Настучать в бубен / Hit the tambourine: Глава 17-2

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Camrad_RIP 27.08.24 в 20:34

Stepan looked thoughtfully at the shore of the rather waterlogged lake. At that site, where there is a small sand bank, as if it were a wild and unvisited beach. Almost unvisited, because on the sand there was a campfire built long ago and washed by rains so long ago. A good campfire, with a stone barrier, a small deep hole, and even a piece of log dragged from somewhere. The log, however, was a failure, having managed to get damp, rotten, and covered with mushroom caps, so the shaman would not sit on it. The lake, at which the only man in the area was looking so attentively, was also looking, one could say. It looks in the answer, as Nietzsche abyss from Statham's quotation. The scout spirits caught a thing hiding there, at the bottom, which was kind of undead, but not quite undead, but at the same time not a vampire of some kind, and not a spirit, which settled in a body that was already dead but had not had time to rot. In short, it looked at Stepan from the depths of the lake, without using its eyes, but it still saw him.

Camrad_RIP 29.08.24 в 16:13

Stepan didn't want to leave, because evening was approaching, and it was going to rain. And it promised to pour not just rain, but a real storm, with howling wind, lightning strikes, and randomly appearing driftwood. It was not the kind of rain that even a master of shamanism would be able to ward off so easily. Yet in the heavens right now he could feel the spirits of winds and storms playing and anticipating the coming storm, and among them, Stepan was sure, there were a couple of spirits of elders almost manifested in the material world. It was a rare occurrence, even in the fierce winter storm he had sheltered the Lyady from, there had never been such a rush of immaterial beings. In theory, he could try, if not to pacify the spirits, then to bribe them to move the most powerful front away, but that would take a lot of time and effort. If he had been given such a task, he would have taken it, but instead of a task to work with the weather on a large scale, he was sent another quest from the Autogoddess.

Camrad_RIP 29.08.24 в 16:15

Stepan had nothing against it, it was easier for him, though the reward for a small task was good, but now he had to take shelter somewhere and make that shelter strong enough to wait out the storm. This piece of beach was actually quite nice. It was a bit low-lying, but it had a natural drainage for the water, it covered the steep lake shore on three sides, and even the wind was weakened by the topography. That's at least half the cost of supporting the defense that can be saved if you meet bad weather in a clear field. Taking into account the fact that the heavens would be raining for at least a day, and about half of that time it would be stormy, the question of saving reserves was not such a silly hobby. Shelter from the wind, deflect the rain jets, put out a duty protective circle, provide warmth, and support normal humidity. This will allow him to survive the storm with full, as far as it is only possible in nature, comfort.

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 04:44

If the lake dweller didn't mind. The creature was quite strong and, what worried Stepan, well enough camouflaged that he could not understand where exactly this thing was hiding and what it was in general. Well, without an active and unceremonious scan, he couldn't figure it out. But if he started it, then surely the terribly territorial and location-bound creature would definitely take offense, and then conflict was inevitable. He would have preferred to put the local beast to sleep and restrain it for the duration of the storm, but the lake was not only a home and food base for the creature, as there had been no fish here for a long time, and not many frogs left, but also a personal domain-territory. This little thing was far, very far away from that monster, which Stepan did not dare to venture into, but was still an unpleasant enemy, unambiguously unpleasant, like all adepts of witchcraft in general. The grasp of a battle shaman was certain of that. Witches and spellcasters are not the most dangerous of opponents, but they are almost always capable of unpleasant surprises and trouble. So, it was either leave, preferably far away, and prepare to face the bad weather there or solve the problem here. I didn't want to fight, and I didn't want to hit him first, because Stepan was a very non-conflictive person, but I didn't want to be neighbors with some evil shit.

Camrad_RIP 29.08.24 в 16:18

In the end, the tactics were pretty clear. Right in line with my grandfather's precepts. If a fight becomes inevitable, pretend not to wait for a blow and fuck the asshole when he opens up at the moment of his attack. The approach is very dangerous tactically. There is an inevitable risk of missing the very first blow, but it is strategically advantageous because the injuries you inflicted will be classified as self-defense. No, the young man would not hesitate to strike first, but hitting a witchcraft-wielding monster while it was hiding at the bottom of a marshy lake covered by all its defenses was, to put it mildly, costly. It was better to wait for it to come closer, though he didn't want to risk it. Only to find oneself with a half-empty reserve and still under the attack of the lake-sitter was even less desirable. There were no fish in the lake, but there were enough traces of the inhabitant getting out of its lair and moving far away. The unknown shit preferred to come out of the water from the opposite end of the lake, but nothing would prevent it from following the shaman. It was possible to camouflage its traces, to hide itself from pursuit, but this was a new expense and there was always a risk of running into a predator with unique properties, which disguise would not deceive.

Camrad_RIP 29.08.24 в 16:23

Stepan made himself comfortable, but he did not forget about the protection of his ass. He put it even ahead of this comfort: a standard defense circuit, a second one hidden in the first one, territorial training, albeit cautious, so as not to conflict with the enemy's, a second layer of territorial influence, in order to weaken the enemy's control, a couple of traps. And appeals. There were summons, too, both front-row alert trackers, whose purpose was only to identify and signal threats, and stronger entities. A couple of separate teams, with strong spirits at the head, one of which was trained in power-eating, if you could call it that, literally confronting witches. The second of the strong ones was adept at weakening and restraining, creating ghostly barriers and defensive traits, confusing and restraining even a stronger enemy. Especially if that enemy had a material body. As a physical argument, Stepan had his faithful Lizard. He had summoned him not directly into reality, but into a small man-made pocket-cavern so he would not phoned by its presence. Stepan was thinking of blessing him with a system endowment, and if his warrior spirit didn't fail him this time, he would do just that, even before Squidward Plus.

Camrad_RIP 29.08.24 в 16:33

He didn't call the last one, as it was too powerful a caliber, but he made a billet for the call so the octopus manifestation would go as gently as possible, while he would be covered by several more simple spirits. He did not rush to endow the octopus with the gift of the system, even if this endowment would guarantee that he would be promoted to the senior spirits. That was because he wasn't sure of his reaction and obedience, intending to test the technique on Lizard: both were fighting spirits with a clear image of animal or beast-humanoid nature, several very powerful exotic skills, and a strong contract that was reflected in their system status. They even have relatively similar personalities, so if the weaker one won't jump up at a sudden increase in strength, the other won't either.

Camrad_RIP 30.08.24 в 20:44

Probably.

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 04:44

Probably.

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 04:45

I suppose.

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 04:45

Hell knows.

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 04:45

By the time the shaman finished his defense, deliberately disguising it as weaker and under the stronger one, creating a third layer of really serious defense, a light rain began to drizzle. The wind blew gustily and viciously, tormenting the body of the naked shaman, who had not hesitated to cover his skin with several primitive but strong protective patterns. The fact that the creature was not as powerful as the slightly shabby nest of a powerful bloodsucker led by its parent did not mean that the young man took this enemy lightly. The moment the lazy drip was replaced by a wicked and sharp downpour, literally a wall of such, he activated both insulation, wind diversion, and even rain deflection at once. Still, the same method, when there is no clear shield-barrier, just each drop is slightly deflected to the side and does not fall on a small beach clearing. The water in the lake, by the way, despite the wind, was barely bubbling at all, as if the storm had not dared to touch it. A clear sign of someone's control over this place and the area.

Camrad_RIP 31.08.24 в 04:49

He made a fire, the spirits had brought some wood, made himself a comfortable stool out of sand compressed by the spirit of the solid and sand warmed by the spirit of the heat, got rid of the rotten logs, and even put a cauldron on the fire. The porridge was going to be especially good. He had spared no expense to make it with the remnants of a special enchanted oil made from several magical kinds of grains that he used to summon infernal spirits. It tasted amazingly good, but it still brought tears to his eyes. Even though this oil could not be stored for a long time, not tolerating any magical preservative effects, but for that third of a bowl you could buy a house in the city, and in a good neighborhood. The boy ate with appetite, but at the price it was a dinner that would have made any other local oligarch sick to his stomach. This is again to the question of how rare and valuable spirits with such an exotic specialization are in reality. Or, more precisely, how much these spirits know how to value themselves and their working time.

Camrad_RIP 30.08.24 в 20:54

The storm was raging all around. One time a large broken branch of an acacia tree nearly fell on the young man's head, and in a beautiful artillery parabola, it flew almost on the poor man's head. The earthling, who was in tense expectation, and therefore all on edge, did not squeal only because his teeth were clenched almost to the point of crunching. And the spirits had not warned him, because the branch had flown past him, was not dangerous, had no magic or poison on the branches, and had not even touched the fire. Speaking quietly and unprintably, offended by such a sudden and sneaky attack, Stepan performed a vandal act of counter-battery warfare and cut off the pest acacia with a couple of sent spirits, which struck two air blades right under the root of the already wobbly tree that grew on a hill three kilometers to the south. And yes, the wind was that strong.

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 07:56

Reprofiling the shields and putting them in a more attentive selective mode, giving the spirits the appropriate commands, the shaman lay down on the warm sand, covered himself with his favorite cloak, smiled a baby's smile, and closed his eyes. Not falling asleep, but sinking into meditation, while one of the spirits planted in the body carefully controlled the aura, making its fluctuations identical to those of a soundly sleeping man. The shaman in a trance felt like a bullet in the chamber, if not a taut string, ready for a deadly burst, waiting for its coveted hour. He waited for the attack for an hour, a second, a fifth, and still, he waited for it, about dawn, at the very dog time. The storm had already subsided and pieces of trees were not flying everywhere, but it was still raining, the water level in the lake had risen and approached Stepan's rookery by a couple of meters, and there was a dense fog.

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 07:57

The unnaturalness of the fog was not striking, but that was only when it came to ordinary people or weak gifted people. Even an adept, especially one unfamiliar with witchcraft, could miss the subtle flair of magic in the shroud of water droplets because there was no direct magical influence there. Still, the shaman, or rather his spirits skilled in indirect influences, immediately sounded the alarm. And it became even greater when their alarm was supported by poison detectors, which had been circling the awake pretender ever since his visit to Little Ronna. There was no poison as such in the ащп, but there was pollen of some kind, in small concentrations, but with such a killing tranquilizing effect that it didn't need much. It was not even a sleeping pill, but a hallucinogen, the dream of any mushroom elf who was earthly, not local. Visions and dreams under such a drug of natural origin would be very vivid and colorful.

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 08:04

Stepan did not react. The spirits let the poison through to him at his command, but at the first signal of danger, the young man began to breathe clean air, which was brought directly into his trachea, already filtered and sanitized. A thin web of barrier on his whole body, almost invisible even at close range, prevented the crap from settling on his clothes and body. He realized with annoyance that he'd have to clean the pollen off his belongings later if he didn't want to get high every night for the next couple of weeks.

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 11:17

//“If I were an immoral asshole, this pollen could even be traded.” - He thought, lazily listening to the images sent back by the poison spirits, realizing more and more deeply the very essence of this stuff. - “Minimal harm to health, no physical but deepest psychological dependence, easy to dose, easy to store, and low magical activity so it won't be tracked down by auras. It's the perfect drug, man, you could just create your own Hydra. And roll, roll, roll.”

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 11:37

Having decided that for such business his honorable grandfather would really come out of his grave and kick the shit out of his grandson, despite the difference in magical potentials, Stepan put aside the idea of getting into the drug business instead of I.T.(*), returning his thoughts to his future confrontation. The inhabitant of the lake, exactly the inhabitant, Stepan did not doubt it, and that's why he was only glad, because he had had enough of female devils, he didn't hurry with the attack at all, he first let his victim breathe the fog with special impurities. Stepan did not disappoint such a cunning opponent, ordering the spirit responsible for masking the aura to create the image of not just sleeping but also a hallucinating individual. The spirit had done brilliantly, a remarkably experienced creature who had successfully seen the auras of a human on high, as well as many other species of intelligent life, over several eras of his life. It's only a particularly fattening little spirit, but it's useful, eh!
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Camrad_RIP 31.08.24 в 05:12

Nothing happened for the next half hour, as if the attack had never happened. Even the fog was gone, dispersed by the new breeze. But then... Then something at the bottom of the lake, sitting in the deepest muddy pit, in the center of its power and the most primitive witch's field of concealment, moved. Stepan could scan it much more fully now. The disguise blurred, revealing a little more than it had. He wouldn't be able to put spirits in a bird, not in this weather. But, even if he did manage to protect some night owl, and he would, it would stand out a lot on its own for being in the storm and ignoring it. He'd have to put additional layers of camouflage on top of the main one, which would make the idea of bird-settlement meaningless.

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 11:41

Instead of birds, several water balloons with small ghostly fry inside them were circling in the sky on a complex trajectory. It was like an eyeball made of rainwater and a lens made of the same ghostly fish. Each of these eyes, there were five of them in total, was not a bad analog of magic binoculars. Each of them looked with the same magic vision as spiritual vision, but in different spectra, overlapping the gaps in each other's perception. So it was possible to determine the enemy's type rather quickly. Not undead after all, but some living and humanoid crap of witch-type, which so merged with the lake and the source located at its bottom with aspects of Sludge, Stagnation, and Decay, as well as the elemental belonging to water, that it began to be perceived only partially alive. The thing was also small, noticeably smaller than a man.

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 11:44

It was a very old and very old goblin hermit witch doctor, who had all but abandoned any life outside the lake and only came out of it for the occasional hunt. The hunched, gnarled figure of the cruel and hungry creature crawled onto the beach silently, not disturbing a single stalk of reed, not splashing a single drop of water or putrid silt. It, the silt, covered the enemy with a solid lump, and it was because of the silt that the goblin, who was under a meter and a half taller, seemed much taller. It was the silt that hid his aura from the attentive gaze of the spirits of the first line of defense. But the spirits of feelings and meanings, by the way, quite caught his emotions, hunger, and anticipation of long games with a defenseless victim, howling in pain while it is sliced into pieces and eaten alive. In one hand the creature held a lump of some abomination, like a handful of rotting silt and algae. On the other, it clutched a dagger, crooked and seemingly barely held together by a single piece. Not a bone dagger, but an iron dagger that had been worn away by time, rust, and being at the bottom of the lake. However, in magical and spiritual reflection this knife made quite a different impression, causing a desire to take this toy for himself, if it were not for the obvious fact that such a peculiar artifact was tied to the life and existence of its owner and creator.

Camrad_RIP 31.08.24 в 05:27

Not a master, not even close, but still not just an adept. In the place of his power, he seemed, in the volume of his aura, even stronger than Eel, though not by much. Also, despite its power and affinity for the terrain, this little shit has hardly ever seriously fought an equal opponent. There's no place for him to meet those equal opponents here, in the middle of nowhere, where even other goblin tribes are found in trace amounts. And so it turns out that a wildly old and experienced spellcaster, who used to be the king of this place, literally the alpha predator of the neighborhood, fights much worse than even an ordinary adept. He rushed forward swiftly and easily, as if he weighed about nothing, he rushed forward by a cunning route, bypassing the spirits who had not noticed him, with a stroke of his knife he opened the shield, overloaded it with a lump of rot and broke a hole in the second and with sincere surprise he ran into the third.

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 11:47

Stepan did not play games. The freak, who might as well have been Sylvia's human life, had gotten too close to him. He was met by a powerful bolt of lightning merged into one from several spirits at once. And the barrier, active and powerful, struck, though not with a shock, but with a curse of weakness. At the same time, the shaman put his control over the territory on afterburner, not breaking, but weakening the enemy's control, trying to send him a couple of cunning curses. Spirit Debuffer weakens the goblin even more, though it isn't necessary. The enemy isn't some huge thing like a witchcraft-wielding legendary troll or an ogre, but an already puny little thing that reinforces its puniness with spells. The barrier spirit puts up barriers and tries to shackle the enemy, deprive him of maneuver, and prevent him from escaping the panicked runt, whose lightning bolts, air blades, water whips, flashes of light, and vampire curses have begun to crumble his silt defenses. To keep him from hiding again in the water and on the bottom, where he could last much longer, with a theoretical chance of tiring Stepan and getting him to leave without his attacker's head.

Camrad_RIP 31.08.24 в 05:35

The Lizard did no such bullshit, simply striking as hard as he could, suddenly and sharply, like diarrhea, coming out of the ambush crease just to the side of the hoarsely howling super-goblin. He struck not with his blades, which the runt managed to inexplicably intercept with his knife, almost pulling off the lizard's spiritual fingers, but with his tail covered with a dense layer of black smoke, like a baseball player. The evil runt flew as if it had indeed begun to identify itself as a ball, hovering for a moment at the point of highest lift about fifty meters above the center of the lake. There, he was struck by another super lightning bolt from several smaller lightning bolts. Still, in such stormy weather, the summoning of air spirits was much easier, and the spirits themselves even put extra strength into the strike, simply out of the joy of seeing such weather and its reflection in the World of Spheres.

Camrad_RIP 31.08.24 в 05:41

It still didn't kill the witchcraft adept, who was almost completely and utterly fused to his place of power and authority, though it did kill his sludge armor, exposing a puny and completely naked figure, not even green, but some kind of disgusting white. The figure was completely bald, but it had an aggregate that truly matched the hentai manga about goblins and elven queens, with a length and thickness that would put any earthly porn actor to shame. The slightly burnt goblin jerked sharply downward, not so much accelerating his fall as pulling himself to the bottom of the lake and the place of his power, trying to restore his defenses, replenish his strength, and get out of the battle, which he did not like at all. At the same time, the shore of the lake bubbled up, spewing a dozen mud blobs toward the shaman, who was still lying there and hadn't even changed his position.

Camrad_RIP 31.08.24 в 05:43

The clumps of slimy stuff were intercepted by the spirits. Only one managed to hit the line of the shield, breaking through the first of the three, vaporizing in the second, which swallows it and redirects it to the spirit world, losing the enemy spells somewhere there. The goblin seems to have set the attack clearly against this particular shield, which, by the way, is not such a simple trick, albeit primitive in its essence, but, it seems, worked on thoroughly. Stepan himself, a little tensed up, once again took control of the other's witchcraft. Apparently, the goblin stupidly did not know this was possible and did not know even the basic methods of counteracting the interception, as if not believing that it was even possible. Well, the skill is not ordinary and quite complex, requiring several developed areas of mastering the gift. And now, the attraction, which pulled the short man to his favorite muddy pit at the bottom suddenly changed polarity, as if a magnet turned the other side starting to push the caster screaming in horror back up. At the same height, where before he was caught up by another attack, this time not only by lightning but also by a ghostly wolf's maw, which swallowed and chewed the body of the goblin, which until the last moment desperately called for his native lake, which betrayed him at the last moment of his long, exorbitantly long, as for a goblin, life.

Camrad_RIP 31.08.24 в 05:50

"I killed the old dwarf," Stepan said into the void, finishing his commands to the spirits, feeling the remnants of the spells on the lake, which would now slowly become an ordinary body of water again, not a place of power. "And also a local aksakal, almost a relic of bygone eras. I will not tell anyone about this feat."

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 11:48

And what's more frustrating is that he didn't even get a level. They only gave him a certain amount of experience, but not much. Stepan understood perfectly well that his enemy, though he was strong magically, but in terms of danger was inferior to Ugryu by almost an order of magnitude, representing anything worthwhile only in the center of his power. But it was still a shame. He wanted a freebie but got only a little adventure, which he didn't give a shit about, and some moral satisfaction from the fact that he killed Stepan, who wanted to kill him first. If the creature had just sat in his lake all night, Stepan would not have gone in either, for there was no need. But no. The goblin struck uninvited and indiscriminately, simply because he could, and if the young man had been unprepared for the fight, he would have had some chance of success. Well, if the shaman had not defended himself, giving the fight to the spirits already summoned.

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 11:50

He lazily handed the orders to the air spirit with a penchant for Cleanliness and Neatness, waited for the pollen to blow back into the lake, then finally turned off the air pumping into his lungs and the barrier around his body, rolled over onto his other side, and after only a minute he was sweetly asleep. No dreams came this time, as they did every time after he'd strengthened the dream defenses and tripled his retinue, even summoning one strong spirit, on a three-year contract with the prospect of a permanent contract.

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 12:09

He dreamed of Commander Shepard staring tiredly at a half-empty bottle of collector's liquor, dejectedly listening to the Blue Mediator's, i.e., Liara's, plan to sway their Archnemesis with the power of her hypnotic blue tits. She said they had the support of the entire Citadel behind them, and the Reapers in addition, all working together in close alliance, so they should have a chance. Somewhere off to the side, the Catalyst was crying, grieving that he wanted to solve the problem of coexistence between organics and synthetics in a completely different way, and if united against a common enemy, then not against such a terrible one.

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 12:10

In short, typical sleepy bullshit, Stepan even stopped being surprised a long time ago.

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 12:11

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Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 12:11

The forests, hills, and swamps bored him worse than a bitter radish, and he had not been happy with the beauty of the scenery for a long time, but the way through them was easy, and the rare encounters with dangers ended in nothing. Having no reason to take risks, Stepan carefully avoided troubles, preferring to go around rather than go straight ahead. Spirits were constantly scouting, and trace wiping, and cloaking were applied in time. Plus rare implanting of spirits in his own thinn bodies. He kept a pretty good pace. For example, why go around a wide and rather deep ravine, when you can simply jump over it, having strengthened your body with a universal spirit, and having previously protected your belongings from damage due to the jumping impulse? Why raft down a wide stream or search for a ford when you can cosplay one cheerful carpenter and walk across the water? You can also walk through a swamp, but you have to look more carefully at the place you're walking through so you don't end up right in front of the lair of another predatory creature. Or not predatory, but just does not like to be trampled on.

Camrad_RIP 31.08.24 в 06:07

He encountered another small necropolis but the undead in it had long since become almost powerless. Not an entire town or a small caravan, but an old and nearly collapsed watchtower. From the looks of it, this tower was designed to watch over the road, once upon a time, a very long time ago. If one looked closely, mostly with spiritual eyesight, one could even see where the now completely overgrown road had been. A quick reconnaissance showed that there were quite a few corpses piled up in that tower, which had not been buried or ritualized, and which had degenerated into the spontaneously risen dead and a few ghosts. Over the centuries the tower had stood abandoned the creatures had almost ceased to show signs of activity, huddled in the remains of the room with no way to escape. The ghosts, as spontaneous entities, could not leave the place of their death, and the corpses were obviously too chopped up to be able to get out of the ruins. Some of them must have successfully scattered around those very hundreds of years ago, and the rest were still at the site of their deaths.

Camrad_RIP 31.08.24 в 06:16

In principle, one single brave enough individual with a good amulet, a bag of blessed salt from ghosts, and a silver-plated axe against material undead would be enough to put this anomaly to rest. The presence of a gift is not necessary, as well as outstanding military talents, the main thing is not to panic at the sight of the undead. Not a warrior, even an old, but still strong, grandmother could do it. Scratching the back of his head and accepting the small system task, the young man honorably fulfilled this task, calling specific spirits and then still conducting the ritual of resting on top turning the almost non-dangerous burial ground into a grave that is already exactly non-dangerous. He finished his effect by ordering a couple of spirits of stones and walls to destroy the last supports of the tower, letting it finally collapse and covering the corpses with a burial shroud. The spirits didn't find anything of value in the tower, which wasn't surprising. Those who had slaughtered the local guards must have appropriated everything of value. The shaman picked up the reward for the completed assignment, a vial with ghostly matter, perfect for necromancy rituals or specific calls of the sphere of non-life, and silently went on his way.

Camrad_RIP 31.08.24 в 06:23

Two small assignments, both non-auto-divine, were much more enjoyable, and he did them with full dedication. The first assignment required a powerful and multifaceted territorial influence on another ruin. This time without undead and completely abandoned. The remains of some estate with a small farm in the set were in such a deplorable state that there was nothing left but a grassy foundation and a single half-collapsed wall. The shaman needed to put a rather complex blessing on this place: recovery, pleasant dreams, accelerated healing of wounds, acceleration of reserve replenishment, and some kind of protection from uninvited guests and undead. It seemed that such a list would have recently been considered an average assignment, but now, it had become a small one. Legitimately, because there was nothing particularly difficult for Stepan in this assignment, it was literally a day's work.

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 12:14

The reward promised a very small amount of experience, increased affinity with spheres, easier work with guardian spirits, increased efficiency of territorial magic, and one random property. Needless to say, the earthling was directly energized with enthusiasm. Even more than that - he was burning with enthusiasm! He worked hard, even spent a couple of contracts from those he had saved for later, when he could get a cozy house for himself, without any pity. Some of the work was done by spirits. Some of it he did with his own spiritual body and witchcraft skills. Toward the end, he even considered summoning the Jolly Milkman, but alas, the young man had no affinity for the house. Instead, he summoned the echoing presence of an old house-spirit that had practically disintegrated with the death and desolation of his home, feeding it a quarter of his reserve and some available offerings. Exactly available. He hadn't bought anything from the System, enough of what he'd gathered along the way. With proper scanning, it wasn't hard to change his route to find a rare herb or a stone with an unusual spiritual reflection.

Camrad_RIP 01.09.24 в 16:30

The entity sucked up the offering with absolute readiness, and now, according to Stepan's estimates, it would be able to maintain and coordinate the blessing for at least five or six years, if it was not intentionally disrupted. After that, the spirit would go into hibernation again and continue to shrivel up, but there was nothing to be done. Spirit can not change the place of residence. It can't be recruited as a retinue. As an option, you can try to take away with you the cornerstone of the estate, and after calling and binding the spirit again, deceiving his nature as if he is still in his native home. But Stepan just didn't want to bother. He made a note in his notebook that if someone needed a house spirit, and one with a history and an old one, not one that had been born with the help of rituals, he would know where to get what he was looking for. The spirit, by the way, resembled a very furry Cheburashka, or Kuzya from an old cartoon, but it was not very intelligent; other guardians of groves or separate parts of the stream were much stronger and smarter.
Кузя

Camrad_RIP 01.09.24 в 16:35

The closed task gave the promised property called “regeneration of subtle bodies”, which was, in essence, the opposite and yet allied branch of the already existing “high resistance of subtle bodies”. Where the second property allowed one to train and call more actively without hurting oneself and crippling aura nodes in the process, the first one helped one to recover after one had practiced. The smallest micro-traumas of auric veins inevitable even with proper training, healed and disappeared almost instantly, light overstrain passed in a day, and even full-fledged injuries, especially those not too serious, could dissolve with time. Also, the owner of this property more quickly heal serious injuries and mutilations, if it will be taken care of appropriately. The full combination of this pair of properties came out in full synergy, almost multiplying each other.

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 12:16

Stepan almost never allowed himself to work or call to the point where he started to feel like shit. Unless you counted the rarest exceptions, like the healing of Small Lady. But just reducing the accumulative effect of fatigue from workouts, increasing their effectiveness, and overall high-energy body tone is just fine. Add to that the ways to work more flexibly with the Patchwork Echo, which now could be bent around him even more, without risking tearing its own ass to the British flag along with the aura, it was a reason to drink something strong. If Stepan was into drinking hard liquor. Some other properties were also slightly strengthened, for example, the same “toughness of spirit”, which now, even more, accelerated the recovery of brains after a blow or coming to his senses after some wave of horror. Oh yes, the “blessing of health and long life” also began to affect the regeneration of wounds, making it more advanced and better. The aura is still intrinsically linked to the physical body if we are talking about humans and other flesh-covered individuals. However, with the increasing strength of the gift, the gift allows you to depend less and less on the physical state.

Camrad_RIP 01.09.24 в 16:41

The second assignment came at the moment of being near some very deep, too-deep cave, from where magical power was flowing, only more rigid and uncontrollable than it was on the surface. The entrance to the Underworld according to that very magical erudition was literally a separate world, very loosely connected to the real world. You could dig a dozen kilometers deep, but you couldn't dig into the Underworld, and you could go down a couple of hundred meters and find yourself in an endless and ever-changing labyrinth of tunnels, halls, rifts, and failures. It's the Darkest Dungeon, where all sorts of things want to eat you, kill you, use you as an incubator, or at least take you as a slave if we're talking about sentient beings. As if such creatures live there, but their character has been corrupted from such living thousands and thousands of years ago. Stepan wasn't even going to go there, no assignment or reward would make him do such shit, but luckily he didn't need to go there.

Camrad_RIP 01.09.24 в 17:56

The rather narrow breach was, in fact, not even a breach, but just a gap through which nothing of any size could get out. But something as small but dangerous as two or three large predators could enter an ecosystem foreign to them, not to mention the larva of something large that would grow under the sky. A reason to beef up the defenses and guardian spirits with sensory features. A reason to get away quickly and stay away for a couple more days, doubly paranoid about what's going on around you. Certainly, not a reason to get into this DEEP DARK DUNGEON on his own, especially since no one would pay him for the expedition. The assignment of the System caught him just at the moment of decision and the first step away from the wild and unbridled power of the crack in the earth.

Camrad_RIP 01.09.24 в 17:58

The System demanded the strange, as it always did. To take advantage of the flow of alien surface energy to summon and conclude at least a one-time contract with a strong spirit of the distant bowels, anyone, any specialty, any direction. In principle, Stepan had the appropriate spiritual bestiary in his luggage of knowledge, albeit not as advanced as the usual call practices. In order to perfectly adapt to work in the dungeon, it was necessary to properly invest in a couple of specific knowledge available to pump, such as “the practice of call to the spirits of the Underworld” or “methods of shamanic work in exotic conditions”, but the root skill is the root skill that can replace any other. On the other hand, a Senior Shaman, especially one stuffed with systemic knowledge, even if he finds himself in an extremely unfriendly environment, such as an Underworld or, say, in the domain of some higher entity will retain the lion's share of combat effectiveness. But yes, like ordinary gifted people, he would have to get used to a different energy pattern, even if he could do it faster.

Camrad_RIP 01.09.24 в 18:03

The summoning itself had been successful, though tense. The images used and seen by these spirits were too different and alien. Stepan felt as if his knowledge of spirit dialog had been robbed of about two points of talent. Not literally, of course. It was just that the task of summoning a not particularly strong spirit had suddenly become more complicated, even though nothing seemed to have changed. And the spirits of the deep earth, on average, are noticeably more, though not strong, so resistant, stable, and angry than their more ordinary colleagues. The reason for this is the very energy background. Existing and developing in such a harsh etheric environment, the inhabitants of the depth involuntarily adapt and develop natural resistance. But even with such a handicap, the call did not fail, although the spirit did tear itself out of its bonds a couple of times. The Earthman did not call out to just anyone but called out a rather advanced entity. Not the strongest and not dangerous in direct combat, it specialized in scouting, searching for danger, and other methods of advancement in the Underworld.

Camrad_RIP 28.08.24 в 12:20

After all, he hadn't planned on going down that hellish asshole, but life took some strange turns. He wasn't going to fight elite river pirates, just as he wasn't going to fight a trio of bloodsuckers or lick the pussy of another vampire, a very conniving and equally beautiful vampire, while under tight mental and bloody control. The fact that he wasn't planning to do something didn't mean he wouldn't have to do it, due to the lack of alternatives as such. The contract for the five summons had been finalized, even managing to negotiate a tighter cooperation. The spirit realized that the shaman was not a weakling, and the shaman himself adjusted to the spirit's images and came to a peaceful and satisfactory agreement without mutual threats and attempts to break the enclosing circuit.

Camrad_RIP 31.08.24 в 06:29

The hardest part of the job wasn't containing the underground spirit and its aggression, there were only a few blows, more for show than for the actual purpose of killing. No, the hardest part was to create an analog of a closed barrier, which would maintain inside approximately the same energy-etheric picture as in the native for the spirit Underworld, and then call the entity into this energy bubble. I used up a lot of energy, spent one charge of reserve renewal, worked hard to prepare the area, and even hastily carved a small totem, inhabiting it with specific spirits of pure magic that worked with the magical background. The deal was fixed in the spiritual perception, the contract bound the spirit with strong ties. The young man carefully opened the circuit and sent his newly hired employee away.

Camrad_RIP 31.08.24 в 06:32

The assignment was completed, increasing Stepan's resistance to Underworld energy, and increasing his affinity with the spheres of the respective directions, again giving him almost no experience and one random meta-skill. This meta-skill was once noted but then crossed off “Intensive Development I”, which increased the experience scale gain factor from active and strenuous Rocky-style training. It was a useful thing, but it lost out to “Peaceful Development” in every way. First of all, it requires full dedication in training, and preferably, the recipient should be trained. An earthling, constantly traveling and constantly alone, simply can't pour absolutely all of his safe reserve into training, because there would be no one to take care of him, his defenses, to help him recover after exhaustion and a thousand other little things.

Camrad_RIP 31.08.24 в 06:37

However, in conjunction with peaceful development and the presence of all kinds of assistance from local authorities, then yes. It would be a real imba. Especially if you dedicate training not to something, but the same tantric practices: there would be a triple addition of intensive, peaceful, and lecherous development. Even without multiplying the gains from each other, if they were simply added to each other, there was still an impressive result. Alas, Stepan did not have a kind princess on a unicorn over his shoulder to give him a big harem and allow him to grind on its inhabitants. Stepan even looked around, almost believing this princess on a unicorn would crawl out from behind the nearest bush. But the bushes remained just bushes, even without pianos in them, not to mention princesses, and the shamanized man shrugged his shoulders, finishing cleaning up the traces of the ritual and leisurely going on his way.

Camrad_RIP 31.08.24 в 06:42