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

* * *

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Probably.

Probably.

I suppose.

Hell knows.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

//“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.”

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!
*

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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."

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.

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.

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.

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

* * *

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Along the way, he managed a couple more minor assignments, getting to four-fifths of a level twenty-six scale. Reject a couple of quests from the Autogoddess, as well as drooling over yet another special offer in the system store. This time he couldn't resist moving it to the waiting list. It was a great cape, though. Colorful and covered with feathers of various birds, it served as a home for the supreme wind spirit, as well as several dozen strong spirits and three older spirits of the same sphere. Even an untrained gifted person with such a cloak could easily demolish houses with air rams, blast them with vacuum explosions, pump out oxygen in areas, and so on, even until the cloak ran out of energy. The energy in the artifact, in fact incredibly strong and capable of withstanding a ballista shell without getting a scratch and without injuring the bearer, was replenished by itself, but slowly, slowly, slowly. But there was a reserve, as in any other stationary storage device in the ritual circle, so it would take a long time to fill it up again and even longer to wait for the energy to replenish itself.

Yes, the artifact's protection is also good, including even curses or indirect damage, which simply blows out of the cloak's owner's aura. It will also help a lot during a call, especially with the spirits of the air, because it serves as a banner, a passport, a red ticket of the deputy-silovik-diplomat, to whom it is very harmful to health to insult and to refuse is deadly dangerous for the career. But the main power of the cloak is not in this and not even in the fact that it allowed even an adept to fly, and very fast, at the level of a helicopter of some kind, overtaking dragons and kicking them, but at the same time draining the battery at a wild rate. The main trump card is that it can cross wind paths almost effortlessly and with maximum protection for the crosser and three to five passengers he takes with him. In principle, with this cloak, even as an adept, you can jump to the other end of the continent in a couple of minutes of flying through the spirit world, but to the other end of the state in the same couple minutes of flight and transition. You only need to give the image-mark-coordinates, and the higher wind spirit will transport you without unnecessary risks.

On the downside. The transition, as well as the attack and defense barriers, are absolutely all air element-based. If you want, you can find countermeasures, overpower shields, stop attacks, and block teleportation. Or even prohibit the use of air calls in a certain territory. All this is quite possible, but it is a weak consolation for the enemies of the artifact's owner. If you are attacked by a tank, even a perfectly known model, which you know every vulnerability, so you can destroy it by hitting a vulnerable place, you still need a good old AT missile, which you will use to destroy the enemy. Otherwise, what good is it if you know the vulnerabilities of a tank or a very powerful artifact if you can't use them? Especially if the owner also knows about these vulnerabilities and tries to cover them as much as possible.

He didn't add another vulgar and brainwashing super-lot to his favorites. Though, he did think about it, even if only for a brief moment. A glass ball with a murky gray haze inside was, among other things, an excellent observing artifact, especially if you could power it from a source under some magical tower. If one could focus the orb on a person within a certain city, one could first study their defenses, and then find the keys to them. All this can be done directly through the ball, there is a surprisingly wide range of scanning, and very little noticeable and lost in the natural background, especially if the background is initially high. And having picked up the keys you can start to act on the mental body and sensual perception of the victim, as if standing next to her and at the same time in the mode of maximum secrecy, but without leaving the cozy and protected tower. Of course, it is also possible to strike to death or curse, but with noticeable difficulties. The basis of the artifact is sharpened for mental and charm-like influence, so it is much easier to drive her to suicide, make her a vegetable, or steal a cuckoo than to torture her aura or rot her flesh.

The tool is very useful, even though the farther away from the target, the weaker the impact. Ideally - work on targets within a couple of tens of kilometers, but if careful and on the already known defense, then a hundred and fifty or two hundred kilometers is also not the limit. The problem is not in the weakening of transmission because it will not be possible to use a strong enough suggestion through the mediator. Still, mentalists are quite skillful in minimal energy saturation of superfine suggestion. No, the control will start to fail, and stealth, so the owner of the artifact, or trace of the signal will be detected if they try and are ready. In general, if Stepan had his own top-class magic tower, he would have put Big Brother's Billiard Ball in the queue for purchase. Not even for perversion and bewitching the beauties he liked, but for surveillance and information gathering.

Only Stepan didn't have a magic tower with a personal source in the highest configuration. He had no magic tower at all. None at all. He could appeal to Autogoddess and demand that she immediately provide him with a magic tower, but he wouldn't do that. And because Her Milfy Milfiness could fulfill the demand, the tower would be accompanied by a mentalist magistress with a love for playing with the minds of her subordinates, a convenient collar, a wild list of fetishes, and a desire for a big and pure sincere love, which for a mentalist, probably, is close to the limit of available perversions. No, no, thank you, he would rather build this tower himself, slowly and sadly, but surely and irresistibly. Even if it was with his bare hands, without magic, and with only a sapper's spade as a tool.

* * *

Stepan stopped again for a day and a half. This time not for rest. He had to renegotiate some of his contracts with the guard spirits and scout packs. He had already learned the lesson that if the land was uninhabited and abandoned, it was not because the local population did not want to inhabit it, but only because the local fauna and flora were strongly opposed to the settlement of their native territories. So he didn't save either on guarding his sleeping place, or on laying the way, or on fending off predatory animals, among which there were magical mutants of various degrees of danger, or on the constant support of the alarm group if it was necessary to start fighting on the move. The next hill was dry, stable, and cozy enough to make a parking lot right on it. There was also someone's abandoned but still stinking of animal droppings den. Stepan didn't settle down in that hole but he liked the hill and spent a day and a half on its top, constantly stoning and calling to the familiar spirits, who knew the shaman and readily renegotiated contracts without any fuss and suspicion. So he, tired and drinking his concoction of local herbs, was caught by another assignment, already an average one.

System assignment (average): using any available methods of calls or other application of the gift to transfer to a distance no farther than one day's crossing to the Free City of Dantmark, while not going further than three kilometers from the point at which the assignment was received.

For satisfactory performance, the preparation and the transfer itself must be accomplished no later than two decades from the acceptance of the assignment.

Full execution requires teleportation without the use of intermediate anchors between Dantmark and the current location.

Perfect execution requires reaching Dantmark, maintaining maximum stealth, and not causing marks on the city's tracking systems by your actions.

Reward: closing the experience bar to twenty-sixth level; a significant increase in affinity with the spheres of Space and Paths, aspects of roads, Distance, and Movement; a significant increase in the likelihood of spatial manipulation branch talents and increased mobility.

At full execution: two random uncommon reward tokens; two random “mark” category properties tied to random and as yet unrepresented in status high spheres.

At perfect execution: one random rare or elite meta-skill; one random improved property related to spatial manipulation; plus one characteristic unit to the least developed attribute at the time of the assignment.

The first thing Stepan did after reading the images of this assignment and realizing their meaning, was to put it on the waiting list and start setting up another camp for a longer time. There were no sources nearby, not within a three-kilometer radius, so there was no point in changing the location. While preparing the place of the future parking lot, Stepan was pushing the help to get some answers, the first of which was the possibility of closing the already quite close twenty-sixth level, and the assignment to transfer this level to the twenty-seventh. Alas, but no, the assignment clearly indicated the level to which the experience bar would jump, and if he took a new level before completing the assignment, the twenty-seventh level would not be available to him, just give him a certain amount of experience, depending on the complexity of the completed assignment.

The assignment, by the way, was nowhere easy, even if the reward suited him with its quality. Especially a unit in the underdeveloped Resistance, but the complexity of the assignment was at the appropriate level. The main problem in Stepan's understanding was that if he was going to perform the assignment, he had to focus on the highest bar and only on it. To make the transfer not only successful but also unnoticeable. Actually, it was precisely because of the need to be inconspicuous that he had not done something like this until now. Still, to hide the spatial transition, no matter how to perform it, is quite a problem, even for a shaman. Yes, a shift in reality through the spirit world is much easier to pull off unnoticed than a classic portal. But the backlash would still be serious. The only saving grace was that we were not talking about the inner walls of the city, especially its upper part, nobility quarters, or protected temples, but about the distance of a day's crossing in any direction. The crossing through a good road and in a cheerful condition, even if there were only forests and hills between the city and the point of arrival.

In fact, there are not many such places. Land near Dantmark is valuable, villages or estates are plentiful, and there shouldn't be too many ownerless and impenetrable forests. However, it's easier to find a deserted place, than within the city limits. Yes, even there the transition can be sporadically detected and, given the reigning Big Search, it will be detected. However, there is a difference between the density of networks and fields of scanning covers, their intensity, and the frequency of checks. Either way, he would need to mask his transition with a very high quality, blurring it into the general magical background and hiding it in the shadows of more significant magical influences. If it weren't for the reward involving a unit of attributes, he wouldn't want to risk it, but the assignment had given him a suitable excuse, which meant he could start preparing his path. After all, he was sick of these wild lands and solitary passages, they were in his liver, he wanted to go to people and normal food, and cheap food, and not purchased from the system and therefore worth as much as an airplane wing.

Having put the quest into the waiting queue, Stepan did not prepare exactly the transition, so the queue would not deactivate. He had learned his lesson after the last average quest. No, the first thing Stepan started to do was to prepare his camp, to create a strengthened call circle without any strict connection to the quest itself, just general strengthening and defense of the calls. In addition, he was engaged in another, no less important and even somewhat interesting task, for the sake of which he had to transcend his own dislike: studying the situation in Dantmark and finding ways to deceive the city's signaling charms. After all, he had direct access to the person who in hiding from this search is forced to understand almost better than those who watch the signal charms. Besides the obvious search for a solution, it was necessary to know where exactly he was going to get to, what centers of power and authority there were in the city, and to whom it was best to get a place under the wing of “just an ordinary apprentice”?

He planned to deal with it later, once he was near settled territories. For now, hiding his tracks after the massacre, he took the wildest routes, deliberately avoiding encounters or settlements. Several times he crossed roads or trails, even a single path, but it was crossing, not moving along them, trying not to be seen by anyone. A vampire so strong, so well-fed, so empowered by his endowment, carrying a minimum of cargo (which was minimal for her strength) should have reached Dantmark by now and entered her lair. With her ability to run for days on end, her great stamina and speed, it was no surprise, but one could only hope she didn't eat any passersby. Judging by her temperament and preferred methods, she would only bite them in such a way they wouldn't understand why they had been haunted by this annoying weakness since morning.

Closing his eyes, sitting in a meditative posture, and sinking into a trance, Stepan manifested over his palm a fully naked doll of his doll, not dressed in a hunting suit, but fully naked, concentrating on it, using it as a mediator and antenna. And then, after a minute, without any summons from the spirits of the suggestive type, simply by his own will, influencing the doll with the spiritual body that had undergone another modification, he plunged into the memory and thoughts of Sylvia Malter, browsing them like an open book. An interesting book, it had to be said, because the life of a full-fledged nestmistress was already intense. And after the mass search for the unknown villain had begun, the intensity had become almost unbearable.

Sylvia at the moment of communication through the doll was lounging in a hot bath. She returned to Dantmark where the chicks were already waiting for her not even starting to worry. The bloodsucker had been captured quickly, she had not been able to signal distress, and her absence was still within normal circumstances. Yes, the lack of communication through amulets was worrying, but, as they say, things happen, and her silence was not beyond the usual lying on the mattress in a particularly dense mode. Now, having appeared before the scarlet eyes of the initiates with a scarlet drop, she began to give orders, collect reports, and estimate losses. She had losses, she couldn't avoid them, because even if she was warned about the raid and the search, even if she was allowed to leave, almost defiantly closing their eyes, she couldn't and wouldn't have been able to get all her assets out of harm's way. And this does not count the assets that had to be sacrificed in gratitude for the timely warning, and the gratitude was quite sincere, and the requests, it must be admitted, were quite modest.

Some merchants tried to renegotiate deals. A few of the vendors pressed for delivery dates and demanded additional guarantees. One smuggler supplying alchemical reagents pushed the goods already paid for by Sylvia to third parties, pretending that it was the right thing to do. A couple of shopkeepers, who were on credit and went under the unspoken roof of the scarlet eyes, were pressured and demanded to change the roof. One of the medium-small officials of the magistrate's office, feeding from the vampire's hand, was gently moved from a useful position to a simpler one. Another official, much higher, more expensive, but also more useful, was summarily executed, even though he had officially slit his own wrists during his house arrest. Apparently, his even higher patrons, for whom he also performed all sorts of unofficial tasks, cut off the ends and decided to get rid of a too-dirty individual, who, as it turned out, was in contact with the blackness.

The special stomach pearls of predatory carnivorous snails, one of the Underworld's creatures that survived well on the surface, though they required special care and did not live in the wild, were highly valued, sold for a lot of money, and were always eagerly bought. Mages, merchants, even priests - a truly universal reagent, suitable for many practices, even Stepan could use it. But the fastest way to ripen these pearls is not just by fattening snails with meat, but with fresh meat, and preferably alive. Or better still, human meat. This did not make the pearls, which in reality were just stomach stones, but very similar to authentic sea pearls, better in quality, but they grew and formed amazingly fast, as if on yeast. Everyone in town suspected that the official and his relative, who kept his snail farm and crushed his competitors not without the help of the official, were practicing this approach, because of the excessive yields he was harvesting. But a much smaller number of them were aware of the fact the man also traded in much rarer snail pearls, the elite subtype, not snow-white, but bright blue.

Snails regurgitated such a harvest if you fed them with special alchemy, and fed them for a long time, the costs were not profitable, and snails after regurgitation of elite reagent sickened, and even died, so the profit was not worth it. Or you can feed snails still alive babies, preferably girls who have not yet their periods. Then yes. Then it would be cost-effective, even if we take into account the additional payment to slavers for silence and to the head of the guards, both regular and secret, for turning away. Such a charm, Stepan felt nauseous, though he had gotten used to the local mentality! Except during the Big Search, the poor guy didn't have time to cover his tracks and the temple of Gaia stood in defense of the children, demanding a fair public trial and an equally fair punishment. As a result, the temple was thrown a bone, the taxes were reduced, the rest of the outraged were also somehow silenced, and not always with gifts, and the culprit could not bear the burden of guilt and opened his veins. Sylvia, who had received very extensive information about such a sensational story, assumed that he even opened his veins voluntarily, just so he would not be helped to die with less dignity and more suffering, plus the rest of his relatives would not be slaughtered as an example.

Thus, the return of the fugitive vampires, whose nest, one of the half-abandoned buildings in the lower town used as a warehouse and transshipment base, had been publicly and pompously put to the fire, having executed a couple of bandits, went without pomp and unnoticed against the general background. They returned, of course, to the main lair, which nobody dared to touch. This is the private property of the noble family, what vampires, are you out of your mind, apologize immediately and pay a fine. That hunter of bloodsuckers, by the way, did pay the fine and even muttered something apologetic, leaving the house with his stormtroop. Sylvia had given a gift of three of the fines paid by the hunter's squad to her man in the guards. By the way, she had kept his bloody pulse on him for almost fifteen years, occasionally and very discreetly nudging not just a new and promising young man, but half a centurion.

The problems in the city were only a small part of the returning bloodsucker's problems, though, because it had fewer chicks, and those were not losses that could be compensated for so easily. A new fledgling would need at least two or three decades of training and coaching before it would be strong enough to work at night and not fall into catatonia during the day. And that was if the material to turn was gifted, accelerating progress and enhancing the general characteristics of the inanimate body and aura. Sylvia had a total of six subordinates, three of whom were her converts, whom she had selected and raised while they were still human, who knew about their future and tried their best to earn it. One more was converted by her fledgling, also retaining direct inheritance, and the remaining two were of different parents, but who had brought her bloody patronage and recognized her authority.

It was six. Five left, and it could be four. It could have been in the “almost guaranteed” category. Two of them were ambushed in a stupid ambush, set up not for them. They'd accidentally gotten hit by hunters chasing one of Edward's fledglings or a vampire without a nest. If there had been two experienced bloodsuckers, even if they hadn't been of the most fighting nest, following the teachings of Liranmil, they would have taken the group down even in the daytime. But this pair consisted of one experienced bloodsucker who had been sucking Scarlet Drops for a hundred and fifty years, while the other was a newcomer, barely able to move during the day even with conscious effort. The veteran overpowered the enemy and broke the circle, but the chick, a young and very skillful swordsman, a favorite of women, and just a sweetheart, was seriously injured.

Mentor and nanny, and also parent, literally Sylvia's right hand dragged him to Dantmark, led him through the guards, and paid smugglers she knew, but the boy had little chance even when he was put in the healing earth and watered with blood. He survived only because of the constant feeding, regeneration was not going on. No, it was only getting worse and worse, very unpleasant. an enchanted arrow mixed with a bag of silver dust in the face and a pot of consecrated combustible mixture on the back of the head. Apparently, she'd just have to let him go into eternity, he wouldn't be able to regain consciousness, or he'd have to be kept alive for a good forty years in that state, with someone around him 24 hours a day to feed him blood and power. If it had been that “right hand”, Sylvia would have tried to help, perhaps, getting into debt to someone, but here even the parent herself recognized that the guy should be scrapped - the harsh truth of non-life under the scarlet drop.

The second loss was not technically a loss, because no one died. It was just that the same newcomer and non-native who had come under the scarlet patronage of Malter, also voluntarily and with conditions, decided that he had taken everything he could from her nest and the mistress. However, he did not want to repay for another hundred years at least. So he used the knowledge he had gotten from her, the reagents he had stolen from her, and the skills he had mastered in secret from his mistress to cut off the control-tracking leash, by which the parent could not so much influence the chick as monitor it and know how it was feeling. For this endeavor, he had spared no expense in letting an entire family of the second generation, including a minor third, serve Malter faithfully for ritual and blood. A very motivated non-human. Sylvia, staying quietly furious and blurring the story of the murdered family, suppressing rumors and panic, was feverishly patching up the gaps in her net of influence.

The escaped ghoul was responsible for communicating with criminals and smugglers. And since he had broken off all his contacts, he would not hesitate to sell information about the network to anyone who wanted it, if not to intercept it. That left Sylvia with only four bloodsuckers at her disposal. And these bloodsuckers were all female. Of the two men, one was almost dead, and the second was not a man, but a faggot. Stepan would have suspected some strange twist of fate, literally asking him to apply the full arsenal of the Autogoddess's skills to this cozy nest, but for the followers of Liranmil - and Kryzmar, but he is often overlooked by virtue of a rather long ago death even by the standards of the eternally undead - this is quite the norm. They traditionally turn more women than men, especially if the parent and hostess are female. In the case the nestmaster is male, the ratio is one-to-one, which is the norm for adherents of most other teachings as well.

So, Sylvia, though not fully normal, stands on her feet strong enough and, if she manages to find Riksar, the traitor still hiding in some wood, she will be almost in the black. The losses are minimal, as for such a serious force majeure, the profit is, even if most of it she does not-thought-not-remembered, managed to shit herself with a slight fright. And nothing would stop her from suddenly remembering that she needed to help a master of shamanism get into town under the guise of a mere apprentice, at the same time providing the boy with a legend, a place to live, and general confidence in the future. Stepan is unhurried and cautious going over his rosary in his hands, at the same time shuffling Sylvia's thoughts and memories. Primarily those that concerned Dantmark's defense and scanning systems, both inside and outside the city limits. The bloodsucker knew a great deal, but just by virtue of her age and natural powers of observation. She had noticed many small details that could be put together into a coherent picture. Stepan liked what he saw on the one hand, but not so much on the other. Everything was much better than he had feared, but at the same time much worse than he had hoped. Especially against the background of the Big Search, which increased the general attention and made everyone very meticulous, ready to sniff out any detail.

The main scanning contours were located in the city limits. They were simultaneously connected to the city magic tower and its owner - Master Miller, a very good fire Elementalist, also skilled in water magic, and a bit of Artifactor - and to the palace of the ruling family de Dantrelle, who had power over almost all the charms-scanners in the city while the tower acted as a repeater-amplifier. The walls of the city and the towers on those walls, the city temples, the portal hall, special amulets and artifacts buried under the paving stones of rich neighborhoods, as well as some individual estates, mostly those where the closest allies and vassals of the Duke lived, also played their role. All of this made the goal of getting into the city by direct teleport and yet unnoticed very difficult, to say the least, for Stepan's current level. About on the very border with impossible in principle, especially in the allotted time and without extremely costly preparation.

When it comes to the suburbs, things are much nicer, even if the tracking of the fabric of space and its state is set at a level definitely above complete zero. Powerful perturbations will be caught and beeped with a guarantee, but a small puncture for a loner has a chance to disguise and hide, especially a shamanic one. Of course, here, closer to the wild lands and the territory of the Horde, there is more attention to shamanism than, say, on the coast, and therefore in the sensor complexes of ritual inscriptions to search for shamanic passages and disturbed astral paths were given a lot of resources. But a one-time transition made by a Senior Shaman personally for himself carefully hidden at the level of the second rank of agent works to notice much more difficult.

After searching for answers, working through different options, and even making Sylvia think about the answer, which in her head was purely theoretical-hypothetical, and which she immediately forgot about, he finally adopted a rough plan and drew out its still indistinct contour lines. First of all, he would rely on the work of the city portal, through which all sorts of cargoes of high value are regularly transported and which phonates into space when activated. Under this background you can try and disguise yourself, to hide a small, tiny puncture through the world of high spheres at the time of opening the portal of the usual. It would muffle the sensors in the palace and the tower a little, just a drop, but it would resonate with the rituals embedded in the walls, giving him a second and a half or two seconds. Of course, he will start preparing for the transition much earlier, but he will make the final step at the moment of transition and it is not difficult to find that moment. The schedule of portal activations, both day and night is scheduled by minutes and almost never changes without very serious incidents.

Ideally, of course, it would be good to make everything even more inconspicuous, literally dragging himself with the help of some specific spirit, which will personally carry and pull the shaman in the right spot. Alas, but it's too risky, especially if you still need to take care of stealth. Again, it is necessary to prepare an exit point, and such spirit carriers often have problems with the coordinate system of the real world. Those that are devoid of such problems, either require a special time of year, or a decade of calls, or are very expensive, or require sacrifices that the shaman did not want to make, or may try to lose or eat their luggage, either on purpose or by accident, or all of the above together. If an Earthling had more time, had access to a magical source, had more purchasing currency or extra talent points, he would think differently, but here we should remember Rodislav Gastoldovich Yanin's attitude to the subjunctive mood.

The most important thing in his situation is that he doesn't need to point at the city himself, send the appropriate spirits, control them from such a long distance, or even build a chain of totems that relay his image commands. He has an anchor and a beacon to which he can point and through which he can send images, literally calling spirits directly to the said beacon - Sylvia Malter. She was the perfect tool for him, due to the doll at his disposal, and no worse than a fully prepared call circle, reinforced with totems. Only mobile, able to fight on the level of another master fighter, and also very pleasant in appearance, just a dream of an isekai. If other Stepan had seen her, he would have been filled with envy. Actually, it was on her, on their connection shaman made a bet. Otherwise it, in the specified time frame, to the highest level will not be able to fulfill, the maximum on the second of the three, and that with risks.

Having sketched out the outlines of the coming plan, he continued to prepare his place of work, again creating a primitive stone circle, making the area more saturated with his own will, strengthening it, and masking it from possible sensors. In fact, he was engaged, in addition to the standard bundle of protection-concealment, in a favorite trick of witches and spellcasters - creating an artificial zone of aether compaction and stabilization. This is not a source of magic sprouted from scratch. Alas, Stepan had the wrong rank and skill set. But all the same, his strength is replenished faster in this place, his calls and spells are easier to perform, and the spiritual world responds more readily to his attempts to control it. In the meantime, Sylvia had been going about her business quietly, not even paying much attention to the fact that she'd sent a couple of letters and notes, and had changed her schedule a bit, setting aside time to check out an old lair outside of town that she'd personally gone to check out. No surprise, despite her dominant position and loyal servants, both dedicated to Scarlet Drop and still alive, the vampiress wasn't shy about running errands herself if it wasn't possible or cost-effective to send someone else.

Of course, the time she spent was also worth a lot, but there was a pause in the piling up of things when everything that needed to be done had been done, but the next step had not come. The vamp-style femme fatale was going to spend this time in idle relaxation, maybe not even alone, but with one of her toys, but then, suddenly, she changed her mind and decided to do those things that she usually either put off or dumped on her assistants. On the night of the inspection, she went through a few stashes, renewed the discharged amulets, put in place a rusted trap with a poisonous needle under the floorboards, checked the chain of traces, which was too close to another cozy dugout, and then turned away from the route. Stepan would have been happy to use one of the vampire's dugouts, but they were common dugouts, known to everyone in the nest, and therefore could be very inconvenient. Sylvia also had her own private hiding places, but Stepan couldn't say for sure whether it was only Sylvia who knew about them, or whether some smart guy was keeping an eye on the place.

It would be easier to create a transition point from the ground, knowing for sure that no one was, had been, or would be in this patch of slightly marshy woods, especially if Stepan succeeded. Sylvia, who had entered the swamp about half a day's journey from the outer wall of Dantmark, did not think about her actions at all, passively selecting explanations and rational reasons for them. Such is the nature of puppet control. It is almost impossible to detect it, unless the puppeteer shows it intentionally, or simply screws up. Stepan didn't show it, and he couldn't screw up, because he was too diligent in watching his actions and the result of them.

Sylvia, frozen in the middle of a patch of dry ground, closed her eyes and began to sway slowly on the toes of her hunting boots. At that moment she did not think or exist at all. In this moment she was almost Stepan, who had transferred himself and his will into her body, leaving the very minimum of his spirituality in the almost jettisoned physical body. Her-not-her aura was strangely unstable, trembling and twitching in a way that from the outside if you looked closely, you might have mistaken her for a shaman rather than an adept of bloody practices. Or think she was having some sort of nasty epileptic seizure, for that matter. With every second the earth in the place where Sylvia was staying became more and more saturated with power, the power over her was consolidated and strengthened. The woman moaned softly, sang an inaudible but perfectly discernible melody, opened her mouth wide, unnaturally wide, and out of it flew a transparent cloud, almost invisible even in magical vision. A strong spirit with a rare specialization not so much as a concealer, but someone who creates stationary concealing webs and fields.

The first call was followed by several more. Leaving Sylvia's body, in which Stepan had almost completely settled, he placed the spirit and consciousness of his slave in a doll, plunging them into a dreamless sleep forgotten by the undead. He called leisurely and carefully. Some parts of the aura, too tightly bound to the body, were very unusual, and the spirits sometimes reacted nervously to the call from within such a vessel. They, the wiser ones, could see that it was not a vampire calling them, but only someone who had taken the vampire's body, but they still felt uneasy and uncomfortable. Those who were stupider, were easily deceived by the images-traps of the shaman, who eroded their will and confidence in case of excessive panic, aggressive or simply insolent behavior. In a separate case and just for the sake of testing, he used Sylvia's scarlet eyes for subjugation, successfully adjusting their subjugating effect on the spiritual victim. Yes, Lady Malter is not only strong in bloody control. She has other tricks for brainwashing, too.

The session of combined call lasted almost six hours, and during this time most of the spirits of the concealing type were transported to the desired point. The piece of land had been taken under Stepan's power, becoming an extension of him and allowing him to transmit images to the spirits even without the presence of Sylvia's body. He could even feed them the reserve, albeit weakly, in a limited way. Toward the end, the bloodsucker, who had regained some of her consciousness, spilled some of her blood, cutting open her wrist, and creating an additional layer of protective and masking barrier. With Stepan's help, putting herself on the list of owners of the territorial structure, the array being built from scratch, even if not exactly defensive. Now she could get in here at a moment's notice, there was no need to further disable the defenses specifically for her. At this point, having healed a small wound and refreshed herself with blood from the flask, Sylvia calmly and confidently went about her business as if nothing had happened, already knowing exactly the reasons for her delay, as well as the reasons why she shouldn't worry about lost time.

For the next week, the bloodsucker went about its business, while Stepan, still holding and even strengthening his territorial power over that piece of swamp, was preparing for a new stage. In general, the synergy of puppet magic, shamanism, and witchcraft was amazing, allowing to overcome one of the main disadvantages of witchcraft: attachment to the land and place, which weakens and weakens the adept of witchcraft as the distance from the point of application of forces. Even if you don't bind yourself to a certain area, you will still weaken, just with the difference that you will be able to create a controlled territory again and become strong again, instead of being permanently weakened. The puppet resonator, supported by the spiritual connection and the ability to send its influence, the seal of the spirit, along with the calls of the subordinate contracts this shortcoming, if not canceled, then gives a workaround. The creation of many shreds of territory, which will be spelled by you as if you were already there, always there, although, in fact, you only occasionally support these spells by the forces of one of the dolls.

The only thing that cooled his enthusiasm was the fact that Sylvia was not the easiest victim of puppet magic, so without gifts from the System and the Autogoddess, who had supplied the components for the puppet, he would have to make very narrowly sharpened puppet-type artifacts designed to work exclusively as a transmitter. And even so, after all the expense and preparation, at his current level of skill, he would not reach what he could do through Sylvia. However, even so, if he wrote a high-quality textbook in which he would describe in detail all the advantages and disadvantages of this method, ways to master it, and adjust it, then any adept of witchcraft, would tear off such a manual with the hands who wrote it. Even if they can do something similar. In his performance, it was maximally adjusted base, ideal even by System standards of erudition.

Some witch with skills of shamanism and summoning spirits, but without a bias in involuntary practices could see it as a wonderful way to strengthen and overcome their shortcomings. You could start looking for someone to sell such a marvelous method, especially if the witch was also pretty. For some reason Stepan, even though he thought so jokingly, felt a shiver of foreboding run through his body, as if on this spring night, quite cool after the recent rain, someone had blown a hot and prickly wind carrying crumbs of sand by the scruff of his neck. Having banished the unwelcome flash of intuition - as if he didn't know that such thoughts could be thought in jest at most, and not too loudly - Stepan continued his work, the features of which were becoming clearer and clearer with every hour of labor spent on it.

The second time Sylvia went to the marshy islet incognito, without warning anyone, because all her charges were busy with one errand or another, and Malter sometimes allowed such sudden outings on her own (as well as the rest of the fledglings, who also had their own projects). This time she didn't need to look for a suitable place, just to confuse the tracks a little, check for tracking, and then rush straight to the right spot. After a sharp spurt of strength and taking a drop of ancient blood, hypothetical trackers, accustomed to a completely different vampire, could be in for a very unpleasant surprise. There she spent another six hours, ferrying through several spirits of the strong and a crowd of change. And at the end, when she sat down in a pose absolutely and to the millimeter identical to Stepan's, only that their complexions were slightly different, three already activated totems appeared in her hands, one after another, having previously disappeared from the shaman's hands.

Sylvia, with the help of instructions from Stepan, who was a little overstressed and had to replenish his reserve with meta-skill, installed these totems almost by herself. The instructed spirits obeyed almost-Sylvia with noticeable reluctance and creaking, but obeyed, perceiving her as another instrument of the shaman's will, only more willful and unpleasant, because undead. The placed totems worked and began to strengthen the connection between the two points of coordinates with a link to the reflections of these points in the world of spirits. At this point, the mutually tired ritualists finished another day's work, and Stepan sent Malter back to her normal state and then went to bed.

Despite the way he'd shielded himself from dreams and whatever might come in them - he'd put out a pair of mutually covering dream spirits with a flair for demonic presence - he was still dreaming about some bullshit. A huge ghost without a face, but with a mouth the full width of his head, dressed in a heavy and shabby robe and chains, literally bulging with ghostly muscles, like a steroid-pumped jock, yelling something about “Necros flowing in his veins, replacing hearts! !!!”, controlling a huge walking three-kilometer golem, the center and torso of which was a real ancient necropolis, or rather its ruins. And the necros really flowed through its auric veins, pulsing in time with the dead ghostly hearts, all three of them, as if to make them beat again. It would have been funny, but the creature's aura was so creepy that it was creepy even in sleep, even to the guardian spirits, who resolutely dragged the sleeper's consciousness away from this stream of images.
Отсылка.

A wicked-looking kid, even younger than Stepan, and even shorter in height, all frail and skinny, with an expression of absolute rage on his face, walked forward through the sea of creatures, so strange that it was impossible to describe in words or read in Lovecraft. As they approached or attempted to attack the boy from a distance, the creatures fell to the ground as dead and motionless bags of meat, which literally disintegrated their spiritual and auric bodies, even more profoundly, as if the very nuclei of their souls were detonated. The companions following him, or rather, companions, all more beautiful than one another and one more seductive than the other, were also gifted, and so gifted that they could not be given the title of master without adding the prefix “archi” to that title, they preferred to keep silent, occasionally covering the guy not thinking about defense with a shield or knocking out a creature. And so they reached the target. A small window in a blind wall, dark and slightly ajar. Then the young man took out a tattered wallet from his pocket and began counting out no less tattered dollar bills, throwing them into the window and taking a small key. Above the window was written in glowing scarlet blood, which belonged at least to an entity of near-divine level, the laconic and somewhat inappropriate in such an environment: “PAYMENT OF FINES”. A little lower, in the same blood, but in a smaller font, was added the admonitory “park correctly”.

Even more angry and furious looking half-elf, almost burning with fire from his butt, literally bursts into the room of the beautiful elf who was not expecting his visit, telling her that he was not going to waste any more time on thinking and that he had made his decision now. So he didn't care about her methods, he'd get over it, he wasn't proud, but let her teach him fucking mental defense so that the result would be as powerful and fast as possible, and don't care, don't care and don't give a shit about anything else. The blonde maid who appeared behind him, out of breath from running after him, and the nonchalant-looking elf in perfectly fitted, luxurious robes politely, but persistently tried to find out from the young man the reason why his ass was so hot that the temperature in the whole Forest, figuratively speaking, had risen by several degrees. The elfess smiled sweetly, saying that it was not in her power to refuse such a request, and therefore, she would probably go to finalize their curriculum, and at the same time take her favorite sandals and stockings, what's the big deal? The half-elf, strange as if he had less elven blood than he should, instead of exploding in nuclear ass-flames, suddenly calmed down and their dialog went on in relatively even tones.

A powerful scarlet-skinned demoness, embodying all shades of unbridled Rage, naked and pumped up like a weightlifter, listing with fury and anticipation all the things she would do to her victim. The victim, which you can recognize as the namesake of Stepan Normal, almost drooling, looking at her tits, which were the size of one and a half heads of the beholder, but at almost three meters tall high-ranking demoness looked even natural and attractive. And, characteristically, there was no mental impact on the watcher, or rather, it all drowned in hundreds of layers of protective anti-demonic litany, from which the creature even a little weaker could and the very death twist. Realizing that its victim had been distracted, and without her influence at all, the creature asked, even a little perplexed: “Mortal, are you even listening to me? Look into my eyes, now!”. One look into those eyes, specially modified and improved over millennia, could plunge the victim into unbridled rage and self-destruction, during which the one who looked would kill everyone but the demoness. If there was no one around, he would cut himself to pieces. Even though the protection of this damned boy, oozing holy power so that it becomes bad even the highest, even against him her look should have worked. She calculated it all right, had gone into debt, had used up her stockpile of souls just to modify her best weapon, to customize it for her only opponent. If only her enemy had looked into her eyes instead of saying, in a slightly absent-minded tone, not taking his eyes off her tits, “Too late, dearie, I've already made my choice.” The creature roared in Rage as it realized that it had been outsmarted and was now being bullied, and then launched one last furious attack, eager to sell its life.

Stepan woke up rested and full of enthusiasm, even spent some time analyzing the dreams, but still could not get much out of them, only separate images, pieces of them, not put together in a puzzle, no matter how you twist them. Two blades, short and long, shining with holy power and strength, a heavy and as if transparent robe with chains, a signboard with the inscription GIBDD(*), - that's certainly not the appropriate image, - an elven woman, very beautiful with a very penetrating gaze of bright blue, almost azure eyes and gorgeous forms, and that's all. Here, in fact, the image of the elfess was probably the most successful of all, and not because she was, well, pretty and all. He was ready to bet his mask on the fact that it was not a vision, that this face was quite a real elf living in this world. If only to know whether he was somehow connected with her or would be connected with her in the future, he just pulled the first picture he came across out of the noosphere, the layer of the spiritual world responsible for knowledge and meanings.
*

There was no answer, so Stepan enlightened himself with the familiar ways of searching for a demoness, once again promising himself to take on a certain Laghan as soon as he got normal conditions and the opportunity to work without distractions and continue his quest. Despite his good pace, he probably wouldn't have time for a second attempt. It wasn't explicitly forbidden by the quest, but with his current knowledge and talents, there would only be one safe attempt. And if he failed it, he would not make a second, dangerous, and risky one, he would write off the task as failed and make normal preparations, being transferred outside the framework of the task, just at his own will. The shaman scratched his nose and sighed at his heavy - very, very heavy, yes, yes, no need to give him new problems, oh, Powers That Stay - share, and began a new round of calls.

* * *

In addition to the first three, he had ferried five more totems, not counting the individual amulets, which could not be called totems because they lacked most of their functionality, but rather anchor witch mediators. He didn't need Sylvia's presence for these transfers, as well as for most of the other tasks, so he didn't summon her, allowing her to pursue her projects, such as the search for her fugitive and treacherous chick. The third time she would come to the ground sprinkled with her blood would be the night or day Stepan would make the transition, not before. The spirits were summoned, their reserve replacements were summoned, and those who would watch over the honesty of those summoned, somehow in passing he had managed to renew and strengthen contracts with several strong entities that had seen his growth and were now more willing to follow his orders.

The Earthman had contracted a few summons with a fellow jellyfish bodyguard: this spirit, a strong one, only slightly weaker than Squidward Plus in terms of the pure reserve, would cover and protect the traveling shaman from the spirit world. The probability that some evil and hungry, or good but also hungry, thing would decide to attack the shaman right at that moment, attracted by the outbursts of power being released into the spirit world, was not great, not even negligible. The jellyfish, for all their strength and skill, were not good enough for this type of guarding, to be at the point of entry and the point of exit. Their element, their specialty, was following the target, unobtrusive but relentless cover, not reacting to attacks from beneath the fabric of space, with an emphasis on a different metric of the spirit world.

The summoned entity belonged to the realm of Death and carried aspects of Decay and Ashes, but it was so friendly and ready for dialog that Stepan tensed involuntarily, looking for a catch. Either his skill had grown enough that even such creatures spoke to him politely, which was at least partially true, or the spirit was just being funny, or the spirit was mocking shamans in such a way, which was also common. Or, more likely, all of this together, and seasoned with the fact that the shaman had overpaid for his participation in his scheme. A single small assignment, tied to the summoning of several spirits of the Spatial sphere, perfectly suited to the general framework of the task, so the young man did it in passing and as part of the main quest. The reward reagent, a mush of foul-smelling roots and muscle fibers, was quite valuable but perishable, so he had to sacrifice it without pity and with a minimum of bargaining. The hired spirit had obviously affected to the depths of his spiritual essence.

The image of the spirit was memorable and caused a nostalgic grin: a huge skull hanging in a cloud of dark green smoke, only a snake was missing to directly organize a night of memories of Harry Potter. However, appearance was the appearance, but the spirit was paying for its offerings and the reserve it had drained, so the young man was in no hurry to regret the excessive spending. Moreover, the summoning was not paid for a single, but reusable, and it would be possible to attract to his side such a specific spirit, quite capable of playing the role of ordinary security for the departed body of the shaman. The rest of the spirits, of those attracted or even deliberately summoned for this quest, were also of those who could work with space or the spiritual world in one sense or another.

A group that will conceal spatial disturbances and tears in the fabric of reality. A group that will dampen the energy trail. A group of catchers would keep the wild aether from spilling out in case a geyser of energy started spewing out of the rift. And that's just the top of the list because there was also an individual protecting from the seers, resembling a tangle of hundreds of long fingers with a lot of nails, which with these nails literally scraped off all the information marks. A very good suppressor of optical images was summoned, which hid flash, heat, electromagnetic waves, and ultraviolet - there is little chance that drones are flying in the air, that is, ugh, magically modified birds. The glorious city of Dantmark had its own circle of druids. These guys had a lot of influence, did all sorts of useful activities, increased crop yields, and produced and sold defense and combat trees with explosive apples and modified guardian beasts bent on obedience. They also run the drug market, and, as Sylvia sincerely thought, they kept it smart, giving out only high-quality goods that didn't cause disease or progressive dementia, which was why they kept a very jealous eye on the suburbs a couple of days away from the city.

There were enough of their special glades in the area, where all sorts of herbs and mushrooms grew, including those used for alchemy, even very rare and expensive ones. Malter used to buy from them, so she had long ago found out the location of several interesting points, often represented by weak, but cultivated and specially modified sources, which made the already unusual reagents even more unusual. She did not know the exact recipe, of course, for it was guarded like the treasures of their little circle-guild, for such things were treasures, in fact, communicated only under oath and only to their own. That was why Sylvia had spent so much time searching for the place of the call because she didn't want to accidentally start preparing the transfer near one of those glades. In spite of her distorted thinking, she made very sensible decisions within the framework of the task at hand.

Stepan decided to make the transition on the nineteenth night. The penultimate twenty-four hours of the allotted time. Just in time for the midnight opening of the city portal for the exchange of correspondence. He could have started earlier, but he decided to give himself a day and a half of rest, complete relaxation, and recovery of regularly used meta-skills, so only on the nineteenth. Despite all the preparations, he was still nervous, unwilling to lose the effort he had put into the ritual, and even more, unwilling to lose the reward for completing the assignment, trying to remember if he had forgotten anything at the last moment. He and Sylvia stood in the same pose at the same time, facing each other, even though the distance between their faces was considerable. Inhaling and exhaling. Then the circle of stones activated, and the spirits began their dance, jumping from one stone to another, the earth shining with power and will, the very ones the earthman had put into them. The totems and amulets located at the final point of arrival began to resonate, giving a clear response, allowing themselves to be felt through the mediator-Silvia, a doll of that now hovered over Stepan's left shoulder as if it were the same miniature angel. Well, or like a shoulder-miniature devil, but the young man did not like the association at all in the light of recent discoveries.

The first beat went like a beat. The connection was strengthened and made to flow into each other, and the protective and cloaking spirits, whole squads of them, did everything as it should, without releasing even a shadow of an energy trace. The young man felt himself one in two bodies, controlling himself and Sylvia. His spiritual body and hers as well. The second beat already required more effort, especially from Sylvia, who began to infuse her own reserve, releasing blood to the ground, and feeding it while the ground was giving strength to the bond-ritual. And then the third beat, the most important one, happened. Stepan closed his eyes, just as the bloodsucker had closed them. But still, they saw, even through the lowered eyelashes, an impossible-colored door, which appeared right on the ground, outlined with amulets, totems, and ritual grooves, inside which Stepan and Silvia had to pour mushroom powder and some crystal dust saturated with power. By the way, the bloodsucker had gutted her personal stash of reagents for the occasion. The young man took a step forward, commanding the group of defenders, preparing to fight for his life or to flee into the distance without a backward glance.

It was as if he had frozen for a moment in the fall, as if he were everywhere and nowhere, as he had been every time he had been engaged in spirit transitions through space in his native body. Only now there was no spirit to carry him, only his companions, and this invisible-visible door connected the two points of coordinates, even if only for a few seconds. The moment passed, and nowhere was replaced by the real world, dark night, and the smell of dampness, but now Stepan, who had previously gathered all his belongings and was ready for any outcome, stood not where he was before. When he opened his eyes and met Sylvia's slightly mocking gaze - it seemed because of his out-of-breath appearance and reddened face - he nodded back at her and began the last ritual of the ritual - clearing the tracks.

Again close eyes and almost not fallen, let the bloodsucker pick him up and lay him down on the cloak that had been laid out, he gives orders to the spirits at the site of the abandoned camp. The totems quickly decay and rot as the spirits take what remains of their power and resources in payment for their labor. Other spirits, waiting for the moment, begin to clean up the picture, energetically, spiritually, and physically. The trampled footprints disappear, and the trampled grass comes alive again. The campfire and stone circle, as well as other traces of vital activity, gradually sink into the ground, which has become liquid and quicksand. Even the odors are carried away by an unnaturally light breeze, blowing away the very memory that someone or something was here. After about five minutes, everything is finished, and only a few spirits in the world of spheres continue to clean up the final lines, working out their fee.

Everything is also fine at the place of arrival, although there is less work to be done here. Stepan isn't in a hurry to call in large forces, having not yet left his mark here, and he himself intends to wait here for a while, regain his strength, and only then move out. Judging by the fact the confirmation message about the perfectly completed quest flickering at the edge of his consciousness, he really didn't raise any alarms. That's why he can take some time to rest. He looked at the equally thoughtful Sylvia, who was also looking at him, with a wistful gaze, but he couldn't help himself and gave the command through the doll.

"Well, I see you've arrived, pet, I didn't expect it to go so smoothly." The bloodsucker said in a satisfied tone, already figuring out how she was going to use him for her own purposes, as he slowly and sedately undressed before his eyes. "Such diligence should be rewarded, don't you think, hmm? Do you want your mistress to reward you with her body, sweetheart? You want to fuck your night mistress, you want to fuck her, huh? Come on, admit it to yourself, admit my power, and give yourself to me, become my slave again and again!"

She orders the last phrase without objection as he squeezes her hefty breasts in his hands, playing with the cool skin with pleasure, feeling the hardness of her nipples and the tenderness of her pale skin. She presses his hands into those buns, literally demanding to grope and grope, seeing it as a manifestation of her, only her power over him and his mind. It is difficult to refuse her in such a state. Not because she knew how to mesmerize with her voice and sharpen her will, but now she did not use anything like that. It was just that he, having the opportunity to relax, wanting to relax after so many days of tense and risky traveling through uninhabited forests, could not find the strength to refuse the temptation. His conscience, which always prevented him from losing his shores and using the gifts of Allmilfeisha as he saw fit, did not keep silent in the case of Sylvia but also agreed with her, saying that she deserved more than that.

He did not realize when he had undressed, at the same time restoring his reserve and vitality, including, incidentally, Sylvia's blood supply, though not completely, how they found themselves on the cloaks stacked on top of each other, how she had ridden him, sealed her lips with a kiss, biting his lips again. Cold, yet passionate to the point of heat. She takes him into her in one motion, immediately swept away on waves of ecstasy, not from pleasure, not from her lover's skill, or even from a direct order through the doll, but only from the realization that she is the one controlling him, bringing him down and fucking her slave, forcing him to grope her bouncing tits, tug on her pale pink nipples, pull him against her and kiss, kiss, kiss her perfect skin. She doesn't tolerate objections, doesn't seek to stretch her pleasure, seeing her goal as bringing Stepan to the peak, making this another display of her power over him.

And he finished, violently and with pleasure, unable to hold back a growling moan, knowing that the spirits would hide the sounds, the movements, the smells, would hide everything, just as they would hide the shriek and moan of Sylvia's cumming after him. It would hide the way she lay on her back, throwing her legs behind her head, demanding to be fucked immediately, as if she were that slave in the exotic brothel again, not his mistress and lady, as if they had switched roles, and she had fallen under his spell, even if it sounded ridiculous. She demanded to act harder, more powerfully, not stopping the tantric connection, cum not into her, but onto her flat tummy, onto her tits rubbed by her fingers and licked by his tongue, onto her face that had taken on a triumphant expression. And he, as befitted her plaything, obeyed those orders, bending her over, taking her from behind, doggy-style, bursting in the back door, making her cum instantly from the pleasure, from the humiliation she had brought to the mighty and submissive boy by forcing him to pour his seed into her tight vampire ass.

Here she gives a new order. He doesn't suggest anything to her and her doll at all, all these ideas come from her subconscious. She believes it, wants to believe, and lets herself believe it, if only not to ruin the picture of the world in which she is the mistress and he is the slave, not the other way around. And she is on her knees, with his back against the tree, sucking him with a skill and experience she has never forgotten, looking up at him with her scarlet eyes full of superiority, taking his cock out of her mouth only to start slapping herself in the face with it, achieving eruption and almost rolling her eyes in pleasure at this victory, at the fact that she has made him cum from this little thing, at the fact that he is spewing his seed for her, at her will, at her wish and command. Her will and desire are matters. That's what matters and the submissive slave, the foolish and naive boy-toy caught in her net doesn't dare, can't even think of objecting when she slowly and steadily clamps his rod between her breasts, slowly jacking off, bringing him to a new ecstasy, right into her cleft. She looks at his face, sees every moment, every feature, every movement, her own and his, savoring them as she never had before, because it was the only way she could show her power to herself. To squeeze, to milk, to squeeze his seed, to suck it out, to drink it and consume it, to take it for herself, without even letting him know that he was giving her his seed, that he considered it the highest honor, joy, and obedient service only because she had bewitched him, subdued him, bewitched him, and won him over.

Again they are on the cloaks. Again he takes her from behind. Again the tantric hearth boosts their auras, but now he does not hold back at all, bringing the victim to unconsciousness, pouring into her for the fifth time, which even taking into account the tantric rituals is a lot, but it is still enough for the sixth. That's the limit even for enhanced corporeality and overall magical power. Linking their auras together again, he brings her to ecstasy, reflecting his peak in her, forcing her to howl and finish with a sense of deepest satisfaction and power over the defenseless boy-toy. For a while they lay like that, coming to their senses. Even if the inanimate body doesn't need rest so much, her consciousness is still overloaded a bit. So she too lies there, stroking his heated body with cold palms, looking at the one who will be the jewel of her servant collection with amusement and anticipation.

And then they talked, discussing the preparations she'd already made, allowing him to find a suitable workspace in a confident and unhurried manner, but without losing a lot of time in maintaining the legend. It wasn't that easy, but it wasn't difficult, even if he would need to take some more measures afterward, to influence other people's perceptions with suggestive spirits, without much interference or any evil games. Sylvia, even at this moment, clinging to him with her whole body and enjoying the remnants of the aura resonance that hadn't yet dissipated, is being so damn bossy, talking to him like a toy and a slave, but he doesn't interfere with her in that. To be honest, he was a little turned on by it, not by being the “bottom,” no, by the fact that she actually believed in her power, by her awareness of her control and her lack of awareness of it.

//“Well, power really does corrupt, and it also brings out things you don't expect from yourself.” - He thought, lazily playing with the breasts of the vampiress pressed tightly against his side, occasionally touching her scarlet and juicy lips with his fingers, letting her suck those fingers to her great pleasure. - “The main thing is to measure your boundaries clearly to yourself. Only, given the tendency of local beauties to be the first to get into my brains, I won't have to limit myself much, because I'll have plenty of targets for my own lust.

“Well, I suppose this night, as lovely as it was, must come to an end too, Pann.” With undisguised pleasure, openly flaunting herself, Sylvia gives him a reverse striptease, leisurely and seductively dressing, eliciting a reaction that seemed impossible for such a tired body. “Oh, and my pet, it turns out, is so lustful that Mistress will have to punish him. Scary, scary punishment, but you will apologize to Mistress, won't you? Perhaps by cleaning her boots with your submissive tongue? Or with your mouth on her flower, for you, Pann, love to lick it so much, you like the taste so much, don't you? Mmmm, what else could I think of to do with you, honey?”

Leaning over him, she, already dressed and having removed all unnecessary odors and secretions from her body, simply dissolving them into a bloody haze, takes the tip of his cock into her mouth with her lips alone, quickly and lightly caressing the head with her swift tongue. Pleasant and slightly ticklish even the movements turn into very pleasant and still end with another portion of seed for her thirsty mouth, which she swallows with visible pleasure and the same superiority of the winner and mistress. And only after finishing her meal, she releases it, licking her lips with a greedy gleam in her eyes, clearly wanting to lift it again and enjoy it again, but prudence prevails in both of them because he can't take it one more time. He was breathing like a hunted horse, exhausted, despite the tantric connection, which, in the case of sex with a vampire, also required extra concentration and skill.

“Hmm, looks like I've figured out how to punish you for your intemperate stare, Pann.” She nods winking, wiping the corner of her mouth from a spilled drop. “You're a good pet, but so ill-mannered, ah, it'll be a long time before I have to teach you how to lick and beg, but that'll come in time. Now...”

While she stares thoughtfully at the shaman, who has begun to dress, the shaman is doing his best to disperse his aura around his body, giving himself stamina and even indwelling himself with a small spirit that gives him extra strength and vigor. Only after the buff does he find the will to get up and get ready to clean up the most obvious traces of the transfer. Well, the most obvious ones after the most obvious ones, because his spirits have already gotten rid of the last ones. This does not prevent him from politely inquiring of his “mistress”, who is obviously waiting for his interest and questions. He sees no reason not to play along.

"And what did you come up with, my adored mistress?" With a share of poisonous sarcasm and the real resentment that still remained, asks the shaman, meeting the smug look of the bloodsucker. "How will you punish this stupid boy, who was not honored with the right to lick your sweet pussy?"

"Mmmm, I'm going to turn around, walk out of this lovely clearing, tug on the nipples of my pale tits, and cum. Mmmm, so sweetly I'm going to cum." She gives it off with the look of a world championship winner in blood magic if there were such a thing. "And then, my dear, I will just forget about you and this meeting, you know. I will not even remember, as if all memory of you I will cum out. And you will remember and know that your mistress has no memory of that night until she wants to remember. No, no, no, no tears and pleading, no matter how much I would like to play with your tongue or sit on your face, my pet. Alas, I have too little time, I can't afford to waste it anymore, so bye-bye, remember every moment, dreaming of their repetition."

She waved her hand at the “crying with humiliation” young man, who could hardly contain his outburst of laughter, and then disappeared into the darkness of the night. Without the help of the spirits, he would not have seen the moment when she, two hundred meters away from the transfer circle, slipped her hands under her jacket and shirt, pinching her cherries, cuming, and really forgetting, as the algorithms embedded through the doll advised her. Forgetfulness, however, did not prevent her from overlooking some individual details and diligently masking her traces to the place of transfer, because at her core, doll-like, she still remembered everything and fulfilled everything. Stepan, looking through the spirits, passed her gradually blurring and wrapped in a masking morocco figure, then relaxed and contentedly leaned back, throwing his hands behind his head. The night sky was cloudy and there was no chance of stargazing, but the tiredness and pleasant exhaustion didn't cancel out the fact he was just gushing with vigor and eagerness for action.

The success of such a difficult assignment, the most difficult he had ever encountered, was only a small part of the reason for his good mood. The mad lovemaking in the company of the enslaved Sylvia was a small part of it, though he did not deny to himself that he enjoyed the release of all the tension he had accumulated. What mattered was something else. The proximity of a full-fledged city, almost ready alibi-legend for ingrowing into society, and the possibility to start living like a normal person, not a savage. Hell, he had talked more that evening than he had during his entire solitary journey after the Bzdach massacre! Even if you counted dialog with himself, there was still no comparison! He was beginning to seriously forget how people, not spirits, talked, and after the discussion of the upcoming “settlement” his throat even began to sore from habit. In general, no, fuck this solitary wandering, especially since it was much easier to get into trouble than sitting in one place. Though he could do it sitting still.

There was still a lot to do, even if the deadline was not burning, since no one had noticed his arrival through the spatial door. But there was no reason to procrastinate either, he had rested and that was enough, so Stepan took a meditative position and began to perceive the System's gifts. The first thing he got was not rewards for completing the task or even a gift from the Autogoddess, but an honestly improved talent from the ones he had developed. And it would not have been possible to increase or even to open some serious branch of shamanism, for example, one of the knowledge of working with space on a shamanic or witchcraft basis. No, no gifts, and Stepan didn't deserve them, having taken his own by pure brute force and cheater guidance by a beacon-puppet, and not by long calls of appropriate spirits. Tantric practices increased to a new level and became “advanced basic techniques of tantric practices”, giving out another cascade of synergy.

First of all, he noted that now it was easier for him to adjust to the energy of his mistress-partner, even if this partner was not quite human, partly undead or, say, was an adept of a specific school of magic. To qualitatively and with benefit for both parties to fuck a master of fire magic and a master of the school of air with a bias in lightning need some different approaches and methods, similar in the base, but the more, ha-ha, deeper, the more there are differences and separate methods. And what to use those tantric practices for - for pleasure, for healing, for accelerated replenishment of reserve, for seduction and brainwashing by overturning a spy, these are separate questions. By the way, in fact, these skills do not have to be used for sex, you can work as a masseur, and you will be on good account, as a specialist with literally golden hands.

The ability to take casts of the energetic body or even to plant spirits in the partner's body in a controlled way, manually leveling the danger of neighboring in the same shell. Ways to work with the spiritual body, merging with a partner in a controlled obsession, up to the point of actually inhabiting her body and groping himself-not-self for tits. By the way, he can do the latter without tantric practices, through Sylvia's doll. He's recently been calling directly into her body, it's just that the situation there was tense, not to such experiments. Some in-depth methods of paired territorialization are also interesting. Sleep with a witch to get guest access to her witch fields in the area, or even to seize this control while she drools with pleasure and can not resist. Various methods of contractual agreements with spirits, many of which are sealed in rather obscene ways. An excellent method of transferring control of a contract with an elder spirit. It is easy to make the entity understand that this energy, which is intertwined with the subtle bodies of the shaman, also has the right to order him.

In fact, the skill turned out to be unexpectedly useful. Probably because at some point even outright slag will give more and more benefit from the very cascade of synergies. Not those skills and tricks that will be used all the time, and just to relax for the sake of relaxation, too, not every time you turn to these methods, but still. After all, this talent was given to him for free, not even by Megamilf, but by his actions, so there was no reason to get mad. Having finished accepting the knowledge and drinking a little bit of crystal-clear water called directly into his palm, the shaman moved on to the assignment, regretting once again that he had to work as fast as possible and with the support of Sylvia. If he had done his teleportation without the doll and the vampiress, he was guaranteed to unlock a couple more talents, and equally guaranteed to miss the deadline. And he wouldn't have been able to pull off natural disguise as easily as he could evade the sensors of the city limits, even if he knew their specifications.

\\“All right, there's no need to be greedy, it worked out well as it was!” - The Earthman calmed himself down, and really calmed down, because he was, as for an isekai, inexcusably out of control of the totemic animal-entities of Hamster and Toad, because of which he would have been obviously kicked out of the club of those who got to other worlds with the System. - “Especially since they should have gotten all sorts of interesting things for the assignment, too.”
Хомяк и жаба

Both reward tokens for complete fulfillment belonged to normal versions, like Stepan, not Autodivine versions. Both of them were not useless, even if not the kind that could be applied right away. The first token was called “ significant materialization of the stock of quality reagents and consumables tied to the class”, doing exactly what the token said: you choose a place and activate the call of all sorts of useful shit in a significant assortment. Boxes of amulet blanks, spirit houses, and totems, stockpiles of offerings to spirits of various types, ready-made contract anchors or blanks for them, material for dolls or already assembled unified envolts, herbs, mixtures, roots, wood and stone, ore and organic parts. The total weight there will obviously be hundreds of kilograms, even if you don't count containers and storage for those materials that will spoil outside the storage. This token will not give anything outstanding, at most one or two reagents of the level of the lower limit of the rating of the special offer of the System Store. All other gifts will be products of high quality. A senior shaman or even a young magister would not be shy of working with such gifts, but no more than that. Well, as far as it is possible to say “no more”.

The problem is that these gifts will, first, fully correspond to the development. Each talent, property, or branch of such, is perfectly suited to the usual methods of practice of the senior shaman-cognizer with skills in witchcraft and envolting. Secondly, the role is played by the quantity and quality of reagents, because it is a box or two of such consumables every respectable master can afford, once every six months, or even a year, if you have had to exhaust yourself. Fully used tokens will give stocks, which can be filled with pantries for the same six months to a year of super-intensive practice in the style of Stepan. That is, without economy, without breaks, without distractions, without research, as such, only for practicing the already available knowledge, with constant offerings of only the best, using the best quality, duplicating the protective circuit and threefold reinsurance against any danger, which is easier to fill with donate than to risk yourself.

Yes, it will be possible to find and buy most of the gifts of the token. Maybe not so fresh and not in such good packaging, but it will be possible. It's not a problem. Except the full analog of such a purchase will cost in pure gold no cheaper than the same armored stockings. Even if it is exactly in terms of money, silver, and gold. Again, not counting the elite reagents randomly selected by the system. Still, the contents of the gift token could well be afforded with just money, and connections to suppliers, with a bunch of suppliers. To get an analog of stockings, bracelets, mask, or even a coin-miner only for money will not work. No one will sell, not for simple coins. Well, or not for any reasonable number of them.

Taking into account the plans to organize a normal call place a la Lyady for once, the gift is certainly royal. It's obvious the Autogoddess didn't give it to him, although, admittedly, when activated, the token will also give out a bunch of specific items for the charmers and brainiac, simply by virtue of the fact he has developed the right talents. Such a fortunate moment of giving makes one wonder if the System is really tracking the player's needs on its face, which in fact is quite obvious. The same mechanics of Deeds state that the constant monitoring of the player is in no way a fabrication of a sick mind or paranoia of Stepan personally. And if the deeds are not enough for the conclusion, you can read the texts of the assignments, which are very and very often tied to the place, time, and events that determine the very essence of the task. Not that Stepan cared, because the System and its owners were so superior to ordinary people and the gifted that it was useless to resent them. Much more he was, well, not outraged, but slightly stung by the understanding of the nature of the token, which turned out to be another test of the player's greed.

The later this token was activated, the more talents, knowledge, properties and separate branches were accumulated, the higher the level was, the greater would be the result of materialization. And if Stepan waited for becoming not an Senior, but a full-fledged Higher, then the System gifts would correspond to a magister of some kind, not to a master of shamanism with a wide profile. He suppressed his greed, of course, but he hoped that the System would give him the opportunity to get the same or similar token once again, once he'd spent the supplies given by it.

The second token was slightly inferior to the first one, called “instant recovery of magic reserve” being, in fact, just an analog of the corresponding meta-skill Stepan already had. The only difference was that this token had twenty-five charges and had no rollback. It could be used on the same individual, and not necessarily on Stepan. Well, for some large-scale mess, it would certainly work. As a means of last resort, as well as in the presence of a bunch of allies, because one single Stepan twenty-five draining reserves in a row will put at best in a hospital bed. No matter how natural and harmless this recovery turns out to be the very process of wasting the reserve strains the subtle bodies and spirit, even if it is just carefully released from the subtle bodies, and not call at full power. However, he had no intention of giving up this or any other normal token, being quite happy with the reward for the assignment. Why would he be dissatisfied with another gift that did something impossible from the point of view of the laws of magic and logic, and did it for Stepan's benefit?

Two properties from the mark category were activated simultaneously. That made it a little heavy as if his aura and spirit were being simultaneously fanned by an industrial fan and drenched in water under a Niagara waterfall. The appearance of such a large-scale mark on the spirit to be counted by the system as a full-fledged property is not an ordinary thing, but when these marks began to sprout two at a time the young man did not feel bad it did not feel good either. Having entered a meditative trance, he waited for the unpleasant moments, waiting for the assimilation of both marks, which took at least a couple of hours, and then dawn broke. Both marks were displayed in the status, pleasing Stepan with their presence, because he immediately began to estimate the degree of effect of these marks on the coming calls, especially taking into account the patchwork echo.

“The mark of free winds and whispering blows” and "the mark of quiet pools and deep waters": are properties of roughly the same value, of roughly the same power, being in the same category as "the mark of fallen leaves and black roots". Not just a universal plus to the water and air realm, but a more exotic direction, as in the case of the dark side of nature as embodied by the long-found leaves and roots, but an even narrower sharpening, a specialization, one might say. That is, his call did not make water and wind weaker, no, just certain types of spirits and certain aspects turn out to be even easier to call than just a strengthened air or water sphere. In fact, it was a very serious argument in the coming kamlans, although he would have chosen other variants of properties, both gifts were present in the list of available to choose from, and Stepan had studied them long ago with the help of the reference, sometimes refreshing his memory and checking the reference for new information on old topics.

The wind will now be more willing to answer the call. Any air elemental spirits. But best of all, this mark will work on those who specialize in scouting, searching for something, eavesdropping or groping the territory, opening defenses, or getting under them. All spy tricks will now be given much better, you can also call a long-intended flock of ultra-long-range airborne seekers, which will find the target, despite the fact that they are only small spirits. They were free spirits, and if they were to be summoned, they would have to be restrained, otherwise, they would forget their task and promises as soon as they left the shaman's zone of control. And now such free entities would be much more willing, no, not to obey the shaman, but to agree to play his games and by his rules. Even if instead of searching for a certain person or someone who said a certain word, they want to play with the flag hanging on the top of the castle or do something else.

Water spirits will also be much more willing to respond, but this effect is doubled for those who have mixed their aspects with the Stillness, Silence, and Sarkness of the deep bottom, or even places where there is no bottom at all. A rather ominous Mark, comparable to Leaves and Roots, but still not so dark and evil. In addition to good lurkers, fighters, and ambush specialists, there are plenty of territorial defenders with a bias towards strong and seemingly deceptively unsightly defense among the owners of similar aspects. Lots of healers or curse eaters, including some pretty exotic ones. There is, again, a whole bunch of contacts of all sorts of jailers, to whom you can hand over a prisoner, immersing him in a bathtub or in a puddle, and there the prisoner will be placed in stasis, put to sleep, and then, a week or two later, handed over to the captor in exactly the same condition. From the same group comes the ability to effectively call entities that are able to stabilize severe wounds, not to let the life force from the torn aura, while the shaman will look for a way to recover the victim.

Good properties, the system didn't skimp. However, the Earthman himself would not have taken such properties, as they were a very specific investment. He would have had enough of other areas of development, which needed talent points much more. The same could be said about the improved property, which was a gift to him for the perfect fulfillment of the task set by the System: ++“recognizing door keepers and path breakers.” It was not some elite type of property, but the most common, also available to choose from the available options, but at the same time improved by two points instead of one, similar to the mark of passions. Actually, the system message about getting this property was dual because, in the first step, it was the “mark” and not the “recognition” that gave it to him. It was twisted, again, much more powerful, the dawn had time to change to early morning, birds were singing, one of them almost shit on the head of the meditating and wet from tension shaman, but some of his spirits considered it an attack and the shit was taken aside, and only feathers flew from the bird when the ghostly entity temporarily acquired material flesh.

He could have done the teleport without the anchor of Sylvia Maltter, and he could have done it in the same twenty days. He could, if he had been given some more time to master the new mark and the possibility of preliminary agreement with the spirits of the relevant directions. But in general, this mark does not only help with the long-distance portals. There are many spirits with similar aspects and spheres, which do help not with movements at all. Whether it's shielder spirits that catch enemy attacks with their doors and carry them to the hell of nowhere, or specialists in trailing fields, thanks to which even a large group can get lost in three trees.

Simple jumps through the world of the High Spheres, where a spirit literally sits on the shaman's back and drags him into the jump. By simplifying the dialog, it's even possible to jump back out quite clearly and in the right place. Path shortening techniques allow one step to cover five meters of the path for hours until the person walking doesn't look back and walks down a forest path. Or through an underworld cave, a regular cave, not an Underworld Cave, so that one goes into one and comes out of a completely different one and on the other side of the state. In another Underworld, which was capitalized with a capital letter, it was also possible, but Stepan had no suitable contracts of the proper level there yet, and they would not appear soon, especially given the earthling's clear and ironclad plans not to go into this Underworld. Especially memorable was the method of transfer through the grave, and ideally suited for Sylvia, because she would not need to disguise herself as a corpse, and protection from the aggressive energy of death, and soaked with her power graves around the world are already scattered enough. And the spirit, which allows her to burrow into one grave and come out of another, belonged to those varieties, which are quite tolerant of the undead of any kind, being partly a ghost himself, that moved to live in the high spheres.

The unit of Resistance fits into the aura like glue. It was a low value of this characteristic, so the modification process didn't take long, and its intensity couldn't be compared to the increase in Spirit or the recent increase in Power. The sensations were like a kind of squeezing from all sides at once, and the squeezing was energetic as if the universe itself had pressed a little harder on the thin bodies, thickening them, making them more monolithic and strong. Shamans don't really need Resistance, he was sure that one could even become Higher with the same unit in this characteristic. The very process of call does not provide for the growth of aura resistance, because the shaman during the call reveals all of himself to the world, both worlds. No, of course, an extra drop of Resistance will not hurt him. Moreover, each individual characteristic strengthens the gifted person in the complex concept, so even before the increase his unit of Resistance meant significantly more than the same unit of the ungifted. And against the backdrop of the humiliating enslavement by an insolent bloodsucker, the doubling of the current Resistance was great news.

If there had been a two in that attribute the moment he opened the cache dungeon with the captive Sylvia, she wouldn't have been able to brainwash him as quickly. For at least another couple hours, she would have to shake for her unlife. Maybe Stepan would have taken an oath of non-harm and honesty from her, forcing her to interrupt the process of turning off the consciousness of the one with the pulsing blood. That would have forced her to become more cautious, gradually loosening the oath and, by the time she would have struck, he would have long since been her pet dog, not even realizing it wasn't his own decision. It was ironic, but it was a good thing she'd hit him full force before she'd realized who was in her cold hands, otherwise, the situation could have been a lot worse than it had been when she'd gotten the assignment from Divine Milf.

He could rejoice that his “spiritual-energy protection” had become much more effective, even if it wasn't an ultimatum, but it was still useful and had a significant effect on Stepan's defense. As he had noticed before, this property required a high Spirit to develop, but it became stronger only if he developed Resistance in addition to the Spirit. Even though a two was not a three or even a five, the result would now be quite noticeable: simple natural elemental effects and a number of others, like accidental cuts with an iron, not steel, knife, became practically non-threatening, even if you sat your ass in a fire, or swam in a boiling geyser, or were struck by lightning, or even tried to walk on magma barefoot and unprotected. In the latter case Stepan would definitely feel unpleasant and even painful, but the burns, if any, would not exceed the first and the beginning of the second degree, but not complete charring to the very bones.

The last part of the reward, a meta-skill of rare or elite level turned out to be, well, not bad, although it was situational: “a small temporary increase in attributes” allowed to immediately add either five units of a characteristic or, if the characteristic itself was high enough, half of the indicator in any attribute. For a while, not forever, and the time needed for an important ritual, battle, duel, or experiment, then everything will return to normal. And it's really powerful because such an increase will accelerate you, to make the impossible possible. The meta-skill will also supplement magical reflexes so the increase will not cause an imbalance of the usual bundles and actions, so that at the time of strengthening the player used these characteristics as if native, as if they have already had time to practice and work with them. The time of action of the skill is four hours, but this time can be extended if it is vital not to interrupt some ritual or battle. But for every extra hour will have to pay debuff - a day for every sixty minutes, and if you overdue reinforcement for sixty-one minutes, then counts two days of debuff. The system curse itself reduced all the characteristics by half, but not below one, quickly making the master at best an adept. The second rank, by the way, was still unavailable due to the low characteristics, and it was necessary to gain at least five more stats in any attribute.

It was a situational thing, but he didn't claim it was unnecessary. But he almost stuttered when the system gave him a level twenty-six credit for completing the task, and as if that weren't enough, the Autogoddess decided to lavish him with her attention as well. Modifying the very meta-skill he had just received. Well isn't she a cutie, eh? With a twitching eyebrow, Stepan read the images of the help, realizing that it wasn't that bad, but still managed to be frightened by the fact that they decided to ruin and deface his meta-skill. It was now called “minor temporary attribute enhancement in the name of Liarat si Merrinal, Lady of Gifts and Gift-giver, loyal servant of Innelas Innelay (GIFT)” and in fact, the change simply added an additional mode to the skill. The original ability to add from five units to the desired characteristic did not go anywhere, the conditions and consequences remained the same, but the second mode was something.

The gift mode increased all stats by plus three, or a quarter of the value if the quarter would add up to more than three. It also adds seven units to Spirit, or two-thirds if the increase is greater, and five units to Sensitivity, or half. All of this is for one hour or one battle. You should activate this meta-skill only when there is no other option to win or at least escape alive, and you can't see any easier options. At the end of the hour or dangerous situation, all characteristics are lowered to the minimum values, that is, to one, if not counting the Source and Power - those to zero. All contracts with spirits are put into sleep mode, all properties are temporarily suppressed, and only knowledge remains intact but of little use. Stepan will become an absolutely typical ungifted, able to manage the appropriate amulets at most if they are configured to work with ungifted. The time limit is a month, but that's the minimum, or maybe even longer, especially if you spend a lot of time fighting and fleeing.

It would seem that everything is perfect - a thing of those that you use only in the full and deepest ass. But at the same time, it is able to save the isekai ass from the deepest asshole! To sit through a month as a simple ungifted is a much better option than to die quietly and without alternative from someone's charms, to eat the steel of someone's blade, or to digest and transform yourself into shit inside someone's stomach. Only then it wouldn't be an Autogoddess, not Her Milfiness meta-skill, not in the style of a Milf of Milf present. That's why the eyebrow twitches because post-effects have another unpleasant property, a small, tiny even detail, the size of an oil tanker or an aircraft carrier with a fleet of escorts.

Stepan, who is caught in the reverse effect of the acceleration, will be subjected to the Autogoddess-style fate correction effect. While he is without powers and magic, the probability that some beautiful person of the opposite sex will decide to bewitch, seduce, fuck and a bunch of other synonyms becomes close to one hundred forty-six percent. Worse, at the moment of activation of the enhancement, as with Autodivine Deals, the very fact of this additional debuff is removed from the bearer's memory until the characteristics return and the rollback stops. And yes, the first thing the shaman did was check out ways to cheat, such as telling Sylvia to watch him more closely and explaining the problem to her. That wouldn't help at all, because the conditions of the rollback would be wiped from the memory of not only him, but the rest of the world, and any notes, writing on the walls, or other bullshit wouldn't work either - they wouldn't disappear, but they just wouldn't be noticed until the rollback was over. The same mechanics, by the way, work for Deals, so in this case, you shouldn't count on the help of your associates or subordinates either.

It's actually not that categorically terrible. Any effects on the mind will automatically subside by the time the negative effect is over (but not the sworn oaths of eternal love and fidelity or bonded contracts, they will have to be broken separately), the same distortion of fate will not just stupidly die, be sacrificed or fall into such a deep hole from which there is no way out. Nothing truly vile or traumatizing will happen to the shaman who has fallen under the influence of others. But there will be so many emotions, as well as problems, that it will be enough for a lifetime. And the most frustrating thing in all this was that Stepan was well aware of the crystal simple truth: if it was really hard if he had to choose between getting into the games of Milfeisha or death, he would take this chance. Of course, he wanted to beat his chest and shout about his unshakeable purity, his unyielding principles cast from titanium alloy, but he knew himself, he knew himself better than even on earth - a consequence of the hardships he had endured, and of his high Spirit, which even in this way helps in the knowledge of one's own self.

He is opposed to Her gifts. He refuses Her quests as a matter of principle in all cases, except those where it's possible to cheat on the terms of the quest or if they don't oppose his integrity, as was the case with Shera. He refuses to follow the easiest and most obvious ways to gain power and recruit a personal harem of brainwashed beauties. But if Stepan had to choose between death or a new gift, he wouldn't think long, he wouldn't think at all. There were principles that he would not have compromised even on the brink of death, but this case was not one of them. Stepan sincerely believed that anyone who would prefer to say the opposite in such a situation was probably being hypocritical - everyone wanted to live, everyone.

"Oh, Stepan, I'd like to give you a smack, but I can't get you, you're too far away." The Earthman never bullied or beat his namesake, they had quite normal and friendly relations, but at such moments Stepan began to lose his moral image, something dark and evil was awakening in him. "I would have deleted all the contents of your hard drive, but you bragged that you always backed up all the best masterpieces in several copies."

Shaking his head tiredly, Stepan silently began to pack and clean up the tracks. It was lunchtime, the sun was hot enough, the weather was pleasant, and the only thing that upset Stepan at that moment was that he would not be able to enter the gates of Dantmark before evening. He would have to spend the night in the woods or in one of the inns surrounding the town... No, he'd had enough of the inns. He'd be better off staying in the woods. Calling the spirits of the purifiers, hiding the traces, summoning a woolly multiarmed spirit to finally eat all the imprints on the terrain, a quick snack, checking the account of the system currency (by the way, it was quite a lot, it was a pity that he spent a lot too), many other small things, and finally, finally, the road.

The lights of the big city seemed to be calling to him.

Well, big by local standards, not earthly ones.

* * *

The city was impressive, he must say. A high outer wall, the first of three, no less than fifteen meters high, and if with an embankment, even twenty, magically enchanted towers, heavy gates with vigilant guards, but above all, of course, people and non-humans in a large, large assortment. Poor and unhappy Fantrel seemed tiny and unimpressive against the background of the Free City of Dantmark, nestled at the confluence of Dantra and Mlatra, the two largest rivers in the region. Even Stepan, who knew what living conditions were like in cities large and by Earth standards, was still impressed. First of all, because he had gotten out of the habit of such scales and crowds, and secondly, because of the magic, which was quite tangible for him at his intensity. The city stood on a large source. There were several smaller sources within the city limits, and there were gifted people and a large number of amulets, and he could feel it all. The high sensitivity allowed such small details to be added to one picture, to grasp it piece by piece and understand the depth of it. His head was a little sore, to be honest, but the noise, the clamor, and the not particularly pleasant smells of unwashed bodies, rotten fish, and horse dung played a part in that.

No one built anything near the city walls. It had been forbidden by some edict or decree after the city had nearly been stormed by a quick assault from the slums adjacent to the outer wall. The lesson was learned, the slums were torn down, the walls were reinforced, and the edict was still enforced, just as it was in Earth cities, by the way. And for the same reasons, only without magic. Walls are devalued as a shooting position if you can get to them so quickly and stealthily. Yes, there was no building near the wall, but the line at the gate was long and busy. He could have tried to go to the other gate, to see the Three Ridges, as the local lingo called the trio of large bridges over the river water that connected the banks and the city itself, but he'd chosen to teleport to the only side that Dantmark didn't have bridges to, the northeast side.

The city stood literally at the confluence of two rivers. It lived on those rivers, so there was no shortage of bridges, large, heavy, stone, securely enchanted and drawn (both in case of siege and for especially large and heavy ships or river caravans). According to Sylvia and Shera, they were built by dwarven craftsmen. The drawbridge was a fortified and huge mechano-golem, also the work of short bearded men. One bridge crossed the younger Dantra on the northwest side, another gave passage over the Mlatra on the southwest side, and the last and largest one passed over the Dantra that had already been merged. Thus all three sections of the Y-divided landmass were easily accessible to all comers. Of course, this list does not include the many ferries and passenger boat cabs that help those who have no time or desire to walk to the bridge to get from shore to shore.

Dantmark, as the main city and central agglomeration, was located at the confluence, at its very tip. It was where the wealthiest neighborhoods were located, where the palace of the de Dantrel dynasty was, where the Magic Tower of the city and the main defenses were located. It was a good place for defense. The palace stood on a very high stone plateau, a natural one, or had been raised with the help of geomancy. It was a challenge to storm this place, especially considering the many surprises prepared over the years. There was a reason why mages classical and wild liked to entrench so much. A full-fledged magician could hardly be thrown off from a defensive position prepared to the highest standards by three equally good mages who came with an army to besiege the city. At best they will hold him back and cover the attackers, and even then not with full success. That's why full-fledged assaults and sieges of large cities in this magical world are quite rare. Either everything is solved by a quick and bold, like diarrhea at a bus stop, storm, or a blow from the inside and in the back of unprepared defenders, or at all intrigue and gradual pulling of the city under intriguer power. Or the enemy has such superiority in everything that it is easy to roll the defenders into the ground. This has also happened in history, though not in the modern history.

Sylvia was recounting, and he was counting her memory through the doll, the story of how the mighty and beautiful Morgrave had just recently been plundered and humiliated in a daring sea raid. It was the largest of the Confederacy's seaside cities, the Pearl of the Confederacy, comparable only to Neirat. But Neitat was not exactly near the Middle Sea. Neirat - the local Hogwarts, home to the largest academy of magic and library in the world - was considered part of the Confederation only conditionally, being a full-fledged and powerful state. Just compact and dwarfed, but toothy, tenacious, and deadly as a honey badger on steroids. But Morgrave was unprepared for a naval visit led by a magical superdreadnought of the local Pirate King, who organized this act of robbery, brilliantly pulling it off and leaving with the most worthy booty.

Back to Dantmark. The locals said proudly that such a trick would not work on them, and they were right. First of all, because the city, though noticeably poorer and not as magically fortified, was too far from the sea. Running a superdreadnought, even a magical one, upriver was maybe possible. But all the locals of the coast would be very happy about such a visit and would do their best to make sure that this ship never left the riverbed. However, putting jokes aside, Dantmark was really well fortified, moreover, in addition to the central city, it formally included some satellite settlements on the opposite banks of the merging rivers. There were fortresses there, too, albeit smaller and not as fortified, but they covered both the river and the immediate area with scanning fields and shooting points for attacks with area-shock magic. The debate over whether or not the residents of the backstreets are considered true Dantmarkians is an honorable and respected discipline of local debate on local forums.

On days when especially cold frosts ice the river, these disputes turn into mass fists and stick fights on the ice. No, the teeth of opponents with a different principled position are considered at the first opportunity, and strangers are better not to wander around the True City in one snout, as well as should not unnecessarily cross bridges for an idle stroll. But it is in winter that everything takes on a solemn and almost tournament-like scale; Master Miller and his students strengthen the ice on the river at Duke Herbert's direct request, merchants bring in goodies, healers send their trainees out for a nap, and the rag-draped people armed with sticks, clubs, and staffs wrapped tightly in rags, beat each other up. A year in which the bridge massacre is without at least five corpses is considered boring and the performance lame. This despite the fact that for carrying knives or shivs these sharp objects are stuck into the left buttock of the owner, and for an attempt to cheat with the wrapping and put pebbles and sand under the cloth they are forced to eat it right in front of the honest people. For the iron hidden under that winding they simply and uncomplicatedly beat on the head with the taken away baton, banishing from the festivities to the bench with a fresh concussion.

Against this background, the “tooth” gate, so named because it came from the side of the land between the two rivers, resembling a fang on the map, was the most boring and quiet place. This side was mostly inhabited by villagers and representatives of very small towns. They were devoid of that trademark arrogance, they did not cause any problems, and the guards here were vigilant and were really vigilant, not looking for a way to make money. Still, the only side from which a full-fledged attack from the land is possible. You will strengthen the wall, build additional towers, and keep a full complement of guards. Stepan, according to Sylvia, was aware of the fact the river sections near the city were littered with traps or markers for targeted attacks from the city's magic tower, so storming Dantmark by the river was a task for lovers of hardcore only.

Stepan was expecting some kind of adventure, danger, the threat of disclosure, an attentive guard with Sherlock's abilities from BBC, who would catch the young man on a small detail or discrepancy, but everything went so smoothly that he had to suppress involuntary nervousness. But no, the guard, and the head of the patrol, only boringly warned the young gifted not to misbehave and not to be weird, the magician assigned to him with some interest, but without contempt, enlightened the shaman with a glance, with a slight superiority-looking at the young gifted young man, even gave advice on how to go to the branch of the guild of adventurers or representation of the city circle of magicians. Then he passed through the gates, wrapped in a Shroud, and additionally transferred all the valuable and magically active things to the remaining far-flung hiding place, taking advantage of the hand-made inventory. The scanning charms here were powerful, skillfully produced, and soldered into the structure of the arch of the gate, but simple enough that Stepan could deceive them, even covering the emanation of his belongings and amulets. He did not risk it, and rightly so. How could he know that he could hide his magically active belongings until he tried it in practice?

In fact, the biggest problem that he faced when he got to the city was finding the right place and the road to it. It was one thing to know the plan and map of the city through Sylvia's memory analysis, but to get into this noise, noise, stench and constant Brownian movement of separate elements was quite another matter. He even tried to be robbed by some unremarkable-looking man, but as soon as he started to move in the direction of looking for the way and looking around like a village in the city (actually, everything in accordance with the image), Stepan just looked at him attentively and he immediately pretended that he had to go the other way. Being able to pick up on the small details around you is also part of being an agent, as is being able to hide your awareness. If it weren't for his reluctance to get involved with thieves, he wouldn't have even let on that he'd noticed the thief, or even just walked away from him in the crowd.

His target was located in one of the commercial districts, in the Copper Middle, to be more precise. It was a decent, respectable, and rather wealthy neighborhood, where even the poorer aristocracy had residences. There was a residence there, a whole farmstead, and the one to whom the shaman was going on a visit. And not just a visit, but also with a letter of recommendation, written by the one who wrote it, and not a fake one. Nothing outstanding, in fact, just a recommendation and a word in favor of a homeless and weak, but diligent and quiet gifted young man seeking patronage and a place in the big city. He had learned his lesson from his time in Fantrel and now he wasn't even going to try to survive and settle in this place solely on his own. He wasn't going to go under Sylvia's wing, either, both because he was cautious and didn't want the reputation of a weakling who'd sold himself to vampires and seemed to be dreaming of eternal non-life.

No, the obedient and cautious Sylvia had simply used one of her contacts to influence him through a blood connection. He wrote a letter to another friend of his, who had nothing to do with the bloodsuckers. Since the comrade had been looking for a gifted worker with the right skills for a long time, here you have such a worker, and almost for free, since the kid is savage, doesn't know how to do anything, and will be glad of any opportunity to find a place in life. Take and do not particularly hard to pay. The boy will agree to the minimum almost for sure. But also do not press too much, because he will go to look for something better, and even find it. Gifted all need. The cunning Malter didn't just get the letter, she had it alchemized, aged it a bit, tattered it a bit so that it seemed to have been written months ago, and also corrected her partner's memory so that he was sincerely sure that he had written that letter quite a long time ago and without Sylvia's prompting.

Stepan was sure to send a good suggestor from himself to put a false memory of where the idea of the letter had come from. Now that man, if he remembers about the letter, will just brush it off, not going into the search for the origins and reasons why he wrote it, how he knows about Panna, and all that. Basically, the change is very minor and weak, quietly made at the expense of a long-established pathway into the victim's mind. Sylvia does not have full control over her partner and does not seek to establish it. She only maintains such a small crack in the defense, regularly updating it, and almost never forcing her victim to do something disadvantageous to the man himself. That's why her combination hadn't come to light in so many years. But she, as Stepan knew, gave this man a helping hand when he was only the third son of his tyrannical and very hot-tempered father. She had helped him to retire his father without blood and corpses, to get around both brothers who had now moved to Morgrave and Westmark, had given him his first loans, and put in a good word for him with several businessmen. No one suspects, including the man himself, that his alliance and good treatment of the creature are not so natural. Because there are reasons for the alliance and good treatment of each other.

However, let us leave the not particularly modest merchant and caravanner to his fate and return to Stepan's business. His letter was addressed to another merchant. This one was not a caravanner. Trabius Borshakl traded in wine, beer, and a few other types of liquor, all of which he produced himself. He had six vineyards outside the city limits, a couple of breweries, a cheese factory, and a recipe and specialists that made his goods either tasty or cheap so half of the taverns in the city and a good portion of those around it bought their liquor from him. He was a rather prosperous man, with a grip and a bad temper, but he was honest, did not tear the last shirt off his workers, paid them moderately, but regularly and without delay, and was not overzealous in punishing them or cutting their pay. For idleness or, God forbid, unauthorized tasting of the goods produced, he threw out without pity and severance pay - that is.

There was also a story about a couple of employees who were flogged to death, but there, as if for a cause. Somebody either encouraged or paid them, or simply bribed them to piss in a barrel of the best and slightly magical brandy, which he planned to give as a gift to one of the de Dantrel surnames through third hands. The scandal would have been epic, and Sylvia had learned about the story by accident because Trabius had been looking for the one who had organized the diversion and had taught the two idiots to do it. The vampiress managed to find out it was the work of a competitor, who was on the verge of bankruptcy and had almost been pushed out of the market by that time, and who had not been cheap to hire an illegal mentalist for this case so that he could finally break the brakes of a couple of jokers. She had, but she'd rather charge the poor guy for his silence than Trabius for his information. That way she could twist his arms, and the rival brewer, already on the edge, had to pay.

Now those two competitors' breweries belong to Borshakl, and the only remaining one produces such donkey's piss that only outright shanty towns and slums buy it. He has fallen out of the big leagues and is now barely in the middle league; he has dispersed the most competent and skillful people (some of them went to Trabius, by the way), sold off his property to pay off his debts, and is drinking himself to death, keeping afloat only to marry off his daughter and then drown in the bottle. Sylvia thinking of offering him a helping hand in exchange for some favors or information shortly. Having connections to a bunch of those scrappy eateries, man unintentionally accumulates rumors and conversations, albeit of a second freshness, but will come in handy as one of the sources of information.

However, this is not Stepan's story. His story is connected with this lanky, smooth-shaven, and absolutely sober man with a droopy and tired face, blue eyes, and brownish-unclear hair, already beginning to fall out from age. Trabius Borshakl looked at Pann and at the letter handed to him by his assistant, obviously thinking whether not to send this little thing to hell at once and in fact. Stepan, who had to wait for the letter to be delivered to the winemaker until he thought and found time to talk to him, was also thinking of sending everything to hell, but the experience of working on Earth helped him a lot. There, too, I had to put up with asshole bosses who liked such psychological games.

“All right, I won't drag this out, Pann.” Still, he makes a decision, though not without doubts, and he really doubted, not playing a role, Stepan, whose spirits were in his eyes and ears, could bet a purse of gold against a mug of beer. “I could use a gifted one, but not just anyone. I need someone who can keep the pests away from the warehouses with malt, hops, and grain. And cheese. I've renewed my amulets twice, my workers recharged them regularly, and it helped, I swear to gods I'll be damned. Only still the little, nasty, nasty things come back time and time again. And they eat. They're eating my money! It's right here, in the main farmyard. There's nowhere else like it, not outside the town, not in the country, not anywhere. And no, it's not a curse, I've had it checked by three specialists. And even if it is, it's not yours to remove.”

Stepan listened to this rather expressive monologue without too much emotion. He already knew in advance what the man's problem was and why he was looking not just for a gifted person who could recharge an amulet or update an already drawn ritual star, but for someone who knew about deratization. The kid he'd been given wasn't perfect for the job, but the letter said that Pann could cure hangovers and minor illnesses, find water and iron, conjure knives, drive away rats, and, if he was lucky, also drive away or summon rain. A wide pool of skills, especially for an apprentice, each of which would be useful, but Trabius knew well how such letters and self-praises of poor and untrained magicians worked. If it says he's good at something, it means he barely understands it. If it is said that he can do well, then it is literally minimal knowledge of the subject, and if he can do something with luck, then he did something similar literally once, accidentally, and could not repeat it again.

"I can expel the pests, and the spirits will kill those who can't, but the question is about the volume of work," Stepan confesses honestly because yes, volumes are important. Even he would find it difficult to kill mice in the entire city and suburban agglomeration. "I can start the first ritual tonight. I don't need any special offerings, a handful of grain and a bowl of wine will probably be enough. The question is how many times it will be necessary to repeat it and how often."

And at what price, but he didn't say, leaving it unspoken, which made Trabius' mood a little better. If he didn't demand payment or at least an advance, it meant he had no doubts about his abilities. And that he would be paid, not lumatized, though the latter was understandable. If he showed himself well, they would not kick him out after paying him with a slap on the wrist. Vinodel once again ran his eyes over the text of the letter, and looked at the calm and not nervous boy, who was obviously confident in his abilities and knew his worth. Stepan had already told the legend prepared by Sylvia, according to which he had helped one of the caravans of an honorable merchant. That caravan had really been helped a year ago, for a good reward, by a wandering magician-shaman, still quite young, but definitely not Stepan. And after all, Trabius made his proposal.

“Four warehouses where the mice can't be eliminated, three more are not so bad, they don't go much there. These are the first places where you need to do magic. In the rest of the duties only that I will tell you separately if any of the workers get hurt, they will also call you, if it's something light. I won't forbid you to work part-time, I honor the precepts, there's no problem here, but only as long as it's part-time and doesn't interfere with business.” The list of duties is actually much more extensive than it might seem, especially for the apprentice he is playing here, because the reserve is not infinite, it is always unpleasant and even harmful to drain it and go half-empty. “I will pay a little, especially for a magician, but with full board and lodging, and I will pay extra for overwork and something special. Your rate as a junior master, not a journeyman and not master, two small thalers in silver per decade. If copper, you can and more, but no one agrees. If some reagents are needed for work, I'll pay too, but I'll ask and check too, whether it's really for work and whether it's really that much, so you shouldn't be impudent. Well, deal or not, young man?”

The young man thought about it and began to compare it with what he knew. The pay was literally at the lower end of the middle class, or even beyond it, only six thalers a month was ridiculous for a gifted man. But full board and feeding, as well as payment for the necessary consumables for work - this is also cool, very, very cool. In the usual practice of hiring a gifted person there is a tendency to use the practice of “I paid you, and you do it, and how - does not care, only quickly and that better. That is consumable reagents and rituals at your own expense. You decide to invest more reserve, not save for the evening training and spend less material or invest additional materials, but at the same time come out in the best case zero earnings. The variant suggested by the winemaker is very good for beginner mages who need constant practice and access to reagents. However, it automatically cuts the payment to the level that a normal worker, who already has a couple or three assistants, gets much more.

“Agreed, honorable Trabius.” The young man nods only, bowing his head respectfully, for this option suits him perfectly, for it is exactly what he had hoped for. “Then I am ready to get to work.”

He didn't show any subservience, but he didn't show any familiarity or disrespect either. A pure working relationship, doing exactly what he was paid to do and nothing more. In this respect, Stepan intended to be as honest and scrupulous as possible, and there was no reason to do otherwise. There was no evil in the thoughts and plans of Trabius, whose defense the earthling had opened, and therefore he would not see evil from him in return. And yes, the man decided to play a little on the brat's nerves and arrange a session of silent waiting.

“Yeah, yeah, all right, get to it. Now, watch this. I'll pay you for the current decade at once, like a raise, even before the results are in.” Calmly and without threat, but with an ominous look his employer stops Stepan. “But I hope to see the result by the end of this decade. With my own eyes. Well, or to be told about it by those who have seen it. Or, pardon me, I'll chase you with kicks without respect for your gift, Pann.”

That was the end of their dialog. Trabius summoned one of his assistants, a scowling man with a pox-ravaged face, and ordered him to put the new worker in his proper place, to give him his pay, and to feed him dinner. His lodgings were found right in the middle of the farmstead, a kind of artel, a small block within a block, with its own wall and gate, and a stone wall, two and a half meters high, a little enchanted. Here was the main house, which was also the residence of Trabia and his family, there were also warehouses with the products, wine cellars, and beer barrels. The most smelly parts of the production cycle, of course, were located outside the city, where the finished products were brought to be infused and finished, and with the same cheeses, they did not skimp on odor suppression amulets, so the stench did not go. The neighborhood is good. For the stench fines will be imposed like dicks in the mouth, more expensive than amulets and recharging will cost. It's a direct quote from his guide.

Servants and laborers lived here, too, in assorted ranges, both those who helped with production, personal servants, and managers in charge of the local trade. Trabius had several wine shops, where wine or other exotic liquor was not bottled, but sold in glass or kegs. It was in one of the guest houses he was put up. A separate room, quite spacious, though not a palace. The bed was big, the mattress was woolen, the linen was fresh and clean, and the furniture was heavy and strong, though obviously not new. The second room, as it was agreed, was also his, but for magical affairs. Stepan tried to explain that a shaman often doesn't have to be on the spot to deal with a problem, so it would be easier for him to conduct rituals and calls in one room. Of course, the room would not be suitable for everything, there was no open air or possibility to create a totem circle, but he was not going to work seriously in this place, and he was able to kill mice without regaining consciousness and with a wild hangover.

It was possible to eat in the dining house or right here, there was a table, and the servants brought food as needed, especially when it came to gifted people, whose work schedules were often variable. Yes, yes, Stepan was certainly not the only gifted at Trabius's disposal. There were two other self-taught apprentices. They were mostly recharging amulets, an herbalist-alchemist and an apprentice, who did something special with the most expensive drinks - either disinfecting and preserving them for long storage or improving taste. Stepan wasn't about to ask. Another of the guards had the rudiments of a gift, which allowed him to use amulets more effectively, as well as to activate magical vision, but Stepan knew this from Sylvia. As well as Maître Jasper, a certified adept universalist with a specialization in household magic and amulet-making, who served as a universal wand for all Trabia's plans.

By the way, he and Trabius were old childhood friends, having saved each other's lives several times in their youth. And not only friends, if rumors, most likely true, were to be believed, but Sylvia could not be sure, because Trabius did not go out with women. He did not cheat on his wife, having two daughters and a son, but he could not tolerate her. However, it was their sexual difficulties, which Stepan cared about at the level of the influence of warm currents of the Gulf Stream on the state of the snow cap of Kilimanjaro. Absolutely in no way. He was much more occupied with the final stages of his plans, for which he exhaled tiredly, fell on the bed, lay immovably for five minutes, and then calmly got up and went to the next room, having previously informed his guide, who had run in to check on him, that he was starting the call.

He started it, literally in the very first tacts, summoning and incarnating several spirits-mouse-catchers, or rat-catchers, even hamster-catchers, if there was a raid of dangerous hamsters somewhere. But then he did not do what he was expected to do, even if the spirits he had summoned beforehand concealed the energy outburst, and he was very careful to drain the reserve. He had not come here, to the Free City of Dantmark, to live the life of a simple shaman's apprentice, but only in search of civilization, and human society, while he wanted to develop at the same pace. This place was the perfect disguise, but, it was here, taking the role of an important but not flashy specialist, whose work is always performed on time and behind the scenes, that he could well begin to lead a double life.

Sylvia and her nest had many caches, hideouts, and even a couple of secret bases. There were some that only Sylvia knew existed. Some were considered common to them all. But, more importantly, these hideouts were as well protected from scanning as their main lair, the same impoverished aristocrats' mansion that they hadn't entered in ages, but regularly received financial support from somewhere that kept them from going under. It's not easy to create a teleporter inside the city limits, and even harder to do undetected, but what if there's no need to teleport? What if one small shaman would be so forgotten that he would only be remembered on the day of money distribution or in case of some serious situation? Especially if he does all the necessary tasks anyway, especially if one of the shelters is literally next door in ten minutes of running, right under another building, and a residential one.

Eighty years ago, a rebellion against the de Dantrel family almost broke out in the city. Duke Herbert, then a somewhat younger-looking man, did not forgive the rebellion that did not take place. Some were executed, some were dishonorably banished, some moved to distant or near relatives, and others simply apologized and paid their dues, and then swore oaths not to do any more mischief and to be good boys and girls. But something from those times remained in the town. Something was accidentally found by one of Sylvia's fledglings and then put to use. A small underground shelter, actually a naturally occurring cave, from which water was pumped out, walls were reinforced, masking runes were applied, some consumables and combat explosive mixtures, some good alchemy and amulets were brought in, and the place was prepared as a place to house mercenaries who would help in that rebellion. The same kind of blow from within and to the backs of the defenders that most often changes the authorities in such cities, where the authorities are too well entrenched to be easily displaced by direct assault and siege.

The place was never used. Herbert de Dantrelle was the first to arrive, and it was said that he had made a scarecrow of the chief instigator, who had not been formally killed or executed but had escaped. Whether this was true or not, Sylvia did not know, but she suspected it was fiction. Herbert's distant and very influential relative had probably been gutted by the mentalists, then killed and burned. The ashes were buried in an isolated container, and the escape story was fed to the public. Sylvia carefully renewed the spells and cloaking runes on the walls of the shelter, and even more carefully sold some of the amulets and mixtures she had found, keeping some for herself just in case, and mothballed the cave shelter until needed. Over the next few decades, the place was used a couple of times for one need or another, but never for long. There was simply no need, there were enough other, more accessible and not requiring such problems with inconspicuous entrance and exit.

It was not easy to call underground, but there were advantages to it besides being inconspicuous. Deeper contact with the solid, and the sphere of water in that cave, washed out naturally, will surely be easier too. Dark and darkness, again, will be called with ease, especially considering how rarely there is light in that shelter. The only and the most important problem of the whole idea is that powerful and mass calls, even with the involvement of masking spirits, will still, let's say, flash through, giving if not direct coordinates of the source of disturbances in the energetic and spiritual plan, then just a wave, raising the alarm, after which the secret guards of Dantrels will search, digging the earth with their noses. Judging by the way this noone's cave was formed, the guys can work quite well, so they might find it.

But Stepan had a twenty-sixth level and a free talent point, which he would have to invest in minor knowledge again. There was one spirit among the summons of the elder spirits that had appeared after the battle in Bzdy, which was quite close to being considered the higher one, though not as high as the one personally rewarded by the Autogoddess, may the World Association of Speech Therapist forgive her, Vishpli-Schwalstprachtmatt. This spirit had very specific methods of summoning and working, as well as specific requirements, one of which was to stay underground, under the thickness of stone or soil, because only in this way it could reveal its outstanding potential. The spirit was not a fighting spirit, hardly powerless in direct combat, but it did not need to fight.

It was a specialist in disguise, but very conditionally, for it did not create primitive emission-absorbing fields or trapping nets, nor did it redirect or dampen the sensory pattern. This spirit belongs to the spheres of, what a marvelous thing, Depth, and Darkness, as well as, what is more unexpected, Space. This spirit covered a section of some underground complex, a cave, or even a basement, and then, as if to create a cut-off field from its own essence, shifted the coordinate position of the occupied territory between here and not-here. Roughly speaking, as long as this spirit is active, as long as it is bound to its place, the bunker under that house disappears, it is no longer there. You can dig from dusk till dawn, sifting the soil with a fine sieve, scanning it with sensory charms and rituals, X-raying it, launching chimaeroid scout worms under the ground, searching through the response of plant roots permeating the space, even calling the search spirits for help - you won't find anything.

To crack such a disguise you need to either know what exactly you are looking for and how to resist it, use something really exotic, or work through the magic of space, specialized sensory rituals that can sense the instability of certain areas, or flood the entire surrounding area with a bunch of magical weaves of search type, to literally not leave a scrap of free space. The spirit creates a kind of superposition in relation to a certain territory. Shelter in his embrace is not here and everywhere, but only on a limited piece of space, so overloading this defense is possible but very difficult and expensive. It's easier to slip a beacon into the pocket of someone who will visit the shelter and use it to locate him, search by blood or auric trace, or even catch him at the exit of the fold.

At one of these exits.

Yes, yes, within the city limits, he would be able, albeit with training and very carefully, relying on the properties and aspects of this spirit, to create such doors to get out of the shelter, say, in Sylvia's mansion, or in his room at Trabius Borshakl's farmyard, or outside the city wall in some bushes, or in an inconspicuous alley in the slums. The same property of creating such wormhole-like tunnels will allow almost without problems to call even the call of the elder spirits in the shelter. It drains all the magical background somewhere outside the city or in the depth of the earth, at a depth of many kilometers under the stones of paving stones. Yes, the strongest calls will have to be shielded additionally, yes, some spirits will not come to such a point of call, yes, if too actively drain their energy and spiritual echo outside the city wall, they will start looking for a master of shamanism, but it is still an opportunity to practice quietly, without going far from civilization and without attracting the attention of doctors!

For just one talent point, and at the cost of again postponing the promotion of call practice to advanced mastery. On the other hand, he would have a chance to develop the very practice, as well as a lot of other knowledge, just by getting a promotion in the usual way (but for such a highly ranked and variable knowledge it would be very difficult), but the chance to get a ready and most reliable contract with the right spirit or its convenient substitute.... no, not minuscule or even negligible, he could try. Only for that, he would have to, well, call powerfully and an extremely strong entity, which would not immediately come to the call. The Earthman was willing to bet his salary for a year in advance that the guards, both regular and secret, as well as the representatives of the mages, would come to the call much faster, asking all sorts of uncomfortable questions and demanding permission for advanced practice inside the city limits.

Received: “Contract with an elder spirit: He Who Hides Himself in the Rocks and Opens the Doors”.

The acquired talent is added to the overall Player status.

For the System with its perfectionism, the conditions are quite standard: one summoning per year, tied to a place that the spirit will make its own and part of itself, and the spirit will stay in this place and protect it for three winters, just after a year it can be moved to a new place. If there is no desire to change the dislocation, then just update the order to keep masking and out-presence on the already occupied area, there is not even need to call, just send the appropriate image. Passing the contract by inheritance is quite possible, as well as possible to bind the spirit to a certain area for a longer time, say, for ten or even fifty years, so as not to fear that he will leave at the end of the three-year term, and you will not be around. At the same time, this action will not allow you to transfer the spirit to a new place before the expiration of the specified period, only to recall it and then wait for a new call for the same fifty years.

The entity was not evil or even dark, but rather born and bred by the absence of light rather than darkness, yet completely neutral and indifferent. Listening to his new contract, Stepan realized that this something was such an indifferent person - well, within the limits in which the concept of personality, not entity, could be applied to spirits - that if the world around him knew how much it didn't care about the world, reality itself would cry. There were no problems with the summoning, and the shaman was finally convinced that he had chosen the right path. A couple-three days to go through the brains of the bosses and just random workers with his spirits, wiping himself out of the picture of the world. Take a couple or three days off after that since he's dealt with the mice, and make the call of the lover of hide-and-seek and doors right inside the isolated lair. Make the lair suitable for work and long stays, expand it if necessary, and add a couple of rooms and a ritual hall. There would be no need to think about disguises under the protection of the elder spirit. Sylvia and her nest should be properly taken care of, and perhaps the nest should be subjugated entirely by calling another elder spirit with an unpronounceable name into that cozy mansion.

After that, he can start working in peace. Appear here, at the winery, quickly and accurately perform the tasks. The rest of the time either to pump in the call cave or just rest. A huge magical-medieval city with a lot of people, non-humans, mages, embassies of other countries - there is even an elven emissary service here - shops and fairs. One can relax a little after so many days of hardship and wandering, can't one? He can, but not for long, because in the list of tasks set for himself, still hangs the search and preventive elimination of an unknown demonic creature, which managed to get into his dreams and lost a piece of her own name there. Stepan did not say it aloud, even thought it very carefully, but, with the right selection of entourage and proper preparation. He will be able to send at the call of this image-name of specially selected spirits with the right aspects.

Yes, they can be fought off, but only by a very uncommon demon, really strong and dangerous. But somehow I can hardly believe that fate has brought him together with a creature whose name is divided into more than two parts. With appropriate strength and equally appropriate experience, such creatures are rarely younger than two or three thousand years old. Certainly not weaker than a magister in pure power and without regard to accumulated souls. And even if the spirits failed, he would still know about it, understand the depth of the problem and be able to realize the scale of the threat, shit himself a little, and then start preparing an even more powerful strike force. The likelihood of that, he estimated, was very low, but not zero. The probability of meeting a bloodsucker with his retinue in a remote and almost abandoned village on the edge of the world was not very high either. As well as to fall into a powerful ambush and games of special services just by accident sitting on the wrong ship, which, in turn, also confused with another boat. And to get into a hell of a mess with a lot of evil and bad spirits at the first attempt to get out of the body in order to pump profile talents for the shaman... and no, this is exactly the kind of shit he was expecting, the action is indeed dangerous, but he was not expecting it on such a fucking scale.

"So much to do, so much to do, and I haven't even had dinner yet." Stepan sighed sorrowfully about his fate, getting up from the slightly dusty floor, on which he had drawn a chalk circle with camel chalk and dabbed some wax. "So we must go and chew. I hope they don't skimp on food in this place?"

They didn't skimp too much on food for the workers, at least the gifted ones. The food was only slightly worse than in Lyady, but it was edible, the portions were large, and you could take supplements if you wanted.

Well, it's not that bad.

Almost good.

He hopes it doesn't jinx anything

STEPAN'S STATUS AS NORMAL AT THE END OF CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:

Name: Stepan

Level: 26

Class: Senior Shaman

Characteristics: (free: 0)

Talents (free): 0

Constitution: 2

Sensitivity: 11

Power: 7

Control: 5

Source: 5

Spirit: 13

Resistance: 1

Knowledge acquired: speaking and writing: Free Cities, academic Neirat, Island Kingdom; call practice of master level; advanced master level of spiritual dialog; wilderness hermit; advanced basics of working with healing spirits; advanced developed techniques of casting shamanic charms (GIFT); advanced basic techniques of dream-inducing and dream correction (GIFT); the advanced basic practice of combat calls; advanced basic techniques of interaction with magical sources; advanced basic techniques of countering curses: advanced fundamentals of fast call; the advanced basic practice of spiritual operation; the mastery of an experienced martial caller; advanced basics of spiritual haggling and contract agreements with otherworldly entities; the advanced basic practice of remote control of spiritual entities; basic methods of teaching magical sciences; basic methods of tantric practices; advanced basic methods of territorial influences; basics of work with totems; advanced basic techniques of building defensive formations; advanced techniques of spiritual wandering; advanced basic skills of spiritual conflict outside the physical body; advanced developed techniques of suggestive influences based on shamanism (GIFT); proficient methods of undercover work; mastery of puppet-envolt magical practice; developed methods of controlled spiritual indwelling

Minor knowledge: contract with an elder spirit: Sleepwalker (GIFT); contract with the elder spirits: The Shroud of Touch and the Creator of Decisions (GIFT); a contract with a strong spirit: The Eater of Diseases; defense by distortion of the anteroom of the spheres; contract with a strong spirit: Cheesh'sh'shuya; contract with a strong spirit: Jolly Milker; contract with a strong spirit: Sneaking Glow; contract with a senior spirit: Joy of the Waves; contract with a senior spirit: Vishpli-Schwalstprachtmatt; contract with a senior spirit: Memory Eater; curse of the locking of the paths; exile from reality; contract with an elder spirit: He Who Hides Himself in the Rocks and Opens the Doors.

Obtained properties: blessings of health and long life; toughness of spirit; resilience of subtle bodies; small mark of spiritual spheres: spiritual shroud of higher auric concealment (GIFT); flexible transformation of the spiritual body; marking of fallen leaves and black roots; a tantric spiritual hearth; recognition of creators of passions and weavers of feelings (GIFT); heritage in blood and spirit (GIFT); patchwork spiritual echo (GIFT); multiplicity of spiritual awareness; small spiritual and energetic protection; the regeneration of subtle bodies; the marking of free winds and whispering blows; the marking of quiet pools and deep waters; the recognition of the keepers of doors and those who pave the way

System modifiers: peaceful development IV; issuance of system assignments III; lecherous development IV; access to system purchases IV; small system endowment of characteristics; temporal awareness IV; reserve renewal IV; replenishment of life IV; accepting a systemic deal with a patron (Liarat si Merrinal, Lady of Gifts and Giver of Gifts, loyal servant of Innelas Innelay); creation of group I; intensive development I; gift small temporary enhancement of attributes in the name of Liarat si Merrinal, Lady of Gifts and Giver of Gifts, faithful servant of Innelas Innelay (GIFT)

Completed Deals: -

Available Deals: Cute & Innocent; Sweet Attraction; Big & Soft; Tense and Frozen; The Tenderest Buns

Reward Tokens: Awesome Watermelons (100); Indifferent Doll (3); Ignored Orgasm (100); One-time improvement of item quality and properties (1); small artifact repair (3); significant materialization of the stock of quality reagents and consumables tied to the class (1); instant recovery of magic reserve (25)

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

STATUS OF SYLVIA MALTER AT THE MOMENT OF THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER (if Stepan Normal had bothered to accept her into the group):

Name: Sylvia Malter

Level: 47

Race: High Vampire (human)

Class: Bloodchanter

Specialty: Bloodwind.

Characteristics: (free: 0; in brackets are bonuses from Stepan.)

Talents (free): 3

Constitution: 9 (2)

Sensitivity: 7 (3)

Power: 4 (2)

Control: 5 (0)

Source: 3 (1)

Spirit: 6 (2)

Resistance: 8 (3)

Knowledge absorbed: spoken and written: [ reveal ]; advanced developed control of scarlet drop; the advanced practice of blood shaping; advanced blood patronage; mastery techniques of subjugating blood resonance; the advanced developed practice of superimposing delusions; advanced techniques of racial magic; advanced techniques of blood acceleration; advanced basic techniques of scarlet pulse; advanced basic practice of blood magic-based searching effects; advanced developed techniques of scarlet alchemy; advanced basic ritualistic practice; advanced basic barrier-breaking techniques; advanced basic acoustic mental influence practice; advanced seduction and deception techniques; scarlet martial arts (Blood Pact); the art of agency and infiltration (Blood Pact); advanced basic mentoring and nurturing techniques; advanced basic personality reshaping techniques

Minor knowledge: skillful protective crimson cloak; double whip of bloody submission; skillful crimson claws; implosion of bloody resonance

Acquired properties: enhanced saturation of bloody drops; corporeal essence of the supreme bloodsucker; enhanced blood reserve conservation; eye modification: subduing gaze; vocal cord modification: enchanting voice; skeletal base modification: strengthening and flexibility; essence modification: Ancient Ichor's Drop

System modifiers: [none]

Special: [Empty for now]

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

Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/86785/576584

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP