed brilliant. The only thing stopping him was his luggage, back on the ship, because to imagine that these devils would get their hands on his totems, billets, amulets, and fucking quest gifts, albeit from the Autogoddess... it would make his ass burn... even though it's already in the water. No, as long as there was a reserve, Stepan would still fight, but when things got bad, he could call a spirit wrecker, who would drag him a couple of kilometers away from here, carrying him along his own paths.

Or not on a couple. It's complicated there.

They began to do bad things to Stepan right away, at once, without discounting his age, probably being on edge after the death of the poor man who was on the second of the boats. They struck swiftly, with wands, water arrows, and spears, as well as, in the leader's performance, an analog of water explosion. Along with this, the golem flashed an invocation to the liquid around him and tried to take away Stepan's control over it. Well, it would have tried, if the young man had controlled the water, as it is supposed to hydromancers, but they only wasted the power of the captured entity. The other powers were also wasted, because the Earthman met each attack separately, directing a specially chosen spirit at each one.

Arrows were intercepted by the standard small spirits of the battle-defense specialty, spears were the attention of two or even three at once, the water blast was intercepted by a very funny exotic, though also small, creating a zone of calm, where water could not be “evil”, cause any harm to a living creature. It was after that that he began to be taken murderously seriously. They hit him not in a typical and aura-rated way, but with all their might. And the increasingly obvious flickering entourage around the shaman spoke about him even better than his aura, because a “strong apprentice” would not be able to summon such a thing. Stepan was too busy preparing and summoning the perfect attacking host of spirits to hit seriously, but he counterattacked anyway, just to make life more difficult for the enemy. All of his not-his knowledge of combat encounters said in unison that even if you chose defensive tactics with a game of attrition or counterattack, you can't let yourself get hit with impunity, it's too easy to get played.

Before the second, more serious, wave of blows caught up with him, he made his move. Well, a little move, a tiny little move. The same tentacle he had taken control of was still entangled in his silhouette, though there was no trace of the enemy's weave. A will impulse and the water spirits inhabited that clump of charms, interceptor spirits specialized in intercepting and working with water previously enchanted by someone else, attacked in a swift dash. The tentacle turned into a water serpent, closing in on whoever was the author of the underlying enchantments in one spurt. His ribs and spine were trying to be broken by the only maiden in the group. Whether she was beautiful or not, it was not clear at all, her face was almost invisible behind the breathing mask, just like all the others. But she was shapely and smart, because she reacted quickly, trying to regain control of her water, which only fed the spirits who were expecting it.

Whether it would have killed her or not, only the admins know because of the result of the collision of the magician's defense and his snake Stepan didn't see. The leader clearly knew how to deal with shamans and their tricks. A blow at the same time with water foreign to the spirits to throw off and slow down the serpent, followed by a change of wand while the first hung in the water current, and then a classic banishment. Stepan could have tried to strengthen the spirits in reality, to let them hold on under the first blow, but he did not, even on the contrary, he pushed them down, so that they did not die or disembodied. It worked out well because none of the three summons that had formed the serpent had completely disappeared. He didn't want to lose those summonses, because it was not for nothing that he only recruited the best and most exotic ones to his retinue, even if not for the first roles. It would be a shame to lose them!

A new series of attacks. This time a cloud of water arrows, at least three and a half dozen of them, as if they wanted to overload both the spirits and the shaman's ability to control them. Stepan didn't wish them luck but mentally chuckled like a jackal. With his multiplicity of awareness, they would run out of concentration on creating individual charms sooner. And yes, they were coordinating with each other, too, seemingly telepathically, with the hoops on their heads glowing moderately in mago-spiritual vision. In his spiritual vision, he even saw and realized these connections, like invisible threads, along which beads of individual thoughts and messages were rolling. That is why the volley is so concentrated, from the leader also a very sharp mesh of water with a powerful electrical voltage. Moreover, this voltage does not go into the water until the outer structure of the net bursts, so that the attackers themselves are not hit.

//“So not only are you a waterman, but you're also an electrician, you bastard?” - Ran through Stepan's mind as he directed the spirits to the right targets, intercepting and defending. - “I'm already wondering what the fuck Bastius is carrying that they sent this team after him, because, bitch, somehow things have gotten so fucking twisted.”

Some arrows are again intercepted by small spirits, which take water into themselves, absorb the other's power, and dissolve the kinetic impact, sometimes managing to replenish the reserve from the other's attack. The net meets the spirit of the spindle: the entity is definitely outside the standard spheres, but its combination of aspects allows it to spin threads very well on itself, any threads, including also those of which the net consisted. The electricity released would have wounded the spirit with an element of lightning, but only another water spirit arranged a dielectric cocoon around the spindle. At the same time, Stepan lazily intercepted a not-quite-ordinary water arrow, even closer to the needle, which also carried a lightning charge. Grabbing this projectile with a spiritual limb dressed in another spirit, a mitten of twinkling sparks. He exhales another spirit on these charms and simply throws the gift back, along with the planted gift. The maiden's reflexively placed shield is simply ignored by the attack, which carries its own power, but the amulet does not fail, though it has sagged quite a bit.

The second of the adepts struck with a simple water spear, in addition to the arrows, which was also intercepted, but now it was brushed aside, for the impact was too powerful. The apprentice with the golem worked more interestingly, summoning, through the will of the captive elemental, a stream of current into Stepan's back, forcing him closer. Smiling with an invisible smile in the style of, forgive the admins, Rodislav Gastoldovich Yanin, may the universe shudder under his cruel footsteps, he ordered another spirit to activate its influence. The spirit with the aspect of flow simply and uncomplicatedly inverted the direction of the stream for Stepan. While the water rushed closer to the group, he was only pushed back another twenty meters.

The attackers had no time to decide whether they were going to follow the enemy or concentrate on the Bead and her crew, but they attacked anyway, only somewhat lazily, as if they didn't understand what they should do with that muddy dick (literally muddy, due to the cloud of mud defense) if he didn't get through. Stepan did not hesitate. Their intentions were readable without spirits, it was enough to remember the absence of flags, not to mention the instant attack to the death, so he did not restrain himself either. Abruptly changing direction, he swam, pushing himself with the spirits, forward and to the left as if to flank them. The distance between them was about fifty meters when the shaman raised his right hand, in which a figure remotely resembling a sweet lollipop-cockerel appeared, but very hot and literally boiling the water near his hand. If it hadn't been for the recently acquired property of the amulet, he might have burned himself, but he didn't.

He clenched his hand into a fist, breaking the image-picture, and gave orders to a spirit that was strong, unkind, and very powerful in direct combat. A spirit that was a rooster. The scarlet rooster symbolizes fire and flame, and this shit was just perfectly able to create a real cloud of heat, not burning, but baking the enemy specified by the shaman. And, unlike a couple of similar tricks using spirits at Stepan's disposal, this one worked quite well underwater, not weakening at all. A second was replaced by an eternity cut short for the talented maiden with the already discharged amulet when a cloud of white vapor seemed to swell around her. Several cubic meters of water instantly boiled away, creating a veritable explosion, scattering the rest of the trio and only at the expense of their amulets and the leader and apprentice's reactions with the golem, not injuring them either. Stepan didn't really expect to be able to shock them. He didn't even expect to kill the magician-adept, but if the first one was avoided by the enemy, the second one happened.

Up, above the water and next to the side of the Bead a real geyser of boiling steam struck, in which one could find fragments of the enemy's flesh while scalding the opponents who had already boarded. At this moment the young man thought that his tendency to kill women who wished him to die was against the canons of typical harem fantasy. It was not by chance Stepan used his fighter's reflexes to put the enemy in the right position. But it seems his attack not only knocked out one of the enemies, the second, perhaps, in strength but also infuriated the strongest of them to the extent he stopped saving power, as well as restraining his soul impulses. And his soul wanted to do something bad, painful, and deadly to the shaman, which the young man strongly disapproved of.

Abruptly he tore off from his neck some necklace of iron, not gold, plates and threw it in front of him, letting the plates hang in the water and shimmer. And while Stepan fended off a couple of powerful water blasts with similar electrical additives to the previously used mesh, it became a day in the depths of the river abyss. Six stable bolts of lightning with a powerful charge of ordinary lightning inside, if the shaman's spirits planted in his eyes didn't deceive him, each of them powerful enough to demolish another stone house. And this stuff does not dissipate underwater and is directed at the aura of the shaman, that's the trouble! The young man, having estimated the speed of flight, or rather, the swim of this stuff, their impact power, sharply summoned that spirit-mockingbird, even in the early days called, giving out a loud and even underwater audible childish laughter, literally screwing into the ears and surprisingly inappropriate.

And then he covers himself completely with the shroud, making himself an empty space. Instead of the main target, released from a handful of six brightly glowing dots, which were small mice, only created from pure radiance. In reality, it was a single spirit, just always divided into as many targets as there were sources of attack that would kill it instead of the summoner. Well yes, it would be destroyed, this spirit dies every time it fulfills a contract, but it doesn't stop it from being reborn, even if it's not really him. All six balls abruptly cut off control, ceasing to obey the mage, flying away after the mice, up, up and into the air, even higher, exploding in the air so brightly that here, at a depth of three meters, it seemed to Stepan that up there it was noon.

And the shaman, who had already brought back his aura, this time not pretending to be weak, showed the full power of the shell, and released from his body phantom limbs - all three of them, making them long, with several joints and clawed grasps - sharply rushed left, right, down and jabbed his index claws in the direction of the leader who reflexively strengthened his defense. He could not see his face, but the reader's spirits, even through all the protection showed that he was not very happy with his position and in general, did not understand what the fuck this bastard, i.e. Stepan, was doing here. He, all of them, had been promised that there would be no one so serious, had they hired him at the last moment? A shaman would love to get much more out of the mind of a man shocked for a second by his failed trump card, but he is still almost a master. He realized he was being read, sharply strengthened his mental defenses, forced the haunting spirit to retreat, and overcame the attempt to put in drowsiness and weakness, though slowed down for a moment. Well, it's not bad anyway. To press the impact on the brains of a pure fighter, and even in direct combat, few people can afford it. However, it should be recognized Stepan attacked with a mental spirit of a suggestive type only because this call was ready, and the enemy had to be occupied with something.

The catfish golem came at the shaman from the side, good thing it wasn't a “no piku,” going for a full-body attack. The water around him swirled into a sharp cloud of small blades. Again, the shaman was in time, spinning around to face the enemy and reaching forward with his two phantom arms, shrouded in a protective layer of what looked like stone scales. These limbs broke through the water shield, losing some of their protection, and stabbed straight into the structure of the hollow golem, unclenching fists that harbored very specific spirits of the water sphere. It was their summoning, a full summoning with a third of his reserve, not a summoning under a ready-made contract, that kept Stepan so fully occupied that he had to throw in a suggestor just to buy some time.
боку но пику

The fighter's skills literally screamed that these guys, excellent fighters, would definitely throw the golem into battle. In close combat. That was why they were trying to get the shaman closer. Despite its light body and not particularly massive appearance their magical assistant was a very dangerous thing, especially up close. Too enchanted to damage it with already summoned spirits, too maneuverable to dodge, too controllable to try and cut off the controls. The same water vortex of blades could well have exhausted the spirits' defenses, and broken through them. Even so, a few blades lodged in the muddy armor, knocking wisps of muteness out of the main mass, but Stepan repaid the favor for the blows. The spirits planted in the elemental's flesh were the kind of spirits that could not be summoned just like that, there was no point. They were taking control over the captured entity right at that moment. Earlier the commands that the water beast had been forced to fulfill had been given through the wand in the hand of the weakest of the remaining trio of the quartet, now the spirits were crushing those signals, intercepting them and sending their own. The elemental was hardly intelligent enough to understand what was happening, but if he was, he executed the command to turn around and attack the enslaving controller with relish.

Unfortunately, the hastily summoned spirits didn't have quite the right aspects, nor were they strong enough, so the interception was not completely successful. Focused on protecting his life, the controller clutched the control rod with both hands and poured power into it generously. He might even be able to succeed in suppressing the spirits, but now he was temporarily out, and the young man didn't need anything else, he was once again fending off the attacks of the leader who was covering his fighter, trying to attack back. The enemy used something from the category of a full-fledged water ram, which can not be stopped by spirits, and he can not dodge, too focused on the golem.

Instead of deflecting or investing power into the host of spirits, uniting them into a single block that could withstand a battering ram, as a standard shaman would do in his place, Stepan releases the ghostly arms, as if to embrace himself with them. The spirit spills out of the body, flows out with another third of the reserve, wrapping itself around the body covered with murk in a thin film, and then it is drawn back into the flesh, only the film remains, deepens, turns from a strange blank for a closed field into something else, into a gap and a door, its opening and its base, leading to an unknown place and for an unknown reason. And the battering ram, mighty and capable of turning Stepan who fell under it into bone mincemeat with fragments of shit and entrails, seems to pass through it without hitting it, entering the foredoor from one side and exiting from the opposite side without touching anything in the process. It would be possible to stabilize the impact under these conditions, but it would take time and, again, reserve, so Stepan preferred to stop feeding the defense and continue attacking.

Very bright and thin green lightning flew towards the leader, not even lightning, but as if shining ghostly threads, full of the power of life, its pervasive influence, which this life can cut off, devouring both aura and flesh. The ribbons, which were in fact spirit embodiments of tropical worms with aspects of poison and parasitism, scared the man, especially when they penetrated the first shield, broke through the second without even noticing, having previously adjusted to the magic of the first, and got stuck in the amulets. He managed to burn them out with magical electricity, disembodied a couple of them, and banished the remaining three, but he lost momentum and stopped weaving another series of ball lightning bolts inside the water spear. His apprentice, the one who did not try to regain control of the golem, just struck, but the cascade of five very fast water arrows, thrown in just a second, was habitually deflected by the spirits, which had not yet spent even half of the contracted power.

Stepan, having dispelled the barrier, again spread his phantom limbs in all directions, only now not his hands, but the tentacles of a deep-sea octopus. He calls what literally stinks with the depths and darkness of the sea and ocean bottom. The spirit is also suggestive. He quite able to wash brains, but its main strength is revealed underwater. In battle, this shit is not useless at all. Though in pure power he is not much weaker than Squidward, even if he is inferior to him in the number of exotic tricks. At once, the water became darker than usual, the lights went out, and there was another quiet whisper in his head, similar to, but at the same time impossibly different from, those of the standard water spirit. And in this darkness, in this unnatural silence, where you can't even feel the beating of your heart, behind the back of the tightly clenched shaman, a small, barely distinguishable, small and deceptively harmless... appeared...

fire

light

something different

To be honest, to be impassive, this summoning was no weaker than Squidward's under these circumstances, but it was only summoned at night, only when the moon was not shining or hidden by clouds, only when fully submerged in deep water. He's too attached to it. Well, yes, ideally this water would be the ocean, sea, or at least a deep river, although the spirit can come in a tub of water if you call him correctly. In this situation and under these conditions, Stepan sincerely expected to finish the battle right nowю Ру had a good chance of... well... well, or at least knocking out the remaining couple, leaving the leader alone. The light behind his back, if you look at it, paralyzes the will, brings illusions and lethargy, and also, while underwater, it is very badly blocked by standard defenses.

In fact, right now the spirit, called by a one-time contract, which had to be concluded on land, using a lid with water instead of a plectrum and under a lot of specific amulets, presses on the minds of those who saw its light in such a way that makes them, first, to get a little closer to the light, and, secondly, to take off their clothes, starting with masks, and to breathe in the water. The devils know - though, here, it's more the spirits than the devils - exactly what each of them will be seeing. Maybe the scene of coming home after a long hike, throwing off your soaked and dirty clothes, and sighing heavily as you relax. The problem is that they're all underwater now, wearing special amulet masks on their faces, without which they can breathe once. And, under the influence of light from the depths, the victims don't even realize they're drowning, that's the fun part..

The original plan was to use this spirit in case things went badly and Bastius decided to set him up. In such a situation, the light was to be lit near the side of the Bead so the entire crew would step over that side. That was the way, by the way, this entity amused itself sometimes, on the darkest nights rising to the surface of the sea from the depths of the spirit world, summoned by someone very evil or wishing to do so. In general, it was not the kind of spirit Stepan wanted to summon under normal circumstances, and if it were not for the very detailed specification of the summoning, which would guarantee safety with a minimum of brains and caution, he would not have dared to summon, contract, or use such a thing. Alas, the circumstances were stronger than Stepan, and he only had time to rejoice that he managed to direct the will-light of the spirit not to the surface of the ship, where the boarding battle was still to take place, but to the direct opponents. It was not enough to drown half the sailors with friendly fire.

Lighter

Firefly.

He really had hoped to end the fight right now, cackling at the thought of how successfully he'd used a Suggestor from the contractual branch of MILF's gift.... which was probably why his hopes were dashed. It took less than a second and a half for the effect to take hold in their minds and overcome the rudimentary resistance of the mages not expecting such a move, but there was a counter-strike on the flame. It was as if a salty sea wave hit the face of the shaman and his defense, and this despite the fact that he was already underwater and in the river, not the sea. The water was joined by the cries of seagulls, the freshness of the breeze, a tailwind in the sail, and images of something incredibly powerful and changeable, like the sea itself.

When Stepan opened his eyes, he noticed another amulet cracking in the leader's hand, and the man seemed to be as surprised by the result as Stepan was. A moment later, he was not only surprised but also a little frightened. Well, the shaman was also shitting himself a little when he got hit in the face by a charge of divine power, albeit harmless to him. The attack was very narrowly directed and did not hurt Stepan's defenses or aura at all, it even encouraged him a little and chased away his fatigue, but the spirit he had summoned had barely had time to flee deeper into his native realms when he was hit by the Lady of the Seas herself with an echo of her will. Stepan knew about this woman from the local pantheon only from the words of Shera, who was a priestess of a completely different deity, but the images were very characteristic and similar.

And also somehow involuntarily remembered a note about the fact that the Sea Mistress had very strained relations with all sorts of deep stuff, but Shera didn't say much about it. Stepan was under the impression that it was about all sorts of Kraken, quite material, not spiritual entities with deep-water aspects, but this outburst from an unknown and previously unknown entity of divine caliber left a lot of uncomfortable questions. To his great fortune, no matter how much the shaman shat himself from what had happened, his opponents laid bricks much more, and the spirit light still managed to plunge them into a light trance or at least a stupor. And so the pace was lost by both sides of the conflict in the river water, only Stepan managed to come to his senses faster.

//“'Sailing the river, he said, it's almost safe, he said!” - Stepan thinks wryly, materializing a new batch of contracts into reality and boosting the reserve of those who have weakened too much. - “Kirik, for fuck's sake! If this counts as safety to you, then I'll be afraid of you, you old rascal!”

Several glowing needle sticks flew at the leader as if they were barely recognizable even in the darkness of the watery Bengal lights. In the magical vision, these thunder spirits glowed from the invested power. It was not very prudent to use electromagic against someone who could lightning himself, but these spirits had another property. They were very loud to the eardrums of even those who had no hearing or eardrums. The almost-master intercepted the lightning with contemptuous ease, seemingly even managing to recharge his shield, but the loud ringing in his ears made him twitch. His allies twitched, both not yet fully recovered, and the stronger one's water-blade weave snapped, flying upward.

The second, who controlled the golem, had just thrown the controlling wand to the bottom, letting the artifact float away with the current, along with the completely empty and magic-less hulk of the controlled combat equipment. The elemental was gone, as were the spirits planted there, and Stepan, to his shame, couldn't even tell who had freed or devoured it - the summoned beckoning light or the shadow of the will of the sea. Though no, that shit, no matter how dangerous it was, had a clear prohibition to harm the shaman and his spirits, and he ordered to attack only those who should not be underwater, belonging to the land. So the impact of the divine echo that struck through the mantled relic freed the captive entity of the waters. Either that or Stepan doesn't understand something at all.

A new attack of the enemy. Again hit by a water explosion, a pressure differential, in which the enemy invests most of the remaining reserve. However, he constantly draws new strength from the storage tanks. And again Stepan meets the volumetric attack with the same spirit that calms the water and prevents it from causing any harm to anyone. It would have been more reliable to cover himself with the anteroom again, but that would have forced him to interrupt another call, so he had to choose. The shock was not completely extinguished. The murky shield, supported by the strong spirit of the underwater ooze, had sagged more than halfway through and had simply scattered some of that cloud. Had Stepan not planted a few strengthening spirits directly into the body he could be stunned. On the other hand, if he hadn't gotten some of those spirits into himself, making him so resilient, as if he'd added at least five points to his Constitution and Resistance, he wouldn't have risked taking the blow, preferring not to get out of the anteroom at all. Another torrent of blades, needles, and arrows from the weaker foes who had come to their senses, including the golem driver who had now joined the attack, was automatically intercepted by the retinue, and the shaman had already finished his call.

Releasing his phantom arms again he shifts sharply to the left, stepping out of the attempt to surround him, aiming his clawed paws at the leader. The one, already learned by bitter experience, strengthens his shields and pushes himself in the chest with a stream of water, breaking the distance. His problem is that Stepan's call was directed not at him but at the second of the remaining adepts, who was now quite apart from the shaman and almost at his back, preparing to finish the weaving of the reinforced Water Spear. As if he needed to point a finger at his target, well really! If the spirits didn't deceive the shaman, the adept was preparing to shove not just a spear in his ass, but a water-electric drill, with the rest of his reserve invested in it, leaving only amulet shields and storages. Naturally, he didn't completely squeeze himself out, there were still some storages left, but they were hardly that good, so the man's move was a literal leap of faith.

He didn't think about the defense.

The summoned spirit burst into reality with a disgruntled hum. It might reside and act underwater, but it didn't like it because the spirit had an animal-cat sphere. Something like an ice leopard, only about the size of an ordinary cat - if comparisons to actual size were even applicable to entity-embodied images - but the cold and ice sphere, the blizzard and frostbite aspects of this thing were well developed. The spirit was not dark, but quite aggressive, even evil. It liked to freeze and turn the living and warm into the undead and stiffened. He liked to watch the flame of life leave their bodies and disintegrate the spirit frozen in the cold flesh. And now the creature that Stepan had once fed with his full reserve, and had not spared any good offerings, was engaged in one very powerful attack, one of six paid for in advance.

It was as if water was bubbling around the enemy coming at his back. A second later, small chunks of ice crystallized in it, quickly coalescing into one solid lump. The chilled and frozen body, whose amulet shields didn't even come off because it had frozen right underneath them, immediately split into pieces, floating upward into a growing ice floe that, when it finally appeared on the river's surface, was the size of a small room. Again, purely for the sake of style and because the multiplicity of awareness allowed such freestyles, Stepan set off that very sound of sinister childish laughter. To be fair, he wasn't showing off, he was just getting on his opponent's nerves, and if the leader didn't show any emotion at all - he obviously valued the boiled girl much more than this frozen one - then the controller who had lost his golem was really terrified.

The spirits of meanings were constantly prompting, pointing, and supplementing the picture of the world so that the shaman received as much information as possible. Plus the same plurality gave the opportunity not only to receive but also to understand what was received, to react in time. It would not be possible to stay in such a mode for a long time, the marbles could easily roll away from such a stress, but their underwater massacre took only a little time. Even if Stepan had no underwater breathing spirits, he would still not drown, and would not even suffer too much from suffocation. And, admittedly, his efficiency in killing his opponents at such a high rate was getting on his nerves, so much so one of them decided to say the famous “Fuck it, I'm outta here,” leaving the chief to deal with the evil shit that had come down from the ship. He was alone at his mom's, even if he was an orphan.

He didn't get far, because it was into the fleeing one that Stepan directed his next attack. Now he broke the distance with the leader, at the same time letting the spirits off the leash. A dozen shapeless and predatory leeches squeeze through the shield of discharged amulets and then the visible and invisible image of someone's mouth appears in the water as if created from stone boulders. The enemy freezes, starting to sink to the bottom. And why not freeze, if the whole aura is literally shaved by the entity that came to chew? It's not particularly strong and doesn't penetrate magical defenses at all, but it hits the naked aura with an A+. As usual, the combination of exotic properties of individual spirits gives high results.

And so they were left alone, in honor of which the annoying and perfectly perceptible underwater childish laughter sounded again. This time, however, Stepan did nothing of the sort. The spirit, temporarily forgotten by him for more important matters, continued to use its only skill solely on its own initiative. He chose the moment more than well, because the enemy, who had time to waste most of the reserve, involuntarily shuddered, swung a couple of Water Blades in passing, trying to break the distance and get away, and so to be under the ship, so that the Bead, on which the battle was going on, was between the mage and the shaman.

Stepan did not interfere, and himself stepped back a little, and then down, closer to the muddy bottom, whence the muddy streams of the bottom mass stretched on the shrouded muddy shroud, renewing the protection, covering him with an additional layer of armor. From the fingers of an ordinary, not phantom hand flew a small, pinky-length, and thread-thick snake, carrying a very evil poisonous aspect. It flew towards the enemy with the speed of a crossbow arrow, despite the fact that arrows do not fly underwater. Maybe if she had surfaced from the depths of the spheres and attacked at once, it would have been different but the bastard was too watchful, even though the spirit tried to hide: the point and concentrated banishment destroyed Stepan's contract, even though there were still a few paid summons. Stepan didn't get a rollback from the disembodiment of the snake essence, he managed to cut off the contact, but he was still upset. Not the strongest or most useful of his spirits, but one of the first he had summoned while traveling through the forests after fleeing Fantrel. In a way, a needle of nostalgic regret pricked him in the heart.

The young man began to take dreadful revenge literally in the next second, covering his opponent with a blanket of not particularly strong but numerous attacks, using mostly water elemental entities, and trying to deprive his opponent of control over this very element. He still had his amulets and was pulling up reserves from his storage tanks. Stepan couldn't estimate how much power was still left in those storages, so the enemy held on quite well and even counterattacked. Desperately and angrily, with a kind of grim determination, finally felt the shaman, who had switched to more primitive and simple attacks, was beginning to run out of steam. However, most of his attacks were aimed at distracting the young man while the hydromancer-electrician was preparing something hiding it under a specific shield that protected him from being read by spirits.

Some of the power of the spear he'd thrown through a couple of interceptor spirits, which went back into the spheres with an apologetic “Sorry boss, I don't have the strength”, knocking some silt out of his defenses, further convincing the enemy of Stepan's sagging reserve. He, of course, masked his aura again with a Shroud so the bastard could see only emptiness and could not track the reserve, but by indirect signs, it was clear that at least half of the shaman's strength had already been lost. He slowed down and began to stone more sparingly. His spirits also began to save strength. Stepan couldn't pump up the reserve from the accumulator because he didn't have a normal accumulator, and this method was more suitable for classical wizards, but it was more difficult for shamans to replenish their strength in this way. Many spirits disliked preserved power, so they had to spend more with less results and more losses. It pays for the ability to summon a large number of dangerous creatures in battle, becoming, for a short time even more dangerous than a classic mage of similar strength.

Stepan could have restored his strength with a meta-skill, but he didn't have time to spend enough to use it to maximum advantage. They finished at the same time. A sphere of lightning, similar to the one that flew out of the necklace closer to the beginning of the fight, only now it was one, but it was as powerful as the last two. It wasn't six homing bolides, but I didn't want to take on a sludge shield. Luckily, he didn't have to, because he finished his call at the same moment as these charms, draining the rest of his reserve and immediately replenishing the empty aura to its maximum, preparing to activate the anteroom, even beginning to release the spirit in the right way.

He didn't have to, for his blow had caught up with the mage sooner than the other way around. The invisible and very secretive spirit passed through the defenses and sucked against the node of the aura that was responsible for the heart. For a second he must have felt a faint tingle in his chest, but the mage hardly had time to be surprised. The spirit's blow was painless, like a spider bite that dissolves the victim from the inside. The aura was still normal, the node pumping the remnants of power and holding the weave and its load, but this fragment seemed to liquefy, pulling it into someone's hungry maw. There was no pain, only a sudden onset of numbness and weakness, followed by darkness, from which there was no escape and no awakening.

The uncontrollable spells quickly disintegrate, going upward, spreading across the water surface with individual lightning bolts, and some of them shoot vertically upward, probably frying some of the boarders because the crew of the Bead covers the more massive ship's side. Stepan, on the other hand, just hangs in the water for a while, trying to realize the answer to the very timely question, “What the fuck was that?” The attack of a well-coordinated group of mages, supported by equally well-equipped thugs, and under the command of almost a master of combat magic (Stepan badmouthed, damn it), and on an ordinary ship... At this moment the young man had a lot of questions for Bastius, because he was either secretly carrying a spherical in a vacuum “box with pendants of an elven queen”, or there was something deeply wrong in this world. Such teams with such equipment are not engaged in the analogy of river ambush, they were quite capable of fighting a much more powerful team or even a whole river caravan.
подвески

//“No, not the caravan though!” - Stepan realizes, putting it all together as his brains go out of battle mode and the scanning spirits check the surroundings, including the bottom of Dantra, and find no new opponents. - “They didn't have enough fighters for the caravan, the most common ones, and the magical support seemed to be at an unreasonably high level. So they were preparing to take a lone boat, but with valuable cargo, and with a minimum of ordinary fighters, probably expecting the presence of an elite group of guards on the other side too. Then their behavior and chosen tactics are quite understandable”.

The problem was Stepan hadn't noticed the elite squad of powerful guards hiding aboard the Bead, except for the Earthman himself. And no matter how much he respected Bastius's intelligence, the shaman had his doubts it was he who had so cunningly hired the isekai for the right of free passage, having figured out his disguise in advance. The other options didn't really fit either... except for the fact they were mistaken for someone else in the dark and decided to be preemptive. And when they ran having seen the trap and started to run away they thought it was impossible to make a mistake and went into battle. The coincidence of circumstances, frankly speaking, is not even too unlikely, such designations in earth history, both modern and ancient, are found everywhere and everywhere resulting either in friendly fire or in an attempt of Somali pirates to raid with inflatable boats on a military aircraft carrier, thinking as if they were boarding a grain carrier. This does not mean that Stepan has lost all questions to the captain of the merchant ship, but at least he stopped feeling himself drowning in madness since drowning in water does not work.

Speaking of water and drowned ones.

The water spirit forms a thin thread-blade of very cold liquid, turning this water into a magical garrote, slicing the raiders' leader's head from his shoulders. At the same time, Stepan unchains the other spirits, drawing blood, preventing the aura and brains from disintegrating, anchoring the spirit remnants in the severed head preventing it from disintegrating. After all, he was already curious about what the fuck had happened, and the dead, as he'd already learned, could tell him quite a bit about something interesting, if you asked them the right question and put the question right. Of course, right now he wasn't going to call those spirits who could organize a session of spiritualistic interrogation, but that's why he was preserving his interrogator because he didn't want to lose the source of information by letting him rot. Both figuratively and literally.

Having dispatched back some of the retinue, and some of them, on the contrary, fed by the restored reserve or simply called for their replacements, the shaman made himself weightless and ordered to push himself upwards flying out of the water like a cork or a flying fish. A quick glance with both magical and spiritual eyes at the same time multiplied by a Sensivity of eleven units, allows for a quick assessment of the situation. The situation turned out to be very pleasant for the crew of the Bead: the steam explosion seemed to have happened right under the enemies trying to board the ship, which either scattered them, stunned them, or simply and uncomplicatedly scalded them, sometimes fatally. The crew was protected by the side of the boat and suffered little, if any, moral damage, and then took full advantage of their luck, knocking out the disoriented enemy.

Judging by the fact the corpses on the deck were mostly enemies and there were only a dozen or so of them left, victory was already assured. But it could still be bloody since the enemy had time to come to their senses and start resisting because they were better equipped and they still had the last of their gifted with them. Stepan, realizing with a kind of dejection that his desire to reach a major city quietly and peacefully without attracting attention had waved goodbye, jumped out of the water if not an avatar of retribution, then a very angry and damp shaman. The water wasn't warm in the slightest after all, which made one involuntarily want to find a contract with a walrus spirit. Jumping out onto the deck in a halo of spray and muddy silt shield, he immediately springs into action.

And his first action was to knock aside an energy arrow from Cherz, who had clearly taken a shit and considered it a reinforcement for the enemy. Well, yes, no aura is visible, but a lot of strong entities around circling, and the shield itself, combined with not hidden a couple of spiritual limbs, looked very ominous. With a lazy movement of his limb, the young man knocked down the arrow, breaking its weave and forcing it to fall with a cloud of bluish sparks, not even distracting his spirits from the protective formation. In a second motion, he uses the same limb to cast a handful of barely visible glowing sparks, which were in fact grave lights. The entities of Death, the aspect of the Grave and Oblivion, struck the backs and sides of the attackers in a frequent rain, gnawing away at the defenses where they were and where they were not, immediately gnawing into the aura tearing them apart, mangling the nodes, seeking to reach the heart. Once they reached that heart, the spirits released the power they had accumulated from eating the aura in a grave outburst, killing their target quickly and almost painlessly.

It was a shame to waste such a good contract with a pack of entities, but nothing more suitable for a quick, inexpensive, and effective attack came to mind. There was either fire, lightning, rot, or simply no condition for mandatory target recognition, which would have hurt the ship or crew even more. The only surviving opponent was the gifted man who was suddenly left alone, who managed to strengthen his amulets and then hit with banishment from his wand, getting rid of the few flames that reached him. He managed to turn around and even raised his wand in the direction of the new threat, but Stepan, who had already planted a strengthening entity in his body, spat out a lump of smoky sludge, which faded the defense, straight into the enemy's face.

The slimy impact pushed through the shields and shackled the aura as if covering it with a crust, preventing him from using the reserve and weaving spells. Then came the classic leeches draining his magical and physical strength, making him stagger and fall, rapidly losing consciousness. Stepan, not paying attention to the still sluggishly twitching magician, shakes off the sludge, which settles on the blood-covered deck in clods of instantly drying mud. One more movement, a clap on the soaked clothes on his shoulders, and the vapor starts to flow from the clothes, instantly drying the whole body at once, as if he stood under warm fans.

The faces of Bastius, armed with a heavy double-barrelled and even slightly enchanted crossbow, and Cherz, still standing inside the almost burnt-out and already smoking hexagram, certainly express a lot of emotions. You don't have to be a shaman or a mentalist to see in them something between “What the fuck are you?” and “This is what we sailed on the same ship with?”. The isekai who caused these thoughts with emotion also has something to say, and purely swearing, but he restrains himself. Mostly because if he snapped to rudeness or even growl, the men frightened and heated by the recent battle might attack him. And that would be very foolish. If only because he went to reveal himself only because he did not want to leave this company to certain death, nor to radically clean up the loose ends, throwing them into the cold water of the night and indifferent Dantra. Anyway, by the time he was closer to the stern, three steps away from the tense men, he was almost calm and almost impeccably polite.

"Bastius, what the fuck is this? Why the fuck is your ship being attacked by a bunch of bastards with equipment like you're carrying secret correspondence of national fucking importance?" In addition to his words, the young man in his emotions accidentally drops the head of a stern man in his forties with a neat beard, wide-open dark-blue eyes, and an ugly scar on the entire left half of his face, as if that half had been gnawed out by someone's fangs many years ago. "I have no doubt that I respect you immensely, and I have no complaints about the trip, but fuck you with such sailing!"

Stepan decided to himself that if he was right, he would not kill them, of course, because they had given him no reason to do so, and they certainly should not have told about such a cargo to a random passenger, but the earthman would beat them to a bloody pulp. With his feet. Just for unprofessionalism. If you were carrying something so secretly important, you should at least not take passengers, even if old comrades asked for them. Stepan would not have taken offense at such neglect, but now he was furious.

"W-what? I mean, what correspondence, we didn't do anything like that...." Apparently, Bastius was lost too, especially from being accused. Especially by someone as obscure as his passenger. "Is that a Visardius Eel or something? Ahem! Pann, you, I mean, you, I mean, who are you, anyway?"

Stepan didn't listen anymore. He turned around and went in the direction of the captured magician, having already managed to put the right spirits on a couple, to count from them their innocence, non-involvement, and complete incomprehension. Also shock and not even apprehension, but fear, because the scarred and chewed magician these two recognized. A known figure, it seems. Was. And, obviously, they knew about his power, and who one had to be to throw the bastard's head at their feet in passing. In general, the young man, limping after hitting the water, was treated as if he were a superstar. Everyone stood back and let them pass to the prisoner. He kicked the enemy's ass in the usual way, preparing to install the spirit of truth, which takes the life of the questioner as payment for answers. The shaman did not have time to use his trick. He had only to remove the paralysis from his vocal cords, and the prisoner began to speak without the help of magic, and the truth, nothing but the truth and strictly to the point.

" ...not on you, honorable, not on you, I'm telling you, we were waiting for the Fidget, we were waiting for her, your boats are the same, the keel is the same, it's dark, you can't see a devil of the river, even with an amulet, pardon me, honorable, I would never, no way, not for any purse, I'm telling you!" Panic-stricken, looking at Stepan's indifferent face, this individual was giving up everyone, everyone, in any way and for free, as long as he didn't get killed. "And here you were speeding up, thinking that you had definitely missed, we were told nothing, Maître Vizardius was in charge of everything, I was only told that we had to take the Fidget, without fire and flood, to look for some important casket. I just..."

In general, with the bastard's nightingale singing, as well as scanty clarifications from the rest of the watchers, Stepan reconstructed the picture of events, which, from the enemy's point of view, could be called “sorry, we got it wrong, but we fucked up badly!”. They were looking for and waiting for a really similar to the Bead boat, nicknamed the Fidget, where the captain and the ship's magician was, by the way, a quite ingenious young lady. There were all sorts of rumors about Teresa the Pike, to the point that in the non-trading season, she could work as a wave-cutter herself. To this Bastius cautiously and with very strong respect in his tone, not hiding his fear in front of the same gloomy Stepan, corrected that, they said that the rumors about wave-cutters were true, she did not do such shit. But Teresa, who had received her nickname not for her affectionate character, was really dirty with smuggling and tight connection with nightmen. And there were rumors about working for the secret guard of the Duke de Dantrel, may he be in good health and mood. And rumors, as you know, do not happen out of nothing.

The weakest of the raiding magicians didn't even belong to the cohort of Eel and his men. He was in a set with mercenary pirates, who on two boats attacked the ship to create a crowd and distraction. The second of the gifted and the leader of the pirate gang had drowned at the bottom of the river in his super-heavy boots. This one knew even less. Eel and his crew said at once that all the booty would belong to the breakers, except for the box they needed. He was not even ashamed to assure this promise on the contract amulet. They promised there would be additional forces of two adepts of magic, but it was also promised that they would only have to hold back the first blow, and then Eel and his team would roll the dice in favor of the attackers.

The Eel is a different matter altogether. This mercenary, who fled the Islands where he was born, deserved his fame in full. Having quarreled with the sea people for some wrong games with mermaids, or even trading them as live goods, he managed to leave, to get far away from the Middle Sea, but he did not forget water and swimming. So he operated in the region of river navigation, where his talents as a hydromage and lightning mage were in demand and desired. He recruited mercenary apprentices, under oaths of his own accord, acted as part of a small elite group, enjoyed the patronage of some merchant and noble houses, and was characterized by pleasant performance and outstanding competence. From these same patrons, - as the captive said with black envy, - received knowledge and resources necessary for development. Little by little he became more and more dangerous and pulled his mercenaries with him too. For several years, there had been rumors among knowledgeable humans and non-humans that he had become, in fact, a master of magic, but he was in no hurry to confirm or deny them, nor was he in a hurry to undergo official testing. He was, to a large extent, a wanted man.

There was nothing for which he was wanted on behalf of the Adventurers' Guild - yes, it existed here, but, as Stepan realized, it was not the structure one might think of from the clichés of earthly fantasy - which he was a member of, or from the magical society, which he was also a member of. But some individuals, including very dangerous ones, wanted his death and were ready to pay for the head, which Stepan carelessly threw on the deck, in gold by volume, and weight by the whole body of the killed. An interesting, in short, personality almost killed the poor earthman today, very interesting personality.

Stepan, after listening to his captive with a lean face, understood even more through the spirit sucked to his skull, sighed tiredly, giving out this time a mental:\\ “Why don't you take care of yourself?” And every time he said it, he sounded more and more sincere. Clenching his hand into a fist, he achieved that the pirate, on whom the blood was up to his shoulders, which he didn't even hide, considering that he could buy his life back, since he hadn't personally brought any harm to the honorable master, wheezed and convulsed. And if his heart was torn into several separate pieces of meat, which were beginning to shrivel up.
Студентики

"I just wanted to go down the river, man." There was so much tired anger in his voice you could spread it on bread. "I was even prepared for some small gang attack or similar problem. What the fuck are the chances of getting into this kind of shit just because I was unlucky? Once again, for the fucking umpteenth time!"

"Um, Master Pann, I'm afraid to ask, and I certainly don't mean to be disrespectful in any way, but what will happen now?" Bastius's voice had taken on an ingratiating and pleading tone, but he liked the old manner of speaking better than this obsequiousness. "I will ask no questions, not a single one. And my team, as well as myself, can keep silent. It would be a simple act of decency after you saved our lives. But, uh..."

“But why did I pretend to be an Apprentice in the first place?” Stepan finished, nodding his head and ceasing to hide the power of his aura with a Shroud, after which he got another shudder from Cherz and a nod from Bastius, who couldn't see the auras and nodded uncertainly, clearly afraid of learning a secret so terrible that one could die. “As my grandfather used to tell me: if you can count to ten, then count only to three, implying that you can count to five so that the smartest would guess that you had learned to count to nine. And all this while you quietly master the counting to twelve. Well, this is if you take away the swearing, slaps, and other complaints about the stupid and negligent grandson. Here, I try to follow the wisdom of my elders. I tried.”

It wasn't that they didn't believe him, but it was hard to comprehend what he was saying, too hard. The aura of his level, combined with his very young appearance, spoke rather about an old man getting younger with potions and rituals than of a boy. And if the age suddenly true then everyone with any understanding of the magical craft would have an obvious question. Like the variation of it, which was asked by Cherz, who was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and therefore forgot about his fears and even reverence.

“Who is your... you, that is, your grandfather? Yours. The much-revered one.” Clearly trying to accommodate the picture of the world breaking, asks the magician, older than Stepan by a dozen years at least, but still walking around in near-apprentice rank. “Who is he, what, Raistar the Apostate in person? I... I don't understand. You, uh. You act, you act, I mean, like you're so young. and your questions. I can't believe you can pretend like you don't know shit. I... just tell me you're older than you say you are, that you're not eighteen years old. Because I just don't understand shit then, at all.”

Stepan more than understood his thoughts, even shared them, because it was clear to anyone that one could become a master or a bastard of comparable power by his age only if one's father was an archmage or even a god from the local pantheon. But a shaman from a remote settlement can't be such a master, because it never happens like that. This way the poor guy, who is already tormented by kickbacks from potions and ritual reinforcements, will go crazy, and the picture of the world will be cracked.

"I don't know who your Reistar is or where he retreated from, but that wasn't my grandfather's name." The young man answers honestly, mentally thinking hard about what he should do with so many witnesses. "And he also has such a character, that he would retreat at least from wherever he was. Well, what are you looking at, Cherz? I told you, my grandfather's very tough. Very."

The Earthman was even a little uncomfortable about what thoughts all these people could and would think about his deceased ancestor. On the other hand, if the System had fallen into his grandfather's hands, nothing in this world would have remained the same, for he was still a fruit, a vegetable, and a beast.

"Okay, I'll try to talk to what's left of your Eel's spirit, so that he'll have his lightning spheres shoved up his ass every day on the other side," Stepan said, even without a doubt that no one would challenge his ordering tone, even if he wanted to. "Set anchor, it is not necessary to sail far from the place of death, otherwise it will be more difficult for me. Check the ship, and see if anything's cracked. If anyone's got wounds, bandage them up, I'll treat them when I'm done."

What was doubly indicative was the fact that the orders were followed, silently and without the slightest questioning or clarification. Apparently, this society was accustomed to the fact the orders of strong gifted people were not discussed and certainly not challenged. Bastius was very interested in knowing the story of this erroneous attack and why he should shake Teresa Shchuka's throat in the future. But Stepan still heard the words, not even spoken, intercepted at the last moment, heard by the spirit with the aspect of those words that had been under-said: “He's a fucking Talker too! Fuck that! I'll retire ten years earlier with such passengers! Kirik, you old bream, I wish you had diarrhea!” - Stepan evaluated those thoughts for himself. Talkers, by the way, were called necromancers whose specialization extended to and often was limited to the ability to interrogate the bodies of the dead. Not always legal specialists, but still quite in demand.

He could have argued that his actions were not necromancy, because it was a different approach, and the gift was not his own, but the one he used with the assistance of a summoned spirit, or working through the spirit world, if he used his spirit rather than a summoned one. But something, shamanic intuition, told him that if he started commenting on his unspoken thoughts, proving that he had another facet of talent, then Bead's crew would spit on everything and jump overboard, deciding to swim and walk further. The captain and the mage will jump, swim, and run ahead of everyone.

And while the spirit was searching in the scraps of thin bodies and brain tissue of the dead man for answers to the questions Stepan wanted to ask, the shaman was thinking other thoughts. He thought something had to be done about the situation, but that all these actions were either very dangerous for him or simply immoral. So, instead of wandering around in circles looking for a way out of the impasse, he tried to realize what the System had rewarded him with for what he had done. If there was anything to look for as a way out of the moral dilemma, it was in his leveling.

The twenty-second level appeared to be taken. This time, the Autogoddess also passed something from herself. Fortunately for Stepan, the learning of skills was understandably delayed, because the system's fuses recognized a dangerous situation in which working with one's own status would be suboptimal. In addition to the single level, already almost closed earlier, he was credited with another “act”, which, frankly, was not surprising. A face-to-face battle with a well-coordinated team of fighters in the most favorable conditions for them and prepared by them. Stepan literally found himself in the role of those spirits who tried to pull him from the prepared position. Everything happened suddenly, abruptly, and they had prepared surprises. Even if not against him, but still - the necklace with lightning, as well as the damn golem-catfish were very unpleasant trumps in this ridiculous and unnecessary conflict.

A meaningful act has been done!

There is a reward for having fought an enemy ready for battle while being unprepared for battle, defeating a more numerous enemy, and showing determination and readiness to react!

Received: one point increase in random knowledge; free talent point in minor knowledge, which can only be spent in the contracts section.

Additional reward from Liarat si Merrinal, Lady of Gifts and Giver of Gifts, loyal servant of Innelas Innelay: one elite-type random meta-skill; increase random meta-skill by one point.

Stepan deliberately does not accept the other rewards, pausing them, choosing only one single improvement for his deed: a minor knowledge with a contract. He literally drenches himself in tears and snot, sobs like a little boy whose game console has burnt out, and wails like an elven treasurer who has been squeezed out of funding for a massive new project without prior approval. It could have been a battle call of an elder spirit, which would have immediately closed all power issues for the next levels.... could have, yes. Stepan was already in no hurry to invest in the minor knowledge section, and he preferred to sign contracts on his own. But this was free!

He constantly monitored his Status, kept track of the talents available for purchase, and, therefore, knew exactly what he could get out of a free contract. He knew what powerful entities were available on the System List, and knew some of them were close to the top tier of elder spirits. Knew that a couple of levels were up and he could hope to see not only the elder but also the weaker higher ones among the available contracts. And he also knew which contract to choose now, if he wanted to resolve the problem at hand with no trouble for himself and no blood for the others. So easy it would be if they attacked now, or if they acted like complete assholes, how easy it would be if these river transporters were ready to simply and uncomplicatedly sell Stepan into slavery at the first opportunity. But he saw no evil from them, and they themselves planned no evil against him. That tied the young man's hands in a terribly unpleasant way.

A second to think, he can't afford more than that, otherwise he'll just change his mind and then he'll have to decide again for who knows how long. Another second and in the status there is a new minor knowledge “contract with an elder spirit: Memory Eater”, and the mind begins a quick assimilation of not so significant block of information. However, contracts are assimilated by the mind and aura of the isekai as quickly as possible, faster only meta-skills, which in general come instantly and without any labor. The block of information is minimal, there is practically nothing to assimilate, only images of the spirit, communication with him, and the specification of the new call. The contract Stepan received was frankly useless and not really needed: the spirit, passing through the branch of both suggestions and agent work, specialized in wiping out various memories and doing it to the extreme quality, so as not to be found and not restored.

Aside from the obvious pulling memories out of the heads, this shit could eat the memory of things, the world, and even space. The perfect trick to erase all auric or spiritual imprints, and then no asshole with fortune-telling skills can find you. Unless that asshole has a trick comparable in power and exoticism to the summoned spirit. Except Stepan himself was able to erase memory, even if not so reliably and massively, and traces of aura and spirit left almost no traces after receiving a Patchwork Echo. No, the contract was still very useful, even for him, but many others were many times more useful, by orders of magnitude even, and it was not just about fighters. There was in the list of options spirit with a hard-to-pronounce image-name which could connect two holes in the ground, dug necessarily shovel, even if they are on opposite ends of the world. And you jump into one hole, climbing out of the other. Even no need to dig it personally - just mark the will of the spirit of the necessary shovels, and there just send an agent with the task to dig a hole. And after all, this Digger Offline works perfectly through the standard protection against teleportation. Track its use will only be possible if you know, at least roughly, what to expect and where exactly will be the breakdown of space. Like, the spirit of the earth sphere, shades of the bowels, and aspects of paths, silence, and connectedness, look for the following characteristics at the right point.

And now Stepan doesn't have an older spirit of the kind he'd like to have. Well, it was not all for naught. In general, the young man decided to consider that he had paid for the erudite conversations with Cherz, who had enlightened Stepan, who understood nothing in the local society, about different aspects of being a free gifted. Some of his earlier mistakes became so painfully obvious that he felt secondary shame.

Twenty-six summons per year, no pauses, you can call every day, the list of tasks is very extensive, the spirit is not bound by strict contractual terms like the Autogoddess' gifts, and there is an opportunity to carry over no more than five unused summons to the next year. The new year starts on the first day of spring, by the way.

The new spirit manifests quite differently in the world from the other elder entities. It was as if he were not pushing through reality, but was quietly and imperceptibly shifting it around. A moment and then a black woolen ball of two meters in diameter, like a spherical Persian cat, but without any whiskers, paws, and tails - just a ball covered with black fluffy fur, hovered over the ship. No one even had time to be frightened, only surprised, as from this black fur, visible even in real vision, so dense was the image of the spirit, flew out dozens of small and pale child hands, only with a bunch of joints, hitting clearly in the back of the head of each of the people on the ship and not quite people. Cherz was expecting something like that, at least, as he managed to raise his shields and tried to step overboard. Still, the shield didn't stop Memory Eater, and Stepan had to order a couple of air spirits to push the falling, emotionless body off the side so he wouldn't fall out and suffocate.

A second, and then the whole crew decided to lie down to rest. Stepan lay down on the deck with the rest of them, closed his eyes, and began to exchange images with the spirit, explaining to the mighty and surprisingly peaceful and good-natured, as for its rather sinister appearance and aspects, entity the task at hand. He thought that if the same Lady Pike he'd been looking for was coming down the river right now, he'd freak out, call Squidward, and just drown everyone involved because he'd had enough. Fortunately, no unfamiliar captainess or anyone else around, though the spirits had even scoured the shore for random witnesses. The new contract was successfully eating away at the team's memories, leaving only a gaping void in the place of the last battle.

The spirit also filled this void, but he wasn't that good at forging memories, and many spirits of lower rank could outdo him but this particular individual, who had already consumed all of Stepan's reserve and forced him to use the renewal for the second time, was able to work by mass, and the erasure that had already taken place made it easier to modify and fill the voids. In the same passing manner, the spirit ate traces of the battle from the deck of the ship, personal belongings, and even from the section of Dantra where the battle had taken place. The black ball that had long since passed into invisible form was lazily riding the waves, completely content with life and its place in it.

In contrast to the wearied Stepan, who was treating the three seriously wounded sailors, giving commands to the healing spirits. At the same time, he finished rotting the second pirate boat, melting the ice block that had managed to float downstream, and collecting the corpses of the attackers, if there were still large fragments of them. Some were swept ashore by the waves, some were given a primitive puppeteer, rising as a sub-zombie on shamanic propulsion and walking on their own, some had to be picked up in pieces, and not all of them were found. The adept who had been injured in the steam explosion had lost her entire left arm and a fragment of her thigh somewhere, and the legs of her frostbitten colleague had managed to be carried too far away. The reserve continued to dwindle, contracts were running out, and even if he hadn't gotten into debt yet, he'd still have to rebuild the arsenal.

New memories appeared in the minds of Bastius and his crew, incomplete, unable to pass a normal check, but adequate enough not to have to pass it. A routine water skirmish, in which two of their companions had been killed. They were attacked by some raiders, strangers, without flags and signs. They got kicked and retreated, leaving behind meager trophies (most of them will have to be disposed of somewhere, along with the corpses, because the current trophies are not meager anywhere after all). All in all, the mopping up of the memory and the battle site took about three hours, dawn had not yet begun, but it was already close. The east was getting lighter little by little. By this time Stepan had finished with Eel's head, or rather, finished with the spirit, and then just handed the shaman the images with the answers to the questions. A very pleasant and intelligent entity able to communicate with people and shamans, so it was not difficult to read the received images.

Well, Stepan now knows for sure the rumors about Teresa Shchuka's connections with the agents of the secret guard of Dantmark are not rumors, but the truth. And she really had to deliver a message and secret reports from a small satellite town, not even formally Free, but under Dantmark and Duke Herbert de Dantrel. The local bosses of that town, who felt the Duke's tight grip on their throats and balls, were displeased with their machinations and managed to calculate the one who would deliver the evidence of these machinations, jointly shared the money to hire Eel. The poor thing has disappeared, she was beautiful, though a bitch, what a pity, but don't be upset, your lordship, we have brought you some presents. The Duke, of course, would understand the subtext, but, as Eel's employers thought, he would accept a ransom for their insolence and would continue digging, rather than start hanging respectable people at once by the Duke's will.

Stepan, who was not concerned with this story did not go any further. He only memorized the names and images of the employers, just in case. They were not as angry as the late Rumorias. They didn't want him dead personally, and their crimes, as Eel understood, were economic frauds and tax evasion on a large scale, not any blackness with altars and bloody victims. At least those crimes became known to the hired magician, who also collected information about the employer. Again, it was just in case, and there was no chance it might come in handy. Stepan didn't look for anything else, and asking the spirit new questions would waste his reserve, which was not infinite even with replenishment.

Having finished with the crew, which now stood back in their seats with empty eyes, he gathered his things, having met the dawn, and then, having covered two large shoulder bags with spirits that would protect them from getting wet, stepped overboard and swam to the shore. He didn't want to interrupt his trip, he wanted to make it to civilization after all, not get off the bus in the middle of nowhere, but it wasn't working out. The longer he kept Bead at anchor, the higher the chance someone would notice them and everything would finally go to the known place. And the corpses would have to be disposed of, even if the boats had successfully turned to dust and gone to the bottom. Because Stepan had a suspicion that these individuals would be searched for, and he had contacts of another entity, which was very good at getting rid of bodies, and, as it seemed, he could now protect himself from it.

The crew and their captain will get memories of how the weakling shaman, a day and a half ago, could not withstand the river rocking and said that the spirits were waiting for him on the shore. He asked to move to the nearest available approach closer to the coast and disappeared. Well, it happens, especially if you have spent your whole life in a remote corner, and here Dantra, with all its endless landscapes, rocking, and nausea. Of course, you can laugh at the boy, but not in a mean way. Bastius even tried to talk him out of it, but the young man was in too much pain to tolerate it.

It happens.

Whatever.

* * *

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

Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/86785/575310

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP