Готовый перевод Настучать в бубен / Hit the tambourine: Глава 18-4

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It was obvious that he was not going to kill the scum immediately, especially since the scum had so far toned down its actions, in a hurry to please Master Miller, who was not very pleased with his recent quarrel and public loss of face. Stepan focused on what he had waited so long for and had only recently achieved. The summoning of the elder spirits, and now he was taking a simpler bar, not like a Dog-spirit standing close to the higher rank. And he wore the mask every single time. This mask was useless and even harmful for calling and summoning the inexorable pursuer. It could provoke the creature. Now, using the new shelter, the activated mask, and a generous expenditure of reagents, the shaman felt as if he had first played DOOM on the Nightmare difficulty and only then moved to the medium difficulty. The second of the summoned elder spirits was, on the contrary, standing on the borderline with just strong, and did not even have any special exotic properties. A typical elementalist on the solid, able to attack with his whole body, defend himself with it, directly control the ground and dirt, and that was it. He summoned him, exchanged images, fixed the contract for the coming summoning, and then sent the spirit, satisfied with the offerings, away.

The matter was so easy that one couldn't help but want to cry out the classic “Is that it?”. It's one thing to realize with your mind that you are, in principle, ready to summon elder entities, but you don't want to risk summoning them outside the prepared area. But to see the extent of your readiness in practice is another. It's very motivating, actually. The black dog wasn't just difficult to deal with, it was also just very scary. It was too strong, despite the extremely reliable and maximally predictable ritual. And here... well, yes, it was tense, he had to pour in a third of the reserve, he had to spend time on a two-stage call, then conduct the third stage of the invocation right after the second and sharply activate the protection line. And still, it was heaven and earth, if you compare it to a dog, which made Stepan feel warm and a little pleased for himself and his OPness. Then he remembered again the image of how the dog had literally torn apart an old and experienced bloodsucker, even if not a high one, and his mood returned to its former level.

The next decade was entirely devoted to filling the contract book with elder spirits, with one-time contracts for a few summonses, no permanent addition to the retinue or planting them in the totem. It was much more complicated here, like going back in time again. He could summon a dozen strong entities a day for the time being, but he couldn't do that with an elder spirit. Even with the support of the totem, even with the perfect offerings, some of which he had to buy from the store anyway, he couldn't afford to call an elder spirit every day. He had conducted three summons in the entire decade, one of which he stopped midway through, sensing the spirit's displeasure and grimacing in frustration. In his knowledge base, the spirit whose summoning he cut short was very much dependent on his own completely random moods. It could agree to be summoned repeatedly for free, it could charge a price, or it could attack the summoner. The shaman sensed the very aggression in the spiritual image of the presence of the unpredictable flame-like entity and stopped the call, activating an additional line of protection, which blurred and disconnected the trace of his call, so that the creature itself did not come to fight.

The other two summons were much easier. One of them was perfectly suited to the small task of summoning an elder spirit with very rare aspects and a very fanciful sphere of creation. An entity as powerful and profound in its mastery of spiritual influence as the Sleepwalker. It was a craftsman if such a thing could be said of such a creature at all. He didn't need it, but he had an assignment, had the necessary reagents, and needed it for one of his planned upcoming summons. A spirit without a clear image could influence the materials and reagents, the very concept of the offerings, pulling them to himself in the spirit world, in an individually created pocket. Stepan was able to directly deliver an offering to the spheres, but here was a member of the indigenous population who specialized in such things. And not only deliver, but also change, remake, or combine, formulating the offering for a particular operation. Or not an offering, but something else. For example, processing the material for a totem, strengthening some material, and removing some of the harmful shades from the picture of the future call.

In fact, it would seem that everything made by this spirit can either be done by yourself, compensated by additional calls, or by spending more time and effort to dialog with the spirit. But it seems so. After all, there are types of entities that need to be summoned for a certain time or they get bored, there are those for which it is necessary to conduct several separate and simultaneous calls, and therefore no concentration is enough and slack in quality to compensate. There are those entities that will simply refuse to come to the call unless there is a very specific and strange offering, which, perhaps, in a single copy existed hundreds of epochs ago in a completely different world, so now the spirit must be deceived every time with skillful fake. There were so many ways of using this invocation that a single enumeration of them would be enough for a small scientific work if Stepan wanted to write such a work.

By the way, he completed the task and was rewarded with a random item of the “reagent” class from the elite segment of the store and a single token. The item turned out to be a kind of Petri dish, made not of glass, but literally of a frozen force field, self-sustaining and fueled by the magical background of the world until the moment of opening the main nodes. Inside it was a single leaf of a slightly bluish hue, which was not a material object at all. It was a purely phantom thing, and so phantom, so deeply immersed in spiritual reflection, that even Stepan would have had to cram all the concentration and density of spiritual transformation into one limb to prevent the leaf from flying away in the streams of ether. And it will fly away because it is very, very, very, not to convey how very sensitive it is to these etheric streams. It can be used instead of a compass to search for the smallest distortions of the ether, but only not for a long time, for it will be spoiled. It is more logical to bring it as an offering, many spirit-seekers, even the most fastidious and strong, up to senior or higher, for such a petal will break to pieces and go to the contract without talking. If you try hard enough, then on a permanent one too.

The Token was a “small temporary increase in the attribute of Constitution” with five charges, which increased the specified characteristic by three and no more after application, for two and a half hours. With the power of the System reflexes and aura, control was adjusted to a sharp increase in the characteristic, and the toy could be used on anyone, not only on himself. In principle, Stepan wouldn't call the thing useless, though Spirit or Sensitivity would be much more effective, or the same source. Constitution was still a specific characteristic, as he realized, there were no normal users of warrior classes in this world, or rather, there were, but very few of them reached at least the equivalent of mastery. In the sense of few, even against the background of ordinary masters, they were literally few. The specificity of the class itself and the difficulty of its development against the more flexible path of classical or wild magic was affecting. Well, or Sylvia just didn't know about such individuals, she's not the omniscient Wikipedia.

The second of the invocations that worked belonged to the suggestive types, which, taking into account the mask, the spiritual echo of the mark of passions, the prepared calls in several stages, as well as the preliminary conversation with the spirit without direct invocation, made this contract in some ways even easier than the second one. First, to create an appropriate circle, literally a circle indented on the stone floor. Then pour there, in the notch, even illuminating pale water in which previously diluted the necessary powders. Then prepare an offering in the form of a sack with crushed herbs and stone, and here even especially expensive gifts were not required. And then come out of the body and take up the summoning. The circle shimmering in rhythm with the heartbeat glowed, and the sack slowly fell out of reality, as if it had become too heavy for reality and was breaking through the thin barrier straight into the high spheres. The suggestor and Stepan, hovering on the very edge of reality, were saying all sorts of things.

The mask in active protective mode allowed him to feel quite well protected from the influence on his mind, but that didn't mean that Stepan didn't over-insure himself in other ways, the main of which was the circle of the shining line. It was one of his strongest shielding techniques, working at the intersection of witchcraft and shamanism, literally cutting off some type of influence, forbidding it to cross the line. Wind will not turn into claws, fire will not catch fire, water in the body will not raise the pressure to a hundred atmospheres, and mental suggestion simply will not find the addressee. In the case of this entity, the glow was obviously customized just for the suggestion of the standard and part of the exotic types. The spirit, of course, in the database of the system name was listed as not aggressive, but, if the shaman protected his head insufficiently qualitatively, this power could force hit eat shit simply out of resentment for such neglect. And literally too - not for nothing, after all, a specialist in such delicate topics. But, since everything was done correctly, the result was correct.

acceptance

execution

The spirit made a contract, secured it with the most powerful contract, which Stepan reinforced with a central totem and the best consumables, and then set out on his journey. Shifting through the tunnel passage woven by the ++Revealer, he emerges at the depth of the spiritual layer right in the middle of the winery site, taking root there and becoming as invisible as possible for the spirit, whose invisibility at a level comparable to that of the Sleepwalker is one of the aspects of his specialty. The task of the formless and devoid of image-appearance spirit is straightforward - to support the already summoned and pre-instructed to add to the team of spirits that control the flow of attention in the courtyard. So that every time Stepan wants to be called to do some shit, so immediately this thought will go away for one reason or another, no matter what. No time, no desire, he was given a day off, he still has a day off, that guy over there will do a better job, he has already been assigned something else - the spirit itself will open people's defenses and find the most suitable from the victim's point of view, why Pann should not be called, as well as in general to look for him or think about where he is wandering there.

The most subtle impact. Minimal and so tiny that even a close inspection would have a chance of missing it. Well, if anyone thought to look for signs of mental control on winemakers and cheesemakers. In essence, it is not even a control, but a short injection into the right part of the mental body, not suggesting something, but transferring thoughts to a new direction. That is, it was better to do the work of employment and not to forget to pay the cat, so that the mice continued to die, and Stepan was not remembered. And yes, until now, despite the additional group of spirit-seekers, which were looking for underground passages and other ways to deliver mice, these same mice continued to climb into those barns, and the cat continued to choke and eat them as if he was in a real cat hunting paradise.

By the time Stepan decided to eliminate Valdis, he hadn't solved the riddle, though he was dangerously close to spitting on his own plans and conspiracy, putting every single inhabitant of the farmstead to sleep, to summon the spirits that would cover it with cut-off barriers, and then use the best trackers to find the cause of the mouse problem, even if they had to literally dig and sniff every fucking pebble and look in every hole. It was close, but prudence, as well as the dense list of tasks that needed to be accomplished still prevailed and brought his thoughts back in a meaningful direction.

While Stepan was innocently entertaining himself with the summoning of the elder spirits, which was an oxymoron from the point of view of the local shamans, he was also gathering information about his target in passing. Both through Sylvia, who had her little dossier on all the influential individuals of Dantmark, and by groups of spirit searchers, who conducted a primary analysis of the defense systems of Valdis' mansion. Part of the secondary analysis could be done, even for free, in order to please a generous and influential shaman with a lot of spiritual marks. Luckily, this morally dubious and really bastardized individual did not live in a magical tower. Otherwise, they would have had to catch him in the middle of a walk, which was not so much more difficult as fraught with accidental witnesses or victims. Unlike most of the magistrate's entourage, this guy had his mansion, purchased without moms, dads, and loans, given by a great uncle. The mansion, located in a wealthy neighborhood adjacent to the city tower, had protective charms. Couldn't have had them. They were quite good, even for a mere adept, but not even the slightest comparison with the tower. The Earthman would not risk climbing there, and even hoping not to reveal the fact of the shaman's interest in the tower.

In fact, it would be impossible for a mere average adept to get such a mansion for personal use, as well as such protection on that mansion. But fortunately, Valdis had the prefix “de” in front of his surname for a reason. He had money in his family, which was not surprising when he was related to the head of the city's circle of mages. Although, it was hard to say what came first - the egg or the chicken. Throughout his career, Magister Miller had not been shy about using the influence of his relatives for his practice and development. Whatever it was, Valdis had a mansion, as well as a habit of spending time there, away from the gaze of his superiors, but within easy reach, so that he could immediately appear in the tower if necessary. Sylvia suspected, and Stepan was sure, that the mansion had its room for especially rough adult games, and maybe even more than one.

A protective signal network, guard beds that are druidic constructs, screens on windows, tracking charms on locks, shutters, and doorknobs. That's the outside, the basic groundwork for a good mage's home. Valdis even made some of it himself, his magic was evident in the screens, and he had made the network himself, even if someone else had made the basis for it. The druidic billets were clearly the work of local drug dealers and mushroom growers, their products were used by almost all the local rich and noblemen who wanted to protect their homes and controlled territories with selectively aggressive flora. On average, the external defenses were not the worst, but they were unable to stop or contain Stepan, nor were they able to detect his actions. Clearly, he didn't open it in a couple of mouse clicks, going through all the lines, but he still managed to do it, and literally on the fly, being distracted by a more important mission.

Inside the mansion were several deeply protected rooms, right up to the standard: an office, a basement, and a small laboratory for personal research. The defenses there were more exotic, advanced, and already clearly installed with the help of some of the more powerful mages, though clearly not personally by Magister Miller. In the rest of the building, the defense systems were roughly the same as outside - nets, screens on the doors, and rare vases in tubs with some of the leaves had been modified for scanning and surveillance. It would not be possible to turn away such “eyes” with standard spells, it would be necessary to use something non-standard. Stepan wasn't interested in the office, or the laboratory. Moreover, even through the protection, the spirits could pick up a feeling of not abandonment, but sterility and disuse. This individual had long ago abandoned his research. Or, more likely, he'd done it in the laboratories and ritual halls of the city tower, and in the mansion he'd kept in shape with standard workouts.

Stepan did not go into the cellar either but confined himself to the small spirit of the life-sphere, the aspect of blood and agony, which, not without difficulty, for the cellar, was insulated to the best degree, better than even the study, and he caught the emanations of other people's suffering and spilled blood. It was old and dried up long ago, too. Sylvia had been right when she had said that Valdis had no time for fun. The spirits that had been swirling around in the interior left no trace of their presence, leaving again through the wall - standardly enchanted and reinforced with amulets in special niches, but not updated for a long time. The shaman had learned everything he needed, and he was not interested in anything else, because this house could not give him anything else, and the experience of opening the protection and analyzing it he received just crumbs, for practice he was given much more.

Before enforcing the already signed sentence on the evil asshole, Stepan sorted out a small number of things that he had overdue. He had completed a small assignment that had almost reached its expiration date. It was tied to the call to the spirits of darkness, aspects of invisibility and concealment, which in his hall could be performed with closed eyes and without any preparation. In fact, that was why he had almost overdue it. He was always sure that he would be able to fulfill it at any moment, so he could take his time, not to put the quest in the task log, but to do this, that, this, and that, and then to fulfill the quest afterward. Well, almost to postpone, a little more and it would be a shame. They promised a random property as a reward, and Stepan did not throw away properties. He closed the task just three hours before the deadline, barely able to resist the rush.

The reward was another drop of experience, an increase in affinity with the spheres of darkness and silence, an improvement in the effects of all concealment-type chanting, and the very property he had been promised. The property was called “strengthened auric nodes” and seemed to belong to the same branch of properties as “regeneration” and “subtle body resistance” already represented in his Status. In essence, it was a complex effect that increased the limit of the load that the aura nodes could withstand, especially in terms of rapid and sharp investment of a large part of the reserve. An ideal means of strengthening for wizards and warlocks, but also useful for a shaman, especially when it was necessary to summon several of the strongest contracts at once, helping them to incarnate themselves and feeding their powers. Yes, usually the process of draining the reserve is soft and unhurried for shamans, but things happen. Eels float on rivers, and Edwards in remote villages hide, and Evil Tit get in the way.

The combination of all three properties gave a very noticeable synergy, increasing the overall effect. At Stepan's current level, it wasn't as noticeable as it would have been at the first level but it was still very significant. Again, now it will be much harder to cause irreparable injury by hitting an aura node with an assassin's blade, and easier for him to overcome curses whose effects are directed at aura nodes. If the curse operates according to other principles, then, of course, you will have to resist it on general terms the standard for a shaman's methods - either calling the necessary spirits, or squeezing and isolating the affected area with your own spiritual body. The bad news is that the state of auric nodes has changed in its reflection, now any healer can easily notice their abnormal strength and elasticity, which in itself can be considered a kind of “blood heritage” of the family of combat mages or elementalists with specialization in large-scale and powerful spells. Another area that will need to be covered with a Shroud, from which now and then there is a desire to somehow improve that Shroud.

But, since the elite property refused to accept talent points, Stepan had to invest his honestly received talent points in the root skill, receiving “advanced mastery practice of calls” and then falling out of the clip for two days. He even felt a little guilty for having to lie to his employer, pretending that he'd worked his ass off trying to find out from the spirits the reasons for the mouse invasion. The bosses were understanding, and in the time allotted for recovery, he was not disturbed at all. He, accordingly, either laid down near the totem, feeding from it and meditating, or lay in bed. The possibility of instant transfer with a minimum of reserves allowed him to treat such a miracle of teleportation even easier than going to the toilet.

The new knowledge was, as it was supposed to be root knowledge, voluminous to the extreme and, as it was expected of a raised to the rank maximum for the master, astonishingly powerful. The basis, as in all previous times, was all kinds of call practices, tricks, cunning, precise knowledge of rituals and whole groups of them, even more detailed tables of typification of offerings, allowing to find the keys to absolutely any spirit through ordinary dialogue. And every other knowledge in the Status still expanded the basis - combat and agent work, healing and curses, charms and suggestion, long-distance work and contracts, territory and totems, dolls and arrays, out-of-body and spiritual wandering. Each of these blocks of information extended the boundaries of the root, and each was accompanied by a list and catalog of what the call practice received through them. All in all, he managed in two and a half days only because he meditated nonstop and was constantly near the totems, feeding his body and mind with their presence. In field conditions, he would have been turned off for the whole five days, if he counted it together with sleep, and this under the most optimistic scenario. Let both call and dialog be the root skills of the class, let them be equal in importance and usefulness, but the dialog is much closer to reflexes and skills, while the practice of calls also has a huge amount of encyclopedic knowledge in its pure form, from which the head naturally swells.

To put it matter-of-factly. He was now really fully, as fully as possible versed in summoning elder entities, at a level where he could call them regularly and in a huge assortment. Also, albeit cautiously and with huge reservations, he could, relying on all the accumulated power, overconsumption of reagents, summoning backup spirits, using a mask and under certain conditions, call full-fledged supreme spirits from the lower limits of power, and not just call, but also survived. And if very lucky, not just surviving, but even managing to achieve some kind of cooperation and fulfill certain tasks. Well, theoretically he could because in practice Stepan would only risk trying to pull this kind of shit in the next thirty levels if he had a gun loaded with adamantium bullets to the back of his head. Or if clawed demonic hands grabbed him by the balls. Or something else as unpleasant and guaranteed to be fatal as that, so he'd look for an alternative in that way.

There were not many contacts and the most detailed calls of the higher spirits in his memory, but even this “few” would be enough to sign a death sentence for possessing such knowledge, well, if possible, and if it does not work out to negotiate, to subdue or at least to ensure neutrality. Simply because few sane people would want to have someone living in their country who could summon something standing on the border of a magister and an archmagister in a direct battle. Yes, it would be difficult, yes risky, yes he would not do it until he was sure of his safety, just as with the older spirits he could start summoning back in the Lyady, albeit with the same risks as the higher ones now, but he could do it, theoretically and practically. He would be eliminated or taken under control, not even out of malice, but simply because there was no desire to tolerate a completely uncontrollable element of such power.

A higher spirit is a small army, accompanied by a master or even two, devoured on the march, from which only those masters with a minimum of retinue will survive, at best. It is a pestilence that covers a large city or a whole region, extremely difficult to heal by conventional means, requiring magical or priestly treatment, and without it having almost one hundred percent lethality. It is a storm front capable of drowning a small fleet of a trading expedition of several ships, despite the resistance of mages and ship altars. It is a wall of fire in the form of the angry face of an ancient king, burning even stone to the ground, sparing no living thing but those with the blood of an ancient kingdom that may never have existed in this world. It is a stone giant more than half a hundred meters tall, capable of throwing boulders over the horizon, knocking flies with them on the fly, and the power in those boulders is like an enchanted catapult shell.

Even those of the higher ones that weren't fully martial were still impressive. It didn't matter if they could heal almost any wound, literally licking it with a cat's tongue or burning it in their fire like a phoenix, resurrect the recently or not so recently deceased, if his aura wasn't too badly damaged, find a lost thing on the other side of the world and bring it back in five minutes, maybe by stealing it from someone's safe, or carry you to the other side of the world, maybe right into the safe, bypassing the protection. But to hell with the higher ones, if Stepan can only lick his eyes at their calls for the near future. The main value of this promotion is the senior spirits, the expansion of the list of available calls, and the simplification of some of the old ones, including the one he has already outlined for his second elimination mission.

Oh, elder spirits of every specialty and type, for every kind of knowledge available to the status, really, and each with their own complexities and quirks, each with their own conditions and dangers. How about a healer who can literally restore internal organs if you put a bull's heart or liver into the body instead of a damaged piece of flesh? Except that he would have to slaughter a hecatomb of these bulls, fifty of them, and for the next three years and three days he would be able to eat only beef and vegetables, and no alcohol until the heart or another part of the body becomes real. The curser was also not far behind, as he could put on very unpleasant and gradually gaining strength effects, which, in principle, are not difficult to remove, but they will return again and again if you just get into the sunlight, and each time they will return in a more severe form. This becoming a vampire, only without accompanying pros, but photophobia will be according to the testament of movies with Wesley Snipes, literally burning from long standing under the sun. In order to banish the curse completely, you will have to search for the spirit itself, which is constantly staying on a deep layer of spheres, but approximately next to the victim, though not in absolute proximity, renewing its influence time after time.

The spirit of the fence and the line, which indwells a wall, fence, hedge, or even a circle outlined with a wand, turns this barrier into something truly insurmountable, literally sucking in enemy spells and sending them to the depths of the spheres. And also sucking in the lives of those who dare to come too close to the outside of the fence without the permission of the shaman-caller. And the older the fence is, the longer it has stood, and the more embedded it is in the world, the more this spirit can manifest its abilities. And, what is important, a peasant fence made of sticks, put up ten generations ago, will fit even better than a brand new stone wall made of the best materials and with additional enchantments. A special bodyguard for traveling in the world of spirits, which floats, flies, and stays behind the shaman, literally in his shadow, a reflection if you will, invisible and intangible even for more powerful than the shaman or the senior entity. And if there is danger, he will switch places with the protected target, hiding him in his pocket space, taking his place, and kicking ass. Outwardly and in the spiritual imprint this entity will look like an ugly and mutated copy of the shaman himself, making it seem from the outside that he has such a combat form. In the end, the creature could take over some of the shaman's abilities for the duration of the reflection, and the defendant, once in hiding, would be able to give orders to the rest of his retinue.

Another twin-substitute that can serve as a transmitter bait. It takes the form and imprint of a shaman during a call, allowing the enemy to attack and destroy itself, dying and being reborn. But at the same time, the one who kills the bait will receive a vampiric-sucking effect, depriving exactly half of the reserve of strength and not allowing to replenish them. Even from a storage unit or a totem, you can't recharge. The strength will be lost as if to nowhere, but in fact in the reserve of the reborn spirit. And, as if it was not enough, the victim will sharply reduce the magical defense, resistance, and strength of shields, but only to attacks and influences of the image of whom he was going to destroy. And it will be a decrease of the level when the apprentice's magic arrow has all the chances to break the rigid segmental shield of a weak master. In a battle of any kind of equal opponents is almost a death sentence, unless, of course, the opponent is not able to recognize the trick or level the curse in time. For example, he could also cast a trick or something like that.

I remembered an elder spirit whose strength and forte were in modifying the existing defenses of shamanic, witchcraft, or classical magical ones. To put him in the walls of a dilapidated fortress, the charms which have almost disintegrated without renewal for a hundred years, and he will patch them, remake, weave additional nodes, and connect the individual nodes together, achieving a very decent result. There were many such specialists among the spirits, many guardian-keepers who could build or strengthen protection, but this individual knew how to work with weaving charms. Yes, so work that if he were not a spiritual entity, very alternative thinking, another master with a specialization in protective and signal fields would not be shameful to take a couple of lessons from him. Alas, the spirit couldn't teach him, he was generally, in his normal state, completely unskilled in magic and didn't even understand what weaving was as such. Simply merging with the already existing protection, no matter what school, it seemed to connect to the information field of the universe, absorbing the image-knowledge of what a strong and correct defense based on a certain school would look like, and then became this knowledge, embodying it together with its manifestation in reality.

The number of suggestive, bewitching, and lecherous spirits with exotic properties of the Autodivine type of entities of the senior rank was stupefying, as well as mild panic. There were guys much stronger and noticeably more useful, and more flexible than the very narrow contractual limits of the Veyatel. And what spirits of the same type could do, but higher ones... No, Stepan could not complain, he had more pure fighters, defenders, utilitarian specialists, trackers, and even transportation workers in his knowledge base, but still, he was startled. Some individuals even seemed quite suitable for conscription, despite their, ahem, bias toward one Milf.

One of the spirits, on the very border with the Highest, was able to help a lot in tantric practices, connecting the partner and partner so tightly that they involuntarily acquired the strong properties of each other. Two or three, or better two or three dozen sessions in the form of a night of love, during which you have to plow so hard that you will be exhausted, and you can easily raise one or two characteristics for yourself and her. Each will be added to the characteristic that the partner has the highest, so it is better to choose someone with diametrically opposite development. The same goes for auric properties, like aptitude for some kind of magic or more malleable subtle bodies. There's a chance to adopt your partner's properties and pass yours on to her. In general, if it weren't for the fact that this spirit didn't work with the undead, Stepan probably wouldn't have held back.

Having slept through the knowledge, Stepan ate a double portion of porridge first thing, and then once again walked through the battlefields of a feline spirit, staring puzzled at the fucking mouse corpses again. This time he just shook his head and resolutely filed the mystery away on the more distant list of important tasks, to Pirius's slightly mocking cough. No, he understood him quite well. Three certified mages had said nothing, done nothing, and understood nothing, not counting Maître Jasper, who wasn't the right specialty. And he, a self-taught understudy from the backwoods, wants to solve and understand everything on the first, or second, attempt. But Stepan is not a village understudy. He is a Senior Shaman with a System! Yes, he did not work with the problem in full force, both because of a lot of other things, and not wanting to leave traces of powerful calls on the territory of the courtyard, but still offended.

“Yeah, well, don't feel bad, Shaman. It's not so bad for you, but imagine what it's like for Maître Jasper?” The sympathy in the steward's words is completely false, but he doesn't even bother to hide his amusement. “Sometimes I think he's lost sleep over those little buggers, you know? It's true, he told me, but it doesn't matter. The main thing is that your cat is crushing the scum, and that's all it takes, a moron can remove the corpses from under the doors with a shovel. How are you, by the way? You're not wobbly on your feet anymore?”

His words were sincere enough, albeit rather self-serving. He didn't want to lose or ruin the health of an individual who was very useful to him personally and his salary. Stepan was not at all uncomfortable with this attitude. Just like at work in the Earth society, only here he reads feelings and thoughts like an open book. But if the case had been on Earth, and he had somehow summoned the same spirits as he did now, Stepan could put a couple of talent points on it, the result would have been exactly the same.

“Yeah, I'm fine, a little overstressed, but it's nothing.” A little absent-mindedly, mentally scanning the space with his intensity and a strong spirit planted in his eyes and under the shroud, the earthling answers. “That is my grandfather's bequest. Difficult tasks are not given at once, and if the one who took up the task is also a fool, it is not without trauma.”

Pirius grunted at the seemingly flat joke, but his mood soared, and he remembered the phrase. Stepan, of course, had no shortage of grandfather's aphorisms and old anecdotes for a man, but he wanted to get it over with as soon as possible and go to the shelter, to work on the invocations and drawing of a particularly complex amulet. Automatically nodding and answering Pirius' questions, he maintained the illusion of interested conversation. A skill he had honed on Earth, if not to a master's level, then to an advanced level, which made it a bit of a pity that the system hadn't recognized it. However, the ability to behave naturally in any social situation was formally considered part of the agent's skills, which was probably why the system didn't give him some “advanced master skill of not realizing shit and not letting it show”.

“Yes, my respects to your grandfather, he must have been an outstanding man, and he taught you well.” Pirius was not stingy in his praise, but he was not a flatterer either, he just stated the facts, making him tense up a bit. “Believe me, I've seen a lot of peasant magicians, if he goes to shit in the closet and not around the corner, it's not bad. But you've got a speech that could be confused with a city dweller. Honestly, if it weren't for the fact that you've obviously never been to town and don't know the basics, I'd think you were just lying about your village. I've seen it... Well, let's go away...”

He interrupted his unpleasant conclusions for Stepan, who had again misjudged himself somewhere because a small procession was coming towards them along the graveled path. A couple of very pretty maids, a skinny brunette with a stern face and a short brown-haired girl with a very pretty face, nice figure, and big eyes, as well as their, obviously, mistress-principal. She was rather swarthy, not black, but not just a tanned lady of about forty-plus years old, who had some light drops of Eastern gypsy blood in her. She was richly dressed, not worse than Trabius, but outwardly... her face might have been pretty when she was young, but now it was worn out, her figure, also once lush, had faded, there was a crease on her sides not completely hidden by the dress, and her belly was slightly protruding, not at all in pregnancy, and so on.

Apparently, it was the first time Stepan had ever seen Fanya Borshakl, the esteemed and honorable wife of his employer. Frankly speaking, the impression was not very good. The look was wicked, insolent, and slippery-unpleasant, and her appearance too. Stepan, who had never been hurt by unattractive women, who had never spoiled his picture of the world, even involuntarily thought about the reason for his reaction. Well, how pondered? He stepped back with Pirius, tilted his head slightly, without subservience, but with politeness. He kept silent, still just an unfamiliar to her worker, and not an administrator and senior manager of the whole enterprise, as Pirius was. And quickly came to a conclusion - she behaved and behaved as if she was a beauty queen who came to this "farm", but she looked like a queen of the "farm". And more importantly, she assessed him, Stepan, as a piece of meat, with a fleeting glance, but still unpleasantly. If he had been a young lady, he would have compared it to the way a rude but rich peddler undresses a pretty townswoman with his gaze - a slight squeamishness and apprehension at the same time.

But it didn't go any further than a glance. She nodded at Pirius's greeting and went about her business in silence, causing the man to exhale a little. Trabius' temper was stern but fair and calm, but his wife was a bitch so anyone could be reprimanded, even reduced in pay. It was easier for the head winemaker to put up with his wife's whims than to quarrel with her. Pirius, of course, was protected from arbitrary behavior, he just had too many things to do, but it was still not very pleasant to have such a meeting. As Stepan already knew from rumors and untold words, the winemaker's wife spent most of her time at the country estate, inspecting vineyards and supervising purchases of hops and grain for breweries. In spite of her bad temper, she was also from a family of merchants and knew her business well.

"Phew, we made it down the slope without breaking a leg." Having uttered a local proverb, clearly characterizing his attitude to Fanya, who, judging by her name and appearance, actually had a little bit of Caliphate blood, he involuntarily looked at Stepan, as if trying to understand whether he had heard, and the latter, being a reasonable young man, pretended not to hear. "Well, go, go on, have a rest, or do something else with your magic. Don't bother me here."

Stepan, like any other earthly man who had ever been a student, did not have to be begged twice, for he knew how to perform this task. He went to his room, having previously stolen a freshly baked bun from the kitchen, he went to his dwelling and began a long list of important things to do. This list tended to grow and expand so rapidly that one had to run desperately ahead just to keep it from lengthening too quickly. By the time the next preparatory call began, with a group of summoned spirits supplementing one version of the protective trait on the other side of the world of spheres, affecting reality too, he'd forgotten all about the mice, Pirius, Fanya, the winery farmstead, and everything else. The Earthman was immersed in his favorite, really favorite, business, and the rest of the world was in the background.

* * *

A shaman has long ago noticed two complementary patterns, which are either two sides of the same coin or two ends of the same horseshoe. The essence of these patterns is that as long as no one rushes and is not distracted, even very complex tasks are moving noticeably faster and easier, but, at the same time, if an individual like Stepan, no one rushes for a long time and do not kick, the task he performed tends to go very much away from the original idea. The balance, as usual, is absolutely in the middle. The main thing is to be able to balance, from time to time resting by choosing another task, easier. The young man approached the elimination of his opponent, even if the sadistic maniac didn't know about the fact that he had an opponent, with full responsibility, intending to make a definite “overkill”, even if killing the bastard could be much easier. No risks, traces, or indications that it was a shaman's work, not a classic mage or an ordinary assassin with a number of expensive amulets.

In addition to the main task, he was also engaged in secondary tasks, which could be performed in passing. He worked with the memory of the merchant who had written him the letter of recommendation, making Sylvia's memory sublimation much more subtle and gentle, for example. He also accomplished, albeit a little late, the task he'd set for himself. To check on the victims of the vampire killed by the black dog to make sure they didn't die from the injuries inflicted by the bloody control. They didn't die without him, as it turned out: Edward and his horde had deliberately made people into billets for the ghouls, sparing neither their health nor their lives, while Riksar was weaker and was preparing a shelter for himself, not a place for the coming battle. The spirits did not immediately find the right place, despite the fact that Stepan saw it through the eyes of Sylvia, who was looking through the eyes of a black dog. When they did find it, when Stepan created a signal transmission and sent the seekers by direct teleport through the spirit world, it was too late. But late in a good way. The victims were indeed helped, and there were no corpses among them, everyone was pumped out, and questioned, the remains of the undead bastard were examined, and that was it. Well, in the sense that the victims didn't know anything else, the investigation was already conducted without them. They also took a sex toy that had gone crazy somewhere and whose brain and mental body seemed to have been irreparably mutilated, but the others were much luckier. The young man who had tagged a couple of these victims with beacons and then sent some spirits into their dreams had only been able to find out the basic details, not wanting to go any deeper than necessary.

Stepan also helped Sylvia with another matter related to her personal problems. She needed to find out urgently, just yesterday, who one of her partners was working with and for what purpose. Who, it seemed, had decided to cheat her bloodsucking partner a bit. With no evidence or information, Sylvia risked being left without an inflow of new reagents for her alchemy and rare amulets being created by one of the fledglings. Not that the young man cared much about her problems, but it wasn't a bad way to utilize her skills and gain some experience. Getting into the head of a couple of assistants, analyzing the defenses on a trade representative, a rather clever spirit suggestor, actually turning off the victim's brain, but performing the functions of the brain itself, so you can literally read thoughts on the air - the spirit will broadcast them. The victim, which is important, does not even notice that he is not thinking with his brain, but with an astral prosthesis - no memory lapses, no loss of motor skills, only decreased appetite.

The partner really did intend to screw Sylvia or rather to force her to overpay three times as much. He wanted to share some of the profits with one of Prostirus' relatives, who helped him control the flow of not-so-legal reagents that were coming into the city. Stepan, having given Sylvia the names, appearances, business plan, and general outline of the coming events, was already expecting a new task, because he, frankly speaking, did not see any way to fall out of the almost-existing trap, if not to descend to outright brainwashing. And it is impossible to stoop to it, because nowadays people react to it very nervously, and checks on the actions of one world-famous fugitive are still very frequent and extremely attentive. He'll have to find out more about him, just out of interest in his person.

Sylvia showed the Earthman a master class, writing five letters, sending a couple of messages through her people, and not using a single drop of bloody control, not even in the most minimal manifestation. As a result of her impromptu conversation, the very same Prostyrus, master of druidism, called his kin to a conversation, and not just anywhere, but in one of the public places of Dantmark, a local restaurant with a maximum set of stars, and talked to him about something. His relative listened attentively, looking more and more sour by the second, agreed with something, argued about something, but was eventually put down, that is, let go in peace. A day later, Sylvia's “partner” sharply remembered the slightly disrupted delivery deadlines and even made a discount as a good friend. The old druid, who had held this conversation not in his cloister, but almost publicly, said his word as a demonstrative sign for Sylvia.

And the words, or rather words, were clear and substantial questions for the relative. Does he know how difficult it is to get some very rare reagents, which are produced either by vampires, most often from vampire bodies, or by enclaves of northern undead, or simply only in the far north and growing? Does he know how difficult it is to get access to the sales channels of the undead, which always and fundamentally trades only through a layer of bloodsucking scum? And does he know who will compensate Maestro Prostirus for the batch of dark scarlet roses that died without feeding, before the druids find alternative and even more expensive supplies? As a result, the raider's seizure of part of the streams going through Sylvia was canceled a little, and she herself began to press on her partner, though without fanaticism, just scaring him. She understood perfectly well, the bitch, that it was not only unnecessary but also very harmful to be impudent.

Somewhat amazed, and not in a good way, by the twists and turns of local politics, Stepan returned to his plans enriched with new experience. He also performed other, already systematic, quests, but they were mostly tiny, even those that came from Alpha-Milf. However, he didn't fulfill the latter, just as he didn't fulfill the only small quest that directly concerned the inhabitants of the farmstead, even if they were pretty. He wasn't interested in the new special item either, because he didn't need the reagent in the form of a special grave worm, which could be used instead of bait even for a very strong high spirit, even for free. Still, the worm would have to be kept in deaf isolation and a magical analog of the Faraday cage, otherwise, the spirits would have come themselves. The decoy was not turned off. And, given the specifics of the reagent, nurtured on the flesh and blood of fifteen generations of sacrificed second children of the family that conducted this ritual, then will come to such a call, not those entities that Stepan would even want to deal with without total superiority in strength.

And now, having accomplished a lot of other important tasks, replenished the set of contracts, made two new totems, as well as a few additional territorial spells on the stone hall, Stepan was finally ready to perform the most important moment of the operation “kill the bastard”. The summoning of a senior spirit, so unusual, very fastidious, and cunning, could not be simple by definition. He had to spend so much time preparing to make it simple. Preliminary agreement, sacrificial gifts already brought, just so that the creature would at least listen to the shaman, as well as sending the appropriate messenger spirits, which transmitted the will of the shaman to the entity, and then returned the answer back. This shit didn't want to communicate directly, but the alternatives were either much worse in quality, reliability, or all of the above.

In the center of a rather complex call circle, resembling a sun, but with rays inward, there was a piece of lead. It was not just lead, but some kind of magical lead, which was very inert magically and insulated any magic extremely well. He had to buy the material at the store, for the token had no such material in its stock, only some stone with similar properties, but much worse. The spirit would not even look at the stone, not the right aspects and sphere, not at all. Next, as soon as the shaman takes a position in another “sun” strictly to the west of the bigger sun, he starts the call. The mask covers his face, the exhalation turns into a long chest note, and the note sounds like a taut string connecting the two worlds, Reality, and Spheres.

For a moment, the reality seemed to come in waves, and he was helped from the other side and knocked, so that the shaman jerked almost three-quarters of his reserve into the call impulse, at the same time immediately replenishing his strength with the meta-skill. The fires hollowed out - or rather, grown - in the stone flare up, but there is no fire in them, only light, cold, and calm. In this light, the offerings folded in each of the six recesses dissolve little by little, like sugar in boiling water or fingers in acid, leaving behind an upward-spiraling smoke. The smoke gathers into another spiral, resembling a miniature galaxy, exactly above the piece of special lead, exactly as high as the shaman would be if he straightened up and stopped slouching. In the center of the “galaxy,” a bright spot of darkness lights up, perfectly visible even against the background of the general semi-darkness of the room, this spot seems to represent the door and, if you look with spiritual vision, you can see the characteristic all-colorfulness of a direct tear in the fabric of reality, only controlled and rigidly fixed.

There behind that door was nothing to be seen, only darkness, but that wasn't the reason, it was the fact that the spirit frozen right on the edge of the doorway was blocking it from view. The elder essence, and not a weak one, was not only strong but also very dense, which made it a very unusual task to look through. A moment, a second, another half of the reserve, gone in a new sharp jerk, while Stepan thanked his newly acquired property for the fact that he could now be so sophisticated without risk of injury, and then the black dot-thing falls sharply, flowing directly into the lead ingot. Breathing heavily, the shaman completes the chanting, closing the rift and extinguishing the momentum that had dissipated in the spiritual plane, helping the ++Revealer mask the ritual he had performed. It wasn't easy, it took just enough energy to renew the reserve once more, even part of his life was fed to the preferred spirits, so his life force also had to be replenished with a meta-skill.

In the meantime, the lead plaque seemed to have melted into a liquid state, with the only difference being that it did so without the slightest heat. From the shaking drop of light gray metal, thin needles and cones like magnetic fluid rise up once a second, and at the end, the drop ceases to take its normal shape. There is a moment of tension when it almost seems to the shaman that the spirit will not be able to stay in reality and form a perfect body, and then the shape of the drop takes the form of some insect. The appearance combines the features of a mosquito, dragonfly, fly, and hornet, flowing one into the other and constantly changing. Still, the shaman's gaze looks deeper, much deeper, causing a satisfied smile to appear on his face. If the power of this elder spirit could be calculated using the System's methods, its Source index would be barely a single digit. Ridiculous for an elder spirit; even lowly and insignificant ones have much more power.

But this butterfly's stats have all gone into control, power, and resistance, overlaid with a unique combination of exotic properties and suitable aspects. Because of this, this butterfly can become so invisible that it is undetectable by even fully closed fields, up to the highest type. A single scratch with this lead body can tear the aura to shreds and standard methods of countering poison will not help, as well as methods of fighting curses, because the attack of the spirit combines both approaches in equal proportions. This entity is also great at deceiving tracking and defense systems, literally knowing by nature whether a certain place or individual is under surveillance. It can literally loop this observation, show one instead of the other, or simply cut off contact, and the type of observation does not matter, unless it is through its eyes: tracking charms or crystals with recording properties, magical paintings, or druidic plants, the summoned spirit of a deceased great-uncle or his own eyes turned into a necrotic chamber - there is virtually no difference.

Five summons, or rather, only one, during which the spirit remains in reality uninterruptedly, bound by its iron body, but five tasks-purposes, which the spirit has agreed to eliminate together with the accompanying tasks. Then the lead insect will disappear from reality, taking the material host body with it. Little by little making it part of itself to become stronger by being reborn in a new form. This entity already has a lot of metal elementals in it, and in time it will clearly become such, retaining, however, some of the exotic properties of the spirit. That's when it will be really scary shit but, at this rate and without systemic help, he will evolve for another couple thousand years, and that's if he is regularly summoned. Stepan, exhaling tiredly, carried the frozen immovable, not even existing in the full sense of the word something on a special shelf, being very careful not to cut himself on the wings or pierce his fingers with a paw. Without a direct desire to cause damage, these wounds weren't really that bad, but testing the limits of one's own resistance to spiritual injuries wasn't something one wanted to do anyway. He nodded satisfactorily and left, intending to get some sleep.

The next evening, having previously signed a couple of contracts with strong spirits, as well as a whole bunch of them with minor spirits, the shaman took up the recent summoning. Or rather, he simply gave the command, and then the entity flew off the shelf like an ordinary dragonfly, rose to the ceiling, and flew into a specially opened passage. Stepan lying in the new call amplifying circle, partially out of his body, spreading his arms and legs as if he wanted to draw a snow angel on the stones, looked and felt with his spirit senses, barely keeping contact. The entity saw too much, very vivid and multifaceted, so he had to filter the modes, removing all the unnecessary, which was not difficult but took time to adjust the contact. So, controlling his killer drone, the young man directed the lead dragonfly to the window in Valdis' house, at the last moment spreading a shapeless blob and slipping into the smallest cracks, right through the protective screen, which did not sense the guest.

The Earthman, of course, threw images and defense parameters to the entity, and it even took this information into account, but such details simply didn't matter. An overkill in another world is still an overkill. This kind of crap should be sent against a full-fledged master, and in his personal stronghold, and still, the chances will be good, and some adept to kill it is elementary. Well, that was roughly how Stepan deciphered the images that the bored but still attentive spirit shared with him. Yes, exactly boredom, with emphasis on the fact that the task was simple. A very human attitude, which was a consequence of very frequent interactions with shamans, as well as long stays in lead or other iron-metal pseudo-bodies. Obviously, the spirit communicated not with words, but with long and still difficult to understand even for a senior shaman chains of images, but the essence of it did not change much.

Knowing the layout of the house they only checked the basement once more. Stepan didn't want to accidentally frame any of the victims. But the torture chamber was still empty. The spirit, which had taken the form of a lead cockroach, crawled, no, not to the office or the laboratory, but to the bathroom. Preliminary observations showed that the target just loves to soak in hot water, and he furnished the bathroom just to the envy of the whole world and personally Stepan, which is still only a barrel of warm water can afford, and that in a common washroom on the courtyard. Crawling into the bathroom, the cockroach changed its shape again and then began to work with protection and tracking systems, primarily those that permeated the whole house, reacting to the vital signs of the owner. The spider-like lead sub-elemental applied its own influence on top of the main charms, preparing to block them, short-circuit them, and prevent them from signaling the homeowner's death.

The spirit also found additional tracking artifacts, not taken into account by the general protection scheme, unless Valdis was a fan of recording the process of his ablutions in a tracking crystal, and of a particularly inconspicuous type. Either this individual was even more original than Stepan had thought, or the Magister, or someone else, had decided to monitor the sadist, taking him under a tight cover. Stepan wasn't going to check, but he was sure that the torture cellar, office, laboratory, and bedroom had the same or similar trackers. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been wasted on the bathroom, which was a much lower priority for surveillance. Stepan didn't have to wait long; soon two short and short-haired beautiful maids came to the bathroom, one of them was a boy, just castrated and in a dress. The Earthman had no strength to be surprised. They began to prepare the place for the master's ablutions.

Valdis appeared a little later, and with a wave of his hand expelled the servants, who were openly afraid of him, but respected him and revered him unnaturally, making one suspect some mental thing. He promptly threw off his clothes right into their arms and immersed himself in warm water with fragrant oils. Nearby, within arm's reach, there was a small but very loud bell, only usually this individual had been lounging for at least a couple of hours before ringing it. Stepan felt like a pervert, or a maniac of some kind, watching a left-handed man in the shower, but, as they say, what one will not do to restore one's composure and sense of justice. The spider crawling on the ceiling, completely invisible, or rather, camouflaged clearly under the color of the ceiling and hid the energy signature from the modified eyes of the victim, meanwhile, cheerfully shorted out the signal networks and even the bloody control signature. The same life-death beacon that would inform Miller of the apprentice's death.

It was unclear whose recording crystals had looped the moment the servants heated the water, but Valdis had not yet arrived, showing the same ten seconds. The signal networks and the sense of life were also closed to the spirit, which decided which signals to let through and output, and which to hold back and replace with others. Valdis had time to laze around for about ten minutes, getting high on how good life was, so he died almost happy. The lead avenger took the form of a hornet, and in a swift and silent motion, plunged its stinger into the back of the bastard's head, right on the border with his neck, causing the dead man to jerk violently, rise from the bathtub, moan softly, and collapse into the water, dead. Instantaneous rupture of the aura around the head and spine, traumatic destruction of the nodes, and complete disintegration of the power veins. He was still twitching, splashing water, still getting that water into his lungs, but it was agony. It was over in less than five minutes, but only for the dead man, but Stepan and his summoner still had a lot to do.

The first thing the spirit did was turn into another insectoid thing, crawling along the side of the bathtub, pulling out a long, scorpion-like sting, and releasing a couple of crumbs of alchemical powder. Stepan had purchased this powder from the System and then ordered the spirit to place it inside his body, which he did without spoiling or losing the alchemically active element. Once in the water, this stuff would cause its temperature to rise and boil, which would last at least a couple or three hours. The mechanism of the bath would add new water as the old water evaporated, it didn't even have to be changed, but even with that, by the time the servants arrived and waited for the bell to ring, the sadist and murderer would have a rich broth of shit. And since the bathroom is also isolated by household charms, which do not release humidity or odor, no one will interfere with the process of boiling.

//I hope that when the servants see the result of my little revenge for all the good things, they will not have new mental and psychological traumas. - That was all that went through the shaman's mind, carefully observing and correcting the spiritual Hitman's actions when necessary. - “The fact that they, with such a gentleman, already have old traumas, can not be doubted at all.”

The picture was completed by the last task of the spirit, which flew up on the wall, right above the head of the murdered man, and after pure magic influence, leaving no traces at all, he burned out a beautiful schematic orchid on the stone tiles of the bathroom. Just like the one that hangs over the best brothel in Dantmark, where a venerable lady, who recently, by local standards, had wished to boil alive a monster. Of course, she will prove her innocence at least by oaths on the altar or a mentalist inspection, but there will be more problems for the bastard who saw nothing wrong in supplying the deceased with live meat for his games. After all, they had quarreled only about the price, not about the concept of inadmissibility of entertainment, so let the lady worry at the interrogations, let her sweat. And after the interrogations, it is not a fact that there will be no suspicions about her involvement in such a cheerful elimination. Or that they won't find any other sins, not related to this shit, but also worthy to be killed with special cruelty.

Thanks to the damage to his aura and the general state of his body, no one could say for sure if he was boiled dead or deliberately boiled. The pile of splashed water spoke clearly in favor of the latter, and thanks to the boiling of this water will spread even more. To be quite frank, Stepan was tempted to hold back the blow of the spirit, to make it not fatal, but only paralyzing, so that the degenerate would experience the boiling still alive. It was not even humanity or principles that held him back, but squeamishness and unwillingness to resemble a murdered man. Stepan was not a cliched avenger from the fantasies of young and large-aged mother's cynical avengers, he did not need to torture the murdered for moral satisfaction, just killing would suffice.

A few minutes later, the spirit left the mansion, flew halfway down the street, invisible and inaudible against the night sky and street noise, and then ducked into the attic window, which had been turned into a portal by the will of the Door Opener. When he flew back into the shelter, the entity spun around a little, and sat down on the special shelf, turning again into an inarticulate drop of frozen lead. Until the next order and the next target that the shaman wished to quietly and stealthily eliminate. Smiling with the calm smile of a man who had done a good deed and helped the world to become a little better, the shaman returned to the shackles of flesh and started to get up when he was hit by a completely unexpected system message.

Gained: “techniques for eliminating protected targets”; increased likelihood of intuitively finding vulnerabilities in defensive arrays; increased likelihood of acquiring knowledge and properties of the assassin, eliminator, and agent branch.

The acquired talent is added to the overall Player Status.

Stepan, who began to rise to his feet, said something purely unprintable, carefully lowering himself to the stone floor and exhaling tensely as he began to be filled with new knowledge like a balloon. Another branch of agent and combat work was clearly secondary, derived from the main skill of the very agent work, and this talent Stepan saw in the list of available to take, just did not intend to take. Yes, the most useful thing, and even narrower and more elite than the agent skills themselves - even though the topic of elimination in those very skills was given a lot of time even without in-depth study - he thought he did not need it so much. He wasn't going to play a real-life Kingkiller, and his name was Stepan, not Leto, but, as they say, you never know.

The new knowledge was very extensive and it was not only and not so much about eliminating the target, but about protecting the target. A very significant synergy with arrays and territoriality, only, so to speak, from the reverse side, within the framework of methods of bypassing defenses and finding the only vulnerability that would help to get to someone else's throat. The young man knew that killing a target was noticeably easier than defending it, but now that knowledge was even more confirmed by direct examples. Curses, poisons, spirit attacks, dream attacks, creating envolts, “wrong” healing - all of this was already known to him to some degree, but now he could look at it through the lens of an assassin. Not a spy or a stormtrooper, taking the fortress by the sword, but one who simply and uncomplicatedly sent all sorts of losers on another new adventure, just not in the company of Albus Dumbledore, peace be upon him. Some of the methods were not even admirable or repulsive, but simply awe-struck by the fact that it was also possible. Not as powerful as when analyzing the knowledge of charms and suggestions, but also to the point of flying eyebrows to the back of the head.

A special spirit that is a weak-weak higher being, which sucks on the target's subtle bodies with a barely perceptible touch, mostly staying at the depths of the spheres. The spirit causes only a slight cold, nothing serious, except that it does not go away even after a month or two, but, as soon as you start to treat this disease, as it immediately becomes worse, each new attempt to improve the situation will lead closer and closer to death. And if a farmer who is almost untreated, drinking herbal concoction at most, can walk with a runny nose and morning sore throat until his death from natural causes, then some mighty aristocrat in the hands of the best healers after a couple or three days will be able to exist only if the master of healing sits with him constantly and keeps him alive, and after a week even this will not help.

A special cunning curse through another higher spirit makes any liquid drunk from a cup or bowl, any food eaten from a bowl or plate poisonous. Not by slipping the poison or even teleporting it into that very utensil through the world of spheres, no. Just the very idea of poison being formed in the ingested food, killing the eater and drinker. Well, you'll have to drink from handfuls and eat with your hands for the rest of your days, and only root vegetables dug up by yourself or meat roasted on the fire. There are a whole bunch of other ways to get a drop of poison down someone's throat, despite all the precautions, inoculation of severe allergies to quite ordinary substances, driven to suicide by depression, the suggestion of hallucinations that the victim is not going to the noose, but to the Land of Pink Ponies or the analog of the paradise of the chosen religion.

It could not do without vulgarities, for the Alpha and Omega of Milfinity had thrown in a lot of contracts from herself. How about a spirit that amplified orgasm to such an extent that the victim died of heart failure? If it was saved all the brains were burned out by endorphins, and the mind and the master of mentality would not restore? Or a spirit that sends only work with men's wet dreams, during which the victim literally dies of dehydration, and if the victim is also gifted, the reserve of magic will be automatically transferred to the regeneration of the seed, so that the owner of an extremely large reserve can before death to flood the neighbors below, and not with water? Entity of near-spiritual nature, literally kidnapping the victim into its special pocket, a kind of spatial dimension, where you can do anything you want with the victim, and return only a skeleton, and until the last second the victim will see only what he wants. In general, Stepan suddenly realized that the mark of the spirits of passion as well as the spirits are not so useless and can also be deadly dangerous. In the sense that dangerous even in battle or some important business, not just for the summoner.

The higher, senior, strong, and just a crowd of minor spirits with the appropriate aspects, spheres, and properties gave a lot of flexibility in terms of choosing the method of killing. Especially memorable were the methods of killing someone through a contract, convincing the contract, no matter what type and complexity, that the victim did not fulfill it, and as a penalty to prescribe death, if it was not originally prescribed there. Fun, fun, nothing to take: another reminder to the poor earthling that he will not conclude any contracts with anyone, and if he does, he will immediately remove it, transfer it to some stone, or initially conclude it over the deceptive aura. There were always plenty of ways to cheat death or meet it, especially in magical worlds, especially in such dark and gloomy ones as his current habitat.

"And why don't I go to some hentai world without all this?" It was just something he'd said in the morning when he'd internalized the new knowledge. "With my, sorry Ыystem, patroness, I'm even surprised that something like that did not happen. All right, Stepan, I'd better spit over my shoulder here."
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Having finally recovered and hoping that the Autogoddess had not heard him, he got to his feet, shook himself off, refreshed himself with restored vitality, and drank some store-bought magic lemonade, which was as mild and harmless a stimulant as possible - and whose effect was, to put it bluntly, only slightly better than that of half a liter of coffee - he went to work. He would hardly need an alibi, he would hardly ever hear from anyone about this strange death of a member of high society, but he should still behave as usual that day. No, he was going to behave as usual, but today it was also justified.

He had almost missed breakfast. But to his considerable surprise, when he was about to rush to grab himself a portion, it was brought to him. It was not that unusual. It was often done for the gifted, especially if he was tired, out of schedule, and spent the reserve, but what surprised him was the identity of the person who brought him the food. She was a brown-eyed brown-haired woman with a great figure and a sly smile, which directly improved his mood when he looked at her. She was a master's servant, not an ordinary servant. They all seemed to work in the master's house and came to the yard only for their own business, not to bring breakfast to the gifted staff. And the breakfast was much better than usual: soup, with a lot of pepper, a jug of kvass, porridge with something resembling scrambled eggs with pieces of chopped chicken, a bowl of apple slices smeared with honey - it made his mouth water.

"Hi, handsome, you're Pann, aren't you?" She smiled even more contentedly in response to his slightly absent-minded nod and began putting breakfast on the table. "I was asked to bring you some food, they say the masters really liked the way the work with the mice was done. My name is Nika by the way, nice to meet you."

Stepan, seeing the obvious flirtation in his address, as well as sincere favor and anticipation of something fun and pleasant, relaxed a little, but inwardly he was focused. It had been a hectic night, so any changes in the usual schedule would have to be paid attention to. Though it was nice to see the flirting and obvious interest of a beautiful girl. It warmed his ego, even if he remembered how he'd been burned by such an attitude. That was why he wasn't surprised and didn't even show it when his usual and inconspicuous check of food and drink showed the presence in the ear and kvass of additives that were not the ones he would have liked to consume.

“Well, you already know me by name, Nika.” Embarrassed and slightly reddening his face, albeit from a pent-up anger. Agent training allowed such moments to be used to one's advantage, disguising anger as awkwardness. “Yes, I've already been praised for these mice, even paid double for the decade. I wish I knew what they wanted more than anything else, that they kept coming and coming, but they wouldn't answer. Uh, I don't even know how I'm gonna eat all this stuff, to be honest. You, uh, help yourself if you want.”

"Can they answer, you know, the mice?" With genuine interest clarified the cutie, casually, but carefully watching him try the food, obviously knowing what exactly she brought. She took a slice of apple with honey, being sure that there were no impurities there. "Or do magicians have a knack for understanding them? And yes, thank you, Pann, you're a sweet."

“Depends on who's asking and how. Some fur trappers can do it, my grandfather told me.” When he blew on a spoonful of the soup, he summoned a special spirit into his body, which covered his mouth and mucous membranes with a special field that prevented him from even touching food charged with some kind of crap. When the soup was in his mouth the spirit ate it taking it to the world of spheres. “Ooh, it's hot, and they spared no pepper, it made me sweat.”

“Yes, the cooks spared no spice today; I had tears at breakfast.” Very satisfied that the “seasoning,” the taste of which seemed to be hidden by a generous portion of spices, had been successfully consumed by the victim, Nika, however, did not show any sign of it and continued the conversation as if nothing had happened. “We are fed, though not at the master's table, but with almost the same dishes. That's why many people want to go to the big house. They pay more and work more pleasant, although more difficult, yes. Sometimes you have to do complicated things, I'm telling you the truth.”

"I believe you, Nika." Smiling, like a boy who has drifted from a woman's flirtation, he speaks in complete sincerity, because pouring an unambiguously bewitching potion into the food of an unknown gifted person is clearly not part of the standard labor package of an ordinary worker. "Do you want some drink, I have a second cup?"

“No, no, I'm sorry, I have to run away, or the mistress will scold me again for being idle.” Well, who'd doubt it? Stepan offered to send her away. But she had no sooner left than the young man poured some kvass for himself and sipped a little. “It's always like this, my dear: as long as you're plowing, as a farmer in the fields, so no one cares, but as soon as you sit down for a minute, you'll be known as a slacker, all the gods are my witnesses.”

They talked some more, the girl munched on the treats almost completely, told a couple of stories from her life as a maid, and was done, only saying the almost classic goodbye, “Thanks for the sweets, bye-bye, see you later see you around.”

"Uh-huh. See you later. Sweet." Stepan said into the void, removing the spirit from his mouth and looking at the food as if it could bite him. "I'll definitely meet you."

Having analyzed the food once more, only with more advanced spirits, he made sure that the alchemical seasoning was added only to the soup and kvass because they had the brightest taste, which would overpower the taste of the potion, he took a bite of everything that did not have additional reagents in it, while his spirits were dealing with the potion. The entity of the water sphere, with its aspects of vapor, poison, mixing, and separation, swirled over the kvass and soup, drawing out all the excess alchemical impurities and salt from the soup, which was used to pay for the summoning. The condensed ball of transparent liquid froze over Stepan's palm, and he immersed himself in his own spirituality, conducting a primary analysis. He had the right spirits, but he wanted to work and practice with his own spiritual body.

A bewitchment potion. It was of high quality, above average, but not elite, and it did not work immediately, but rather slowly, with an accumulative effect that would become stronger and stronger. Immersed in a trance, the young man, who had called in the help of the relevant poison spirits, was dealing with the fascinating task of analyzing the alchemical pattern, completely immersed in the task and giving orders to the suggetors hanging above and opposite the reflection of the farmyard to make sure that he was not disturbed. The potion's effect worked not through the classic sensual sphere and suggestive love-want- desire, but primarily through the body's natural senses, particularly odor. The lightest and elusive conscious odors of the one who added a drop of her blood to the already prepared potion will begin to excite desire, passion, and lust, reduce the criticality of thinking, and increase obedience to the one whose smell will be the basis of the potion. In the end, about a month and a half later, after at least seven, or better ten receptions of the potion, the victim can cum from a single breath, kneeling in front of the beauty spread legs or from the panties pressed to the nose. Obedience of a trained dog, suppression of doubts, and a feeling of complete normality are not mentally instilled, but rather chemical and empathic, due to the effect on the hormonal background and emotional matrix. Getting angry, suspicious, fearful, or doubtful is simply not possible, physically, especially if the object of attachment and its odor are nearby.

In general, quite a normal method of subjugating a lover, quite noticeable outwardly, when scanned magically, but harmless and not even leaving too serious consequences. It is enough just to be away from the object of attachment, without using new portions of the drug, and little by little you will return to normal. If you are not very smart and do not have the habit of analyzing your actions and deeds, you will not even understand why you behaved so strangely. From the side effects, you can only notice the probability of permanent weakening of your sense of smell, as soon as the removal of potion residue from the body is completed, but there is a weakening, not a complete loss, as in the notorious coronavirus. It was a good, decent, high-quality potion, but it should be noted much higher in the price segment than was available to the smiling and cheerful Nika.

Stepan didn't have the right spirit in the catalog of already paid summons, and he didn't want to call it right here, with overconsumption of reserve and the risk of not keeping the magical trace. However, he could work with more than just spirits and summons. Letting a drop of the potion sink into the phantom tentacle sticking out of his palm, he concentrated on reaching for the tint and imprint of the blood of the one who had activated the potion. It's a challenge of the sort of pure spiritual operation and envolt practice, which has little to do with shamanism, but is a very effective means of finding answers. He closes his eyes and opens them again, but now as if looking from the world of spheres, not with real eyes, at the venerable Fanya Borshakl, who right now was listening to serious and not at all reckless fun Nika, at the same time tasting some muffin. He was very offended, not even for such a setup and another attempt at mental subjugation, but for the fact that he hadn't been offered a muffin!

After listening to the servant's report, which consisted of the classic “everything went fine, as usual, he drank and ate”, she sent the girl, who was much prettier than she was, away, and allowed herself an anticipatory and eager smile. Stepan evaluated once again her plump and rather full figure, not the most beautiful and age-worn face, as well as this very smile, and he was offended to tears, but not for long, because this offense was rapidly turning into anger and even malice. He, then, is working hard, killing mice, not causing any complaints, and even overworking for a minimum payment, because his rituals almost do not require the expenditure of reagents. And to him, all so sweet and innocent, this asshole is pouring another charm potion and dreaming of getting fucked. Bitch, at least Truda had the good looks, even though she was the same age, maybe even a little older than Fanya! Three times a bitch, but she's got money, if she buys and uses such potions, instead of spending on cosmetic alchemy and a visit to a healer with the specialization of “master of beauty”, so that all the young snotty boys, as Stepan pretends to be, would run to her bed at the first wave of a finger!

//“Yo, bitch, there's no words, only emotions, and those are unprintable! And the printable ones, there's not enough ink to print them on a typewriter, and on a computer the keyboard will be obliterated!” - Stepan's character is to be very patient with other people's shortcomings, and also to mind his own business, but, alas, only until the moment when other people's shortcomings and business do not come to him. - “Wait, wait, I'll give you such fun, you'll forget about me, and about mom and dad, and everything else, fuck! I'll show you, bitch, brainwashing uninvolved country magicians! Well, shamans.”

Two steps back to the shelter, the shaman, who has forgotten about sleep and rest, begins his work to prepare for the coming retribution. He begins this work, as any good agent should, by gathering information and finding out the origins of the conflict. There was no Sun-Tzu in this world. Or Stepan had not yet heard about their local analogs but the local population clearly appreciated the importance of preliminary information gathering and applied it as well as the Earth strategists. Closing his eyes and leaving his body, the shaman, who wore a protective mask just in case, summoned his mind readers, preparing to send them to every dog in the farmyard. He used to keep his mind above the bare minimum, in terms of whether he was about to be tricked, ditched, and framed, as well as whether his disguise was suspected and peeked underneath. Now the time for ceremonies was past. Now one could afford to allow oneself a cavalier reading of another's thoughts and desires, now the remnants of conscience and tact would be silenced.

* * *

First of all, as the rumors turned out to be true, the honorable Trabius turned out to be one of those who moved only in rear-drive, was fond of drilling wells and developing coal mines, and, characteristically, was a one-lover. He and Maître Jasper, it turns out, had their own Brokeback Mountain from an early youthful age and they were both quite happy, living almost a full-fledged family. Well, there were rumors, of course, but Sylvia only had unproven rumors. Largely because she wasn't looking for them. She had nothing to take from the Borshakls, and it was useless to blackmail the peddler with knowledge of his manhood, simply because it was no secret. In the sense that every dog knows that he is cold to his wife, has no mistresses, and does not go to women, but with his personal magician in very close relations. This, as Rodislav Gastoldovich Yanin would say, is exclusively their private sex life and its specific functions, which should not worry Stepan by definition.

Alas, but the event that caused his anger was directly connected with this factor: the honorable Fania did not hate her husband, but disliked him very much and to the point of gnashing her teeth, disliked him only a little less than she sincerely respected him. He bore her two children, a daughter, and a son, but that was the end of any intimacy between them. Having tightly bound the capitals of both families, having tied each other by a mutual marriage contract, they could not simply part ways. Therefore, the man simply and clearly told her that she could safely make lovers, but exactly until the moment when it did not become public. That is, fuck, my dear, whoever you want, but so that no one let too many rumors about it, and, please, do not blow my brains out. It's not a bad start to married life for an already not-too-confident young lady.

Further, it's more fun. One of her first lovers, taking advantage of the inexperience of the then much slimmer, but also not very beautiful girl, successfully seduced her and almost pulled off a great fraud, after which the then not-so-rich Borshakl family would be left with a pile of debts, empty treasury, as well as the dead wife of the head of the family, because why would he, so clever, a living witness to his machinations. By a happy coincidence, everything ended well for Trabius, badly for the cunning gigolo, and sadly for his not beloved. And so, when this cunning, previously drugged with alchemy for talkativeness, defiantly questioned his plans and attitude to the “favorite bun”, he did not restrain long-ripening emotions. Let's say that the assurance that he would rather fuck a sheep than lie with Fanya once more was one of the most innocent insults said at that interrogation.

The cute and seductive lover with the body of Adonis and the voice of a nightingale was buried in an unmarked grave, along with his accomplices. The unloved wife of her unloved husband had a simple truth firmly planted in her head: she was ugly and no one would want her willingly, and if someone said otherwise, they were deceiving her to gain her trust. Years passed, and her unattractive appearance became worse and worse, because why care of yourself if you are ugly anyway? Years passed, profits grew, competitors were crushed, being forced out of the market by methodical and verified solutions, vineyards expanded and it seems that you can afford cosmetic alchemy and the local version of a plastic surgeon, but in the head has long been a strong installation that it is useless. She was and will be ugly and unattractive. So instead of expensive cosmetics Fanya buys illegally no less expensive charms alchemy. Instead of trying to take care of herself, she chooses to eat junk and fatty foods to nourish the eternal stress of overwork. Instead of love, there is only a husband whom she respects too much to seriously try to kill him. He didn't bury her next to the scummer, though he could have and would have been in his right.

The woman made lovers, always young and handsome, Stepan cringed involuntarily, though it was a compliment to him, giving them the same potion in different variations, playing with them, going crazy with passion, and kicking them out as soon as she began to get attached even a little. If she did not manage it herself, the honorable husband kicked them out, just out of decency, for which she every time made him an ugly scandal, and he stoically endured. However, the kick in the ass was not given to a barefooted ragamuffin. Lovers always left richer than caught in the net, but only a little. Fanya was not distinguished by special generosity, to the point it could be considered stinginess. In general, such parting gifts were not enough compensation for the experience. Fanya was turned on by the fact she was wanted despite her scary appearance, though she did not admit it. In her mind, she had long considered herself not just a full, puffy, and cellulite madam, but a half-rotten zombie of an old and sickly beggar. That's why she was happy with the way people lay down in front of her, kissed her, licked her, came from the worn panties put on their heads and faces, and so on.

Stepan, it must be said was a little nauseous, though he had a fortitude of spirit property! Not from disgust at Fanya's games. Compared to the call of Old Root, that was nothing. No, it was from the image of herself the unhappy woman had formed in her mind. His anger did not exactly disappear, but rather faded away, replaced by a kind of squeamish pity for someone else's fate. That she, well, the young version of her, and Trabius were not bad people in essence, but, forced to come together, they had broken each other's psyche. Only the husband has some way to get back in place, and he is quite happy with his fate. The wife almost went crazy, only so, not too much, retaining the capacity and business acumen. She would have had a heart-to-heart talk with Trabius back then, for he, as Stepan could now tell, treated her quite well, feeling a suppressed sense of guilt that he had, well, broken her fate. They might have been able to find some kind of compromise, but, as they say, if humans and nonhumans could just put their thoughts into words at the right moment, the lion's share of human and nonhuman tragedies wouldn't have happened.

Stepan thought for quite a long time, at least a couple of hours, though he didn't keep track of time. He called off the reading spirits and just stared at the stone of the ceiling. The original plan to organize a merry and smutty revenge, in such a way as to avert suspicion, somehow seemed not so cool to him anymore. Let's say he, more than anyone else, was sure that life had punished this lady without Stepan's participation. Still, it would be impossible to leave what was going on without a reaction. The fact that he felt sorry for Fanya didn't mean he'd let her drink all kinds of crap, just as he wouldn't let her rape some other poor guy, especially not right in front of his eyes. The plan had been born spontaneously, even suddenly but the idea had burst into a flurry of activity, and he was breaking out into a sort of conspiratorial giggle now and then, amazed at himself at the plan. Revenge, of course, came out, to put it mildly, very strange and not much like revenge, but that was just a matter of opinion.

The shaman called, summoning several strong spirits, investing token reserves and buying the necessary from the System, summoning rather specific groups of spirits, which almost entirely belonged to the category of Omnimilf. The first call, is more of a trial, followed by the second, then a lot of dialogs, including quite difficult and complex, describing the desires of the shaman first by steps, then as a whole, and then with variations of what to do in the case of this or that eventuality. In the end, he did not hesitate to back up his influence with a duplicate circuit, controlled the spirits with a strong and firm contract, and ensured his actions did not directly harm Fanya's health.

He was exhausted like a dog, tired like a laborer in a factory, but smiling clear and bright like a fool.

Tomorrow, or rather, already today in the morning, the venerable merchant with innocent infatuations with young and handsome young men, wakes up, washes up, goes to the mirror, looks at her ugly face, and realizes, just clicks in her head - it's time to change something in her life. She's not getting any younger, she hasn't hoped for anything for a long time, but there's no point in just rolling on in a spiral of self-destruction. She'll be thinking about this idea all morning, rolling it around in her head like a caramel on her tongue, and old mental patterns will start to take shape. From the mentalistic point of view, it will be a process so natural that you will not immediately realize their artificiality even if you check them carefully. But the process will go on, and it will go quickly, and at lunch Fanya will put aside the plate of sweets, preferring more vegetables and other healthy food. She will think about it for a while and then make a decision, going to her husband, first of all, telling him about her wish and the expenses to be spent on it.

Her husband silently and even with a slight relief approves these expenditures, rejoicing that she will avoid another scandal. And Fania, who came out with a slight smile and much more lightness in her soul, will finally do what she had been thinking about for so long and had not dared to do. Because she's ugly because everyone who says otherwise only wants her money and patronage, without seeing her behind the money because she doesn't believe in herself. She will order cosmetic alchemy, for starters of the middle segment, not expensive, will invite an honorable maestro from the healers' guild, who knows how to get on a diet and get off it, will call from the adventurers' guild one quite good specialist, who could be considered a fitness trainer on Earth, even if she taught fitness with a sword or a saber in her hands. The idea of dragging a young and homeless gifted man into bed with the help of an already started course of potions would somehow come to a pause, Nika would have other things to do, like supporting her mistress in her movement towards a perfect shape.

After a couple of weeks, her actions would yield the first fruits - her face would become fresher, her belly would shrink slightly, folds and stretch marks would smooth out, and cellulite would begin to disappear. And why not, if several strong spirits and Stepan would not hesitate to attract the senior one a little later, would help where alchemy and her efforts would have no effect. And so, after a couple of months, instead of an ugly outwardly, lustful and vicious bitch with a mania for the use of charms, there will be a very beautiful and still the same loving respectable matron, which, perhaps, will retain its love for the use of potions, but now her victims will have every chance to ignore the potion because any normal man would want her like that. Then, if he was in the mood, Stepan would probably complete his revenge by joining the long line of those who had horned the respected winemaker.

“Well, aren't I awesome?” He asked himself, answering himself, because the answer was very much forthcoming. “Awesome or not, that's another question, but crazy in the head, that's for sure.”

He was ashamed of his own nervous breakdown and loss of self-control, for he was infuriated by this potion scheme. It was lucky for Fanya and her maid, and for the whole place, that he was strong enough that such potions couldn't affect him, even if he drank them without protection. He'd be able to squeeze any magic out of him with his spiritual body. They were lucky because if her plan had worked the way she wanted, it would have been either blood or blenderized brains. And blenderized in such a way that the long-ago almost forgotten couple of herbalists and her daughter would have seemed the pinnacle of adequacy against the background of the final result of the furious shaman's work. And now... he actually didn't make a single suggestion of the kind that Fania herself wouldn't dream of, sometimes crying into her pillow after another scandal with her grief-stricken husband. Frankly speaking, if he had offered her something like that directly, she would have paid him extra, with all the money she had, and Trabius would have added the same amount from himself. He didn't love his wife but respected her too wishing her well.

But he wasn't going to forgive the sweet and smiling Nika. Nor did she have any excuses. She was just carrying out a well-paid order of the honored mistress, no more and no less. Stepan's spirits would give her a much weaker punishment than the village herbalists, but it would still be a full program. Only the impact will be stretched in time and not too noticeable, because there are a lot of people around, paranoia about the masters of the mind is still in the air, and if the changes in the character of the smiling girl will be obviously screaming about the fact of mental processing, they will start looking for the one who processed. Whether they find him or not, the problems for Stepan will be guaranteed. Much more than if he hadn't noticed the potion and fell under its effect. He shuddered as he recalled the image of his failed mistress, imagining for a moment that a weak and inexperienced traitor would have fallen into the clutches of Fanya instead of Truda. At times like this, he could still be glad that the couple was very beautiful, but as reality showed, there were options, and such that they would fuck you.

A search in the heads of the rest of the household revealed some interesting details that did not concern Stepan directly, so he did not go into them. Except that Pirius, being a smart and life-beaten man, obviously suspected that not all of the venerable Fania's lovers were purely voluntary lovers of easy money and good allowance, suspecting her of using charms. No, some other attentive boys and girls suspected the same thing, but only Pirius, who was not smiling to look for a new muscle-builder, tried to unobtrusively send Stepan away from the gaze of Trabia's wife. He also decided that if the young magician's efficiency fell too much, he would complain to Trabius and demand to get rid of the boy. In general, it was dangerous to harass the gifted in such a way, that they could make jokes in return, and Fania had never taken a shot at the gifted before.

Stepan only grinned at this mixture of care and self-interest. He didn't do anything in direct defense of Pann and didn't even warn him, but he didn't do anything, helping indirectly and not to his own detriment. In general, he would not take revenge on this individual, just as he would not take revenge on Trabius, who was well aware of the habits of his dear wife, as well as of how much she spent on alchemy, but he could not think that this time she would be attracted to one of his gifted, or he would have cut down her demands. After he had finished with the debriefing and sent powerful diarrhea on one of the workers, who was seriously thinking of knocking Pann on the head some night if he met him, the young man was done with the retaliation. And yes, the reason that that brat wanted to beat him was that the shaman did not speak respectfully to him, although he was a master, with three subordinate workers, and even twenty years older than the brat. Strange things are going on in people's heads, quite strange. If you dig around in their heads long enough, you can dig up a great misanthropy.

Having finished with this side assignment and having rejected the Autogoddess's next assignment, mentally and physically tired Stepan switched off even before his head touched the pillow. He dreamed, as usual, of the fiercest shit: battle eagles bombing Mordor with huge caramel sticks with an explosive effect, thirty-three heroes swimming in a pool of pure alcohol, until Uncle Chernomor smoked a cigarette swimming directly in the alcohol, a huge hovering capybara with an extremely peaceful look floating above the post-apocalyptic worlds inhabited by all sorts of aggressive creatures. Some elements were a bit more memorable, as if the spirits of the sleepy spheres made them more important, like the scene with a female figure wrapped in a tight black cloth, who was quietly humming under her nose the unchanging and classic “kosh, kosh, kosh on kd”, while sticking a dagger into the back of a warrior shining with holy power. Or a huge bright hall, in which one could feel the presence of a whole pantheon of gods at once, in the middle of which stood the bewildered looking around called heroes, which should save the world, and their retinue.
https://youtu.be/MiaTnADRSPc

Stepan recognized himself among the three heroes, an unremarkable man with a very powerful aura not weaker than a magister, and only a little less powerful half elf, only strange, as if he was not an elf, not even “half”. Behind the back of the man, the strongest of the three, stood a huge muscular orc warrior-woman with a model appearance and tits envious of all the models, a miniature Asian woman with an unconcealed at this moment aura of a stealthy stealth, as well as somewhat lost against the background of these two dark elf, in terms of auric development somewhat inferior to both. The entire trio immediately shifted, covering the mage with their bodies and looking around suspiciously. Next to the half elf stood a pretty blonde cutie of the human tribe, an equally beautiful lush-breasted and shamelessly red-haired catgirl, and a very busty elf with the aura of a battle sorceress. Stepan was covered by Sylvia, recognizable even in a dream, some unfamiliar young girl with a seemingly normal, but something extremely disturbing aura, which felt in the god's temple not at all happy, and another, also vaguely familiar slanting young lady, also a shamaness, not Asian, but Steppe. The pause was prolonged, while all present realized the message sent by the System, and then all three of them said with surprising synchrony a very expressive and full of despair: “Fuck!”.

* * *

The work was boiling and bustling. The stocks of working material were spent even too quickly, especially the one intended for call practice and not for witchcraft or puppet experiments. That's why it was more and more often necessary to buy at the System Store. It was so expensive that Stepan even seriously considered robbing the local magical quarter or raiding the warehouses of the Adventurers' Guild, if not the tower of Master Miller. He gave up this idea only with considerable effort, calling on all his prudence. After he had received an appropriate medium-sized assignment with a considerable reward. Alas, he was no Robin in the Hood to rob the rich for the benefit of his poor self, and his best defense and main trump card was anonymity, the cheerful and joyous fact that no one knows about him or is looking for him. If he robbed the very warehouses of the guild, no matter adventurers or traders, which nowadays are bursting with gifts from the wild lands, including even very rare and valuable ones, they would be looking for him, and so fervently that the practice would have to be temporarily curtailed so as not to alarm anyone. And why the fuck would he look for reagents for cheap if he can't use them later? It would be better to lose the gifts of the token, which are intended for offering to the spirits, and then start practicing puppet magic, which he really neglected.

However, the reserves had not yet shown the bottom, and their expenditures were justified. Not only did the senior spirits accept his offer and sign up for a future contract, but he had made at least a dozen calls. Two or three, less often five summons at once, a wide scope of what they could be summoned for, contracts for doing no harm and obedience within the framework of the task - typical work for Stepan, only that the spirits were exactly senior. The contractual knowledge had to be strained to the limit, and Stepan sensed with his gut and his intuition that the right knowledge was a step away from promotion, but the right moment had not yet come. He also made a lot of totems, both to strengthen the existing array, and just for the sake of stock, and even separate ones, especially for storing individual spirits - one of the elders demanded special housing for the entire contract, so he had to work.

The young man placed several dozen more totems outside the city, hiding them in hollow trees, old stumps, crossroads, or village cemeteries. All within the suburbs of the city, no farther than two or three day passes, mostly in swamps and forests, but near settlements too. A kind of additional reinforcing circle, allowing you to send spirits to the right points and stealthily make passages where needed. Tracking, attacking, or escaping - that's about the basic configuration of these totems. Not surprisingly, Stepan's first thought was how to hide these totems. They hid from the magical gaze, diverted the ordinary gaze, were perceived by simple wood, bone, and stones in the magical scanning, if perceived at all, and also had almost no trace of its presence. Each of the totems was created with a spiritual echo, whose shreds blended into an unreadable picture, each of the spirits that lived in the totems went through a voluntary or not-so-voluntary rebirth, erasing any energy trail. Such spirits had to be subdued each time, using the contracts embedded in the totem itself, which increased the cost of the reserve, but if the totem fell into the wrong hands, nothing should lead to Stepan or his hideout.

This was if the totems fell into others' hands. The mechanism of self-destruction was duplicated three times, and one more, the most cunning, was the fourth layer and destroyed the entire structure not instantly, but gradually, imperceptibly letting the totem decay and rot from the inside. An active curse on the person trying to seize the totem or detonation of the spiritual impression with the release of spirits and a manc to instantly summon a bunch of aggressive spoilers when trying to open the structure of the artifact were included in the package. A random person or weak gifted person would not be able to find these toys, and even if they did, they would only destroy them harmlessly. It might not kill, but that was not his goal. A real pro would not die from such a trap, but he would clearly understand the opinion of the unknown creator.

And yes, the shaman, as well as the spirits sitting in the main totem, were perfectly capable of monitoring each of the totems in real-time. In case of detection, the totem would quickly and swiftly turn to dust, and the rest of the net would either take the load of the lost element, or be destroyed as well, or, if Stepan decided to save costs, be summoned and pulled back to the shelter. Complementing the totem grid had a weak and maximally concealed effect on the area around the location of each totem, making it even harder to find or notice the shadow of their presence. It would also make it easier for the shaman to direct his powers to individual elements of the grid or the entire grid, which is important. The costs are such that even feeding from a totem will not completely eliminate the problem of lack of power.

Among the two contract rejections, one was the most common. The entity belonging to the Solid and Sands had been too greedy, and trying to drive down the price hadn't worked. He could have pressed harder, but the last thing Stepan wanted to do was to bind something like that by force and deception, to earn the dislike of an entity that could shred a steel rail in a matter of seconds. The second refusal was combined with a small fight, when the summoned creature decided that if the shaman did not want to give her everything she requested for free, she would take it herself, along with the shaman. It was a fairly standard situation for any dark creature, only this one was much stronger and seemed adequate at first. The young man didn't suspect her initially, just initially didn't give himself a second of relaxation, knowing perfectly well that sometimes you can make no mistakes at all, but still get attacked and aggression.

There was no fight as such. The creature struck the first layer of the shield, easily opening it, and immediately attacked the second layer, at a weak point he had found in advance. Stepan, not calmed, not deceived by false submission, and vigilant to the point of paranoia, strengthened this weak point. The second layer did burst, but it stopped the blow, and then the support of the totem, the general reinforcement from the witch's anchoring of the land, and the guards who accompanied each of Stepan's calls with their presence came into play. One of those guards, a senior spirit with a specialty in confronting other spirits, had just recently been summoned, showing in practice that Stepan had paid for his services and seven years of presence at each of the summons held in this place. The creature was quickly torn to pieces, half of the closing amulets and the only elder would have sufficed, but here it was a feast for the spirits. A quarter of the pieces of the spiritual body were taken by the guardian spirits, another quarter by the senior exterminator, and half of it was placed under the central totem by Stepan, increasing the power of the place of call and highlighting the sign: “HERE THEY CAN GIVE KICKS TO THE ATTACKERS”.

In fact, he had made this risky summoning of a rather nasty spirit with the partial expectation that the creature would attack and he would destroy it as a lesson. That is, he would be glad if he could get another combat contract, which would be more properly considered an assassin and liquidator, able to get under defenses and barriers, eat the target, and quietly get away, he even almost believed that it would. The spirit was very diligent in its pretense and showed no intent to attack until the last fraction of a second, masking it with the anger and lust for pain typical of such entities. But it would be strange to call upon the senior spirit of those aspects and spheres, which traditionally try to attack in one case out of three, even with perfect execution of the call but at the same time not to prepare to benefit from this attack and the destruction of the attacker. It's the grandfather's way. Let the attacker attack first, thinking that you are not ready for a surprise attack, and then kill the bastard.

It is also worth noting the fact that there is a very advanced and unusual tracker among the calls of older spirits, which specializes in searching for spirits, and within a very wide range. You can send this individual to search for a contract that suits you with rare aspects, especially if the spirit is of the species that do not react to the shaman's call, especially if the call comes from reality, not from within the world of spheres. You can ask to track down and destroy some entity that betrayed the shaman's interests or cheated on its contract, and having tracked it down, to devour it or drag it half-dead under the shaman's eyes. It is possible to establish a tracking of some spirit, as a free floating in the high spheres, and tied to the source, and also with different purposes, whether it is the collection of information about weaknesses or the search for special preferences, so that it was easier to then with the studied spirit to negotiate.

Many strong spirits were also added to the list of contracts, even if only two more were imprinted in the system status. The strong spirits now came to the call, though not as easily as the younger ones, but also very willingly, expanding the arsenal of the shaman, who had already created a selection of summons for almost any purpose, beginning to duplicate the existing groups, as well as looking for exotic types of servants. Fighters, protectors, guardians, healers, curse breakers, trackers and event readers, a few decent dreamers, a whole pool of suggestors, and mental defense specialists. A couple of the latter were now present in any combat assembly, adding to their existing colleagues in the specialty, but these were experts in monitoring the mental field and spiritual body, warning of possible threats or the beginning of undetectable influence.

It's not guaranteed, alas. There are very different ways to exert such influence, and you can't go around the clock with such an entourage. You should give access to your subtle bodies and upper layers of thinking, and this is also a two-way bridge, you can be hit through the open door. And if not the spirits themselves, the shaman chose the most reliable and bound by contracts and oaths, then someone like Stepan. He, for the sake of interest, managed to pick up the key: a few cunning entities, witchcraft influence, and a combination of all this with hidden spiritual pressure. And then it would be possible to quietly intercept the contract with the spirits, starting to influence the defendant through them - the fact that Stepan's knowledge of brainwashing, including discreetly-agency, was noticeably deeper than other directions. And also the weakness of the shield and sword - it was much easier to attack someone else's mind stealthily in some aspects, he only needed to find and use the only vulnerability, while the defender needed to cover all of them.

It's annoying.

But he didn't stop his work, even if he didn't take it to the point of absurdity. He collected contracts and practiced and mastered methods of independent spiritual defense but without a partner-mentor, even a Systems user could mess around here for weeks (though not years), especially if he spent his efforts in many different directions. Too much interesting stuff. Too much important stuff. And also the fact that a shaman, unlike a classical mage, needs to constantly gather and add to his retinue, because the mere knowledge of summoning something is not so useful if you haven't made preliminary contracts and pumped up to advanced mastery of fast call. Even if you have, you can't just summon a previously unfamiliar elder entity right in battle and throw it into battle, unless you've become a truly great shaman.

The pair of system-marked contracts were, in fact, just one, because the two spirits came as a set, just as the three battle pigs had been summoned. The names of the contracts were amusing: Turquoise Left and Aquamarine Right. And these names were not given to them by Stepan, they were called so themselves. They were the same jellyfish bodyguards that had accompanied him on his first and only day-long exit from his body. Even though the spirits had come into his orbit a long time ago, at a much lower level and skill, they, even now, with his increased skill and status as the Senior Shaman, were the pinnacle of awesomeness for their rank. And summoning a separate elder for each exit from the body was still too expensive in terms of reagents, even if purchased from the System. Especially if you buy from the System! So it turned out that a couple of jellyfish would have to cover him in the usual mode, and summoning a senior spirit of similar specialty and also very elite for his task, he would be on quick access. The method was reasonable and correct, but an underlying paranoia demanded that he make a full contract with the elder entity, too, and only then practice leaving the body again for a week or two. In fact, that was exactly what he planned to do, just not right away.

The minor spirits were recruited in groups, even though Stepan tried to choose useful exotics. It was logical that the younger spirits were the backbone of the battle retinue. No matter how strong the elder ones were, no matter how many “ordinary” strong ones were summoned, the minor ones created the masses, they were able to act in swarms, and they could be sacrificed like pawns or summoned to a simultaneous attack by a hundred different battle charms. Given the multiplicity of awareness, as well as the preferred tactic of the shaman to act through a remotely controlled retinue, the younger entities were still very useful, and not only for him. Yes, in a quick and swift battle against a strong opponent, any shaman would prefer to strike at once with the elders supported by the strong. But if the duel drags on there will be a need for minor spirits, attacking in response to each throw, repelling the same arrows.

And against a large crowd of attacking meat you can't send only the elders, they would have to be spent on those who commanded the meat. However, this is just an abstract opinion, because the shaman was obviously not going to fight with an army of individuals who wanted him bad, and if he had to, he would prefer to leave at a tango pace. Minor spirits are not only useful in battle, they are not only summoned for battle. They serve as totem supports, they serve their stronger counterparts, they scout as links in signaling networks, they form the secondary retinues of some of the strongest spirit guides on Stepan's contract, they, they, they, they. There are, of course, many tactics of how to properly call and communicate with spirits, but personally he, not without the help of the System, chose this approach and he was sure that the classical shamans of this world are in solidarity with him, even if they do not have a system. Whether you're a local or an isekai, if you've taken up a call, devoting your life to it, then it is the minor spirits that are the backbone of the combat and auxiliary retinue of any shaman up to the senior rank.

He could say the same thing about the higher ones, but they were on a scale that made it possible to move away from such tactics, replacing the minor retinue with strong or borderline-ranked entities. Well, if there is no analog of a multiplicity of awareness, which will allow you to manage a whole swarm of minor spirits, without distractions and without losing concentration. For now, it was enough to remember the fight underwater against Eel and his group, the fight Stepan had had with Edward, and the remnants of his nest. Yes, the fight had been decided either by trump's tricks or by powerful spirits, but it had been the minor spirits that had been the backbone of the battle, creating tension, attacking, covering, and distracting from the use of those tricks.

The system's assignments had been poor all this time, either small or the same ones he'd routinely discarded. The only small task again gave almost no experience, only increased affinity with spheres, increased the probability of acquiring craft knowledge, and also gave a single token called “instant recovery of magic reserve”. A complete copy of the existing one, copying all the advantages and features of its counterpart, instead of twenty-five charges, only five. What's funny, the two tokens simply merged in the status, leaving only one token with this name and thirty charges. He also completed one more quest from Supermilf - the need to summon some rather specific spellcasters, who were already fond of Stepan, to tie the summon to an anchor, destroy the anchor, and pay compensation to the spirits was not difficult for him. He was rewarded with a small bonus to experience and one more useless token.

The anchor, by the way, according to the instructions and terms of the contract, had to be placed in the house of the chosen target or targets. Then the spirit-suggestor, skilled in sensual magic, began to have a re-shaping effect. After three or four weeks, the owner of the anchor would simply say a coded phrase and the victim would simply change the personality matrix, according to the specifications given to the spirit. Whether it would be a passionate lover, a perfectly obedient wife, a submissive slave, or a promiscuous harlot was a matter of preliminary dialog with the spirit. The shaman conducted all these dialogs, concluded the contract, and then early terminated it, also paying the satisfied spirit small consolation gifts. The twenty-eighth level was still noticeably less than half, but a little more than a third of the experience scale, and about a fifth of the filled scale was just from the assignment - quite a reason to undertake it, especially if there was an opportunity to fulfill it on their own terms.

The token, of course, was extremely characteristic of its patroness, being called “Puffy Pies,” which made his eye twitch in a nervous tic at the mere name. The effect of this token with a hundred charges, was almost a complete copy of the no less odious ++“Tremendous Watermelons”, only with the calculation not on the victim's chest, but on the buttocks. The same effect only on beautiful girls is also impossible to use in combat or dangerous conditions, also the dependence of the length of the effect on the physical characteristics of the victim-target. A flat and dull ass will be demonstrated for five-ten seconds at most, and a powerful ass of a fitness and jogging enthusiast will be demonstrated for several minutes with obligatory offers to feel it properly. If there was any possibility to get rid of this shit in the status quickly and harmlessly, even if without getting any benefit, he would use it.

The system store offered a couple of reagents that didn't suit Stepan's needs, and he didn't even enter them in the purchase log. And a spiky leather collar with protective functions, which Stepan might have taken, but the side effect caused irresistible submission to the female sex and the desire to be dominated by a beautiful girl of any kind, race, and social status. Defense of the level when you can walk merrily and carefree under the blows of martial masters, ignore the attacks of a master or two and quickly run away, if the masters more than a couple, of course, beckoned. In a combat situation, the effect of the collar did not work, even if the carrier tried to kill a sexy combat elfess with a penchant for nudism. But the collar could only be removed four days a year, at the end of each of the four seasons at midnight when one season turned into the second.

“Well, well, well, now, I guess we can move on to a long-standing dish before it goes bad and moldy,” Stepan speaks not for anyone, but only for himself, feeling a little bit like he's going crazy, but it can't be helped, the emotions are overwhelming. “The main thing is not to screw up, for the second call for resources I'll be too greedy to buy, if at all.”

Actually, he would have done this summoning of the elder spirit much earlier, maybe even one of the very first, but this spirit was summoned quite whimsically, and the contract was concluded only at certain moments of coincidence of the star chart and the lunar cycle. As a result, after long calculations, which forced him to remember also a part of his astronomy skills, knowledge of which was part of the root practice of call and, partly, of puppet-envolt skill, it was possible to calculate eight suitable days for the contract. Funny, but if there were two moons in this world there would be a hundred such days. The young man even wondered what life was like in a world where there were two moons at once. Probably a much kinder and calmer place than his current one, with less blood, gloom, blackness, and other shit. The probability, as that immolate improved, is extremely low, but no one prevents you from believing.
Имолейт импрувед

I wanted to say something else, pathos or funny, to make it like a Bond one-liner, but there were no listeners anyway, and he was already tired. So Stepan put on the mask, then rolled his eyes and fell on his back, letting the spirits pick up the empty body and put it gently on the mat. The spirit of the shaman having left the body, opens with additional limbs, which more resemble feather-covered wings or petals of a marvelous flower, and then begins the call. The call is dragging, complex, powerful, and narrowly focused, tied to the spirit that has already had prior arrangements. The call is echoed by the central and auxiliary totems, reinforcing it, supporting it, adding their voices-images and authority to the already invested. The pre-called but not manifested spirits, most of which belong to the very rare sphere of emptiness, with no less rare aspects of stars, begin to echo the call. They too add their call, asking their mighty counterpart to manifest his will, to come to the shaman's call, for that shaman is worthy to send this call.

Tact, the second, an amplified impulse going into the deep layers of the spheres, and then the shaman grows additional spiritual grasps, beginning one by one to pull out of reality various offerings, transferring them to the spirit world: minerals and stones, a strange and smooth cloth as if woven from glass threads, tiny multifaceted cubes made entirely of mirrored material, three feathers of different colors but belonging to the same bird, moreover, each feather grew in the same place, growing anew after being voluntarily given away. The offerings are definitely not cheap, the token's stock had to be very seriously strained as well as buying out certain elements of the ritual at the Store. But the call strengthened, reinforced and, Stepan was sure of it, reached the recipient, who was still silent, still thinking about whether to answer.

The spirits that were not actually called are also coming to the call. A crowd of ravenous scavengers lost their minds to the tantalizing images of elite offerings, enhanced by the lens of ritual and already transported to the worlds of the spheres. The hungry crowd pushes against the first of the six barriers, encountering full packs of guards, ravenous and vicious, ready to tear into an enemy whose spiritual flesh and strength will be a bonus reward for the work. With them are several strong spirits, each of whom is a pretty good guide, coordinating their own packs. Some of them were hired with an entourage, and initially, before bargaining, they demanded as much for the hire as if their entourage consisted entirely of elite members, while others were given a group hired by Stepan to command them. The strongest of them, resembling a huge land tortoise with a steel shell, in which an endless number of knives, axes, and darts are stuck, is motionless and calm. He will go into battle only in the moment of serious problems.

Meanwhile, the first of the answers comes, the spirit does not speak to Stepan personally yet, he tests his resolve and will through the same negotiators, not refusing, but not agreeing either. Stepan does not make new offerings. He only keeps the old ones from dissolving, showing his own point of view. There is no bargaining, either yes or no, there is no other way. The spirit is dissatisfied, but greed is strong in him, he is convinced of the quality of the offerings, but he can't just come. He is the spirit of the stars and the starry sky, he cannot come to the place where he is called from, it is not in his power to be in or even near Reality if there is no starlight there. Stepan assures the spirit that he will provide him with stars, as well as security, and receives the first notes of agreement. The entity brings itself closer and closer to Reality which makes the spirit-scavengers even more active.

The first line of the protection fell almost immediately, literally bursting under some cunning collective skill of strong spirits, commanded by a certain thing with the appearance of a stream of rot and filth closed in the Mobius Ribbon. The second layer under the same attack lasted even less, but the shaman had time to react. The protection did not burst, it detonated strictly in a given dimension-direction, temporarily depriving the attacking pack of mobility and allowing the protective guardian packs to regroup. The Lizard seated in the totem burst into action, willing to help even without one of the summons counting, free of charge, only with the right to take the flesh and scraps of those who fall from its blades. Several other spirits, of those for whom Stepan's markings and authority are the highest, echo his request, including the pig trio as well. After a little thought, Stepan gives the go-ahead, allowing the spirits to begin incarnating in the back ranks of the defenders.

The attack of scum hungry for freebies is met with a coordinated response of guides, who lose some of the small and weak spirits, but stop the first onslaught, and then the turtle with iron shell attacks. The images of blades, spears, axes and, it seems, even kebab skewers sticking out in it, turn out to be not part of the image of this spirit, but a bunch of small and only small spirits-symbiotic spheres of steel and iron, aspects of the blade, weapons, and destruction. The blow came to the conditional flank of the formation crowd staying in non-Euclidean geometry, opening the flank and reaching the very festering Ribbon, which made the attack so dangerous. The turtle didn't even make it to the battle, leisurely swimming closer as the Ribbon ceased to be. Covering itself with an analog of the anteroom, only for the spiritual world, the thing managed to withstand the flow of blades but lost its covering retinue, and the fully alerted Lizard tore through the enemy formation, covered in black smoke, cutting into both the defense and the entity itself. The ensuing battle was a scramble, in which the more organized and mutually reinforcing entities effectively and swiftly multiplied the mob of scum to zero.

One of the air-predator spirits who had volunteered to help was particularly noteworthy. It was a kind of swallow-falcon, having managed to develop from a minor to a strong one, having gone through some evolution. The sight is quite rare, met literally for the second time, and the first time the leap was at the lower spirits in the minor. This bird became strong very conditionally, but the qualitative leap in abilities and methods of realizing them also meant quite a lot. Stepan, however, sincerely regretted that he could not observe such a process, concentrating on summoning and working with the spatial stability of his shelter. The ceiling of the stone hall turns abruptly into a passage in which the night sky becomes visible, and the rest of the space is hidden by a viscous shroud of absolute and primordial darkness so that not a single drop of stone is exposed to the light. This is a requirement of the ++Revealer. Otherwise, he cannot work, and the shelter will turn into a brick pumpkin. However, the spirits of that very darkness, and the older ones at that, were perfectly able to filter such shades of meaning as starlight, and therefore the ++Opener quickly calmed down, realizing that his authority and control of the territory were not threatened.

The stars shone not only brightly, but also close, for the very same spirit kin that had first called the elder brother were now reinforcing the presence of the atmosphere necessary for the negotiations and paying their respects. The skies in the window were shown not in the cities, but two passages away from the city, and the passage was opened with the support of the totem network created to reduce visibility. Spiritual echoes and shivers of reality are damped by the ++Revealer and the specific entities of different ranks that help him, so the probability that someone would notice the process of his ritual and realize that it was something incomprehensible and important, he estimated low, and the probability of being calculated and even lower. However, it didn't prevent him from creating a chain of attention-losing and search charms, which would lead far beyond the city limits, so the young man wouldn't be sorry if they searched for him.

The Elder still exists, frozen in front of Stepan's spiritual body, invisible and infinite, boundless as the very emptiness of the night sky, all-seeing, like the eyes of the myriad stars that look at the mortal earth. The absence of a clear appearance confuses, the untrained mind cannot perceive this essence and not go crazy because it is in every piece of the night sky, it is in the darkness and emptiness of the surrounding space, it is in every look and touch, in the rustle of the inaudible wind and the silence of doomed silence. Stepan meets this image, deliberately shown in all its glory, with seeming indifference, and no one but himself will ever know what it cost him to preserve and retain this indifference.

The dialog and bargaining begins, already quite substantive and on the shaman's terms. The spirit demands to add, to pay extra, to triple or at least double what has already been paid and is being absorbed right now, but Stepan now pushes himself, he sees that the spirit is more interested than others, and that's why he reduces his demands to the minimum. Another offering, just one, albeit a valuable one. A bright blue stone, a rather large uncut sapphire, and additionally processed by a strong spirit staying on the system contract. All unnecessary aspects and impressions of the material were removed, and all aspects interesting to this particular spirit were strengthened. It was not for nothing that the shaman had signed that contract, not for nothing that he had secured the service of a craft entity. The elder greedily pounced on the offering, making, and recognizing the bargain, allowing himself to be covered, his very essence to be covered with the appropriate promise and contract. Fifteen small and three strong contract spirits seal the deal, hiding in their assigned totem - the strong ones in the main one, the small ones in a separate auxiliary one, specifically for contractors.

After a few seconds, everything is complete, and the spirit leaves the layers so close to reality with relief and pleasure, diving again into the depths of the spheres. Stepan spends the rest of the night bringing the shelter back to normal and finally blurring the imprints, throwing some of the energy traces deep underground, some outside the city, and not just at one point, but everywhere a little at a time. Ironically, he hadn't even lost a third of his reserve on the summoning and the deal, while on all this he had to use the source renewal twice and restore his life force once to banish fatigue and regain much-needed concentration. It was definitely worth it, though. The summoned elder entity was perhaps the best expert at searching and finding, including those actively hiding from the search, among all the reagents available to his skill and stockpile. The night sky sees everything, and even day only means, you asshole, can't see the night sky, even though it sees you perfectly well.

Find a target with a vague description and a minimum of images, knowing only material appearance and the place where the target was a month and a half ago. Yes, it's possible. Find the tomb of an ancient king, which all archaeologists of the world have been trying to find for half a century, having only an approximate geographical location and treatises on history. He can, but there's a chance he'll find the wrong tomb. And the possibility that this spirit has been summoned before to find the tomb and the valuables in it. He won't talk about that until after he closes the contract. But what excites Stepan more than searching for an unknown master of mentalism with a penchant for world-famous crimes, more than playing an old archaeologist with a whip and a revolver, the spirit can search by name. Especially if by a true, albeit not complete, but still a Name.

Find it, despite the cover-ups. Find it, through most of the imaginable and not-so-imaginable defenses. Find, mark, and memorize, and then direct the shaman and his spirits to this point, to help get to the target and attack, even if not directly involved in the battle. Of course, this is not yet a fully prepared group of demon fighters. He still needs to prepare those who will follow the trail and the specified coordinates, who will destroy an infernal scarecrow. But this spirit with its three indefinite summons will make the coming attack not only possible but also guaranteed to be successful. At least in terms of finding the target. The main thing is not to be stingy on the eliminators, maybe sending several groups at once, and without small things, because the smallest infernal thing can recruit.

In bad news, a spirit cannot be summoned at all times. He cannot physically come to the manifest world and conduct a quest at an unfortunate stellar time. It's in his very essence, a limitation that gives power to his abilities. That is, he can summon it at any time, but the entity will only search when it can. Well, that's not surprising. For a bloodhound, who in the days of his power can humiliate and piss on another higher with a similar specialization within the framework of this specialization, and for such a price had to pay with weaknesses in other directions. However, the window for convenient summoning was coming in just thirteen and fifteen days, just enough time to create the necessary pack of infernal fighters. The shaman planned to empty his currency reserves without regret, buying everything that was not in the token's reserves at the store.

And there is a lot there is not and was not. It was a very exotic area of summoning, and not shown in the status, so there were no gifts from the token in this framework. Oh, it would cost him a lot of money, but he hoped that the level to which he was a little more than a quarter of the scale would be closed for calculating and killing the creature. He would have to hurry, of course, otherwise, he would have to wait for a new search window for almost two months, when the first days of fall would come, but since he wasn't going to play fair and planned to fight the scum that had come into his dreams and head with "pay-to-win" strategy, he would have time, and he would have a couple of days to sleep before the battle. The contracts are already in place, the necessary entities should appear at his call without problems, he has already pre-tuned the totem in the right shade of spiritual beacon, so get some sleep and start.

Because, as already said, don't fuck around in Stepan's head, no matter how awesome your scarlet tits are.

* * *

The night after the call of the star spirit Stepan slept quite badly, because of fatigue and very tense, extremely dense communication with the entity, which directly embodied the concept of “alien mind”, even by the standards of spirits thinking in very complex images. Dreams in the night came completely appropriate, bordering on viscous and unpleasant nightmares. Suffice it to say that he saw Rodislav Gastoldovich Yanin, perfectly realized even in his dreams, who in the image of Purple Gas and Pure Knowledge was suppressing a huge demonic millipede tall as a five-story building and as long as an earthly city with a power of extra-universal horror. The millipede tried unsuccessfully to escape, but its legs were getting smaller and smaller as if Yanin had decided to embody the “no legs, no credit” joke. The fact that each of these legs can cut the fabric of reality and open a stable gate between worlds, worries the chthonic something to the extent of extremely negative, as it does not care about the tears and groans of students tortured by him on credits or, God forbid, exams.

The millipede does not die without a fight. It distorts space, opens hundreds of windows directly into the Inferno, and summons untold hordes of smaller creatures, but the results of its efforts are dubious. It is about as effective as direct attacks on the formless gas and crystalline light that grows into itself. This gas and light penetrates open windows, attacking those who have not yet crossed them, causing the creatures to close the gaps frantically, but not always succeed, not saving everyone. Groups of summoned support die even faster, and the difference between the small demons and demonic guards is not noticeable. Each is enough to a fraction of a moment of contact with a hostile environment and energy to simply cease to be in the best case. In the worst case, everything ended not so painless and some of the creatures were forced to fight with maimed, distorted, disfigured, and deprived of absolutely everything shells of former allies or rivals.

* * *

He dreamed of his namesake who remained on Earth, but here he was not on Earth, destroying a lump of tentacles the size of a fourteen-story apartment block with the power of exorcising prayers and blades lengthened by rays of pure grace. Pathos angels assisted him, both those who looked like those of the Old Testament and shining men with wings dressed in solid laments, mages and a couple of armies supported him from the ground, and Stepan Not Skinny was shouting in a foul language that this was his world and only he was here, that this was his world and he alone decided who would get the magical girls and who would go to hell, and a tentacledemon, in the rank of the overfed Highest, standing one step away from Supremacy, should definitely consider himself to be the second option. When the creature fell, not even able to crack the angelic support group properly, the tired fatty wiped away the labor sweat and asked in a lost voice, full of inexpressible longing: “Where are my titty Milfs?” - and from such a broken and somehow piercingly painful tone even Stepan the Sleeping became sad.

* * *

The vaguely familiar interior of a richly and cozily furnished room. A vaguely familiar half elf and his two maids, a red-haired cat-lady and a blond human, were sitting in an armchair. Next to the chair is an empty glass with a couple drops of refreshing drink left in it. The young man stares with cloudy eyes and sees nothing. He only listens to the red-haired maid kneeling at his feet, wagging her tail, continuously jerking her master's cock with her two palms, while her friend swings a pendant glowing with azure light in front of his face. The half elf's eyes follow the movements of the jewelry, back and forth, back and forth, with no distractions at all. Both girls pause, speaking in turn and waiting for the relaxed consent of their master, who agrees to do as they ask, agrees to forget, agrees to remember, agrees that his maids clearly deserve to be thanked properly by their master by kissing them right in their sweet little flowers.

Change of frame. Same room, but now a different time, almost morning, though none of the trio have slept unless you consider the young half-elf's state to be a form of sleep. He sits in the chair again, the catgirl at his back kneading his shoulders, every now and then shaking his head in a way that allows him to nod and agree. The second maid stands before him, swinging the pendulum in front of his face again, but instead of the locket she now uses her own bright blue panties, only her master's eyes are equally unerringly following the object and its soothing and measured swaying, left to right, right to left, left to right. With each tact of the movement, his naked cock pulses harder and harder as the slyly smiling slightly dreamy, and distracted maid tells him how much fun it will be to please their mentor in a very special way. It would be a very nice, unexpected, and fun trick, guaranteed to please him and pleasantly surprise the honorable Alatrel. But in order for it to work out properly, he has to forget about their plan, but it's not hard for him, will he forget for his sweet Armina?

The same company - the maids and the half-elf. Only now all three of them are ashamed and embarrassed to be silent, while the elfess, dressed in a little frank and at the same time very classical-aristocratic dress, reprimands them point by point. The fact that all three of them, having just come to the class, kissed their teacher's feet for twenty minutes, considering it to be a normal part of the mental self-defense class, only adds spice to the situation. The fact that the young man was reporting to his mentor that there were no effects on his mind, kneeling on his knees and enjoying his mentor's feet placed directly on his face, added no less spicy to the situation. And the elven woman continued her scolding, cheerfully, a little offended, but within the limits of politeness, with a subtle touch of humor and at the same time with army toughness going over every failure, shortcoming, mistake, or just stupidity, which in a real situation would have been punished not at all with barbed words. The configuration of the shields on the quarters hadn't been updated for almost a week, another reliance on the defense of the apartment complex, the lack of checks on the drinking supplies, and she had added that compound to the refreshments almost five days ago.

And it's okay that it's not detectable by standard means of testing! What? Is it really that hard to guess that she knew the specs of the amulets given to the two little fools? And the boy's good, too. She'd warned him that her blow would be unexpected. What made him think she wouldn't use his servant in the same way she'd once used a grief-stricken apprentice to turn off both of his keepers? Why hadn't he checked the drink he was serving himself, why hadn't he noticed Armina's distracted gaze and slightly slurred movements? She had, after all, been deliberately negligent in fixing the command suggestion. Why didn't Gata pay attention to this same moment, she was trained in this directly, she should have reacted before the sleep dust was blown in her face! Why? Why? Why? All three of them could only nod sullenly and promise to correct themselves, and the boy could move on to the practical part of the lesson, practicing again the reflection of small sensual influences by the auric flow.

* * *

A slightly abandoned hall of some windowless building, which had obviously been cleaned and furnished but still had the stamp of recent neglect. The bed was large and soft, more like a prefabricated camp bed, which, despite its “campiness,” deserved the proud title of a fuckdrome. On the soft featherbeds lay an unassuming but pleasant-looking man whose arms and legs were symbolically tied to the edges of the bed with a thin silk ribbon while he lay naked under the triumphant gazes of several beautiful women. A pair of dark elven women, a dark-haired miniature Asian woman, a red-haired European beauty, a huge orcish woman over two meters tall, and a laughing miniature halfling woman, just beautiful and without hair on her legs. All of them are celebrating their coming freedom and retribution under the unreadable gaze of the former Master, who seems to them frightened and guilty. They are already leaning over him and discussing aloud the punishments, the executions, and the torments to which they will consign the individual who dared to get into their heads for his deeds, for all that he had done, could do, and was about to do.

But before giving him the deserved punishment and bitter fate, they must squeeze out of him all his evil and dangerous magical power! Actually, that's what they did, realizing perfectly well that the best way to deprive the enslaver of magic is to squeeze it out together with the semen, working together as one mighty team. The Asian woman's mouth, the orchid's huge breasts, the redhead's confident movements, the tight ass of one of the dark elves, while the other one caressed the scrotum with her tongue, and then switched places. In a moment the captive got free, but was by that moment so captivated by the women's charms that he lost all faith in salvation and did not even try to escape, obediently following all the commands of the friendly female team, pouring new and new portions of semen in and on them. With each victorious ecstasy, the women calm down more and more, feeling that their revenge has come true, and they recognize each other that this villain is not so bad, it is possible to spare him, especially now, when all his evil forces have been squeezed out of him.

When some of the women had fallen asleep, and the more enduring ones were resolute of the opinion that the wicked villain had already been punished so that they would continue to regard him as Master and obey him in everything, as good dolls should, the “villain” himself began to work. Weaving the finest etheric threads, he let them fly, so that they flew out of the ajar window like a spider's web caught in the wind, flying along the city and falling on top of another web, much older, more sinister, and made with sophisticated non-human skill, covering an old, even ancient abandoned city, divided in two by a huge crack. A web which, for all its perfection, looks derelict and abandoned, as if the one who held the converging threads in his hands were no longer here, no longer there, before man released his own threads. These fragments of shaped ether merged with the web, whose main threads still ran deep into the gaping darkness of the rift, supplementing and duplicating the signaling network, making it an instrument partially subservient to man's will. A tired and contented smile shone on his lips, a smile that did not bode well for those to whom it was addressed.

* * *

Stepan is late for work, time drives him at a frantic speed, he is in a hurry to catch the departing subway train because that's the only way he can still make it, not to be late, not to miss his bonus. Except that some asshole in a gray cloak is standing at the turnstiles, fighting off the passengers with a classic magic staff, yelling something about how they shouldn't pass. No, not like that. THEY SHALL NOT GO THROUGH! Rushing and losing his first prize, Stepan has counterarguments and, pulling a wooden mask over his face, throws himself into the fray, eager to take what is rightfully his - a free pass through the turnstiles. Except the enemy is not shabby. He uses supreme battle sorcery, expelling or destroying the first, rather tentative wave of his entourage. Smiling under his mask, Stepan grinds his teeth and calls the elite of his summoning pool, only the older and stronger ones, preparing to tear and torment the enemy, and the latter answers him with the same grin, burning a ritual star-amplifier right on the floor of the subway, from which all the passengers have fled. The flow of spirits and magic merges into one and reaches balance, equality, almost equilibrium, for each of the couple is equally strong, deadly, and competent. The subway, the prize, the departing trains, and the turnstiles are forgotten, everything is forgotten except the decisive and uncompromising duel.

* * *

Scrooge McDuck in an elven suit, sitting sadly and dejectedly at a table filled with columns of gold coins, was so sad that the milk seemed sour in the whole region and a few neighboring ones. But then they bring him some report note, he reads it carefully and the pupils in his eyes take the form of a dollar symbol, and Scrooge jumps up and rushes somewhere along the corridors of the palace complex, rich and enchanted to the last brick. He bursts on his heels into some kind of training session on battle magic, where a desperately tired half-elven in tattered robes is fighting off a bunch of training golems and a trio of summoned elementals. The paused training resumes and the frenzied, oozing infernal greed of the duck, who has stepped on the path of profit, demands the trainee to work three times harder, five times better, because he, the duck, needs this, that, this and that, and woe to him, the half-elf waster, a hole in the lovingly prepared budget of the state, if he does not buy all the marked items in the shortest possible time. That is - quickly, quickly, FAST, FUCK YOU!!!!

* * *

Stepan woke up rested, without headaches and migraines, without traces of infernal affliction, but with a pounding heart and a clear conviction that he had to hurry and swing, or the duck would come for him. He flopped off the bed and immediately began frantically doing push-ups, checking the state of his body and aura in the process, when it dawned on him that this was, well, a nightmare. Shaking his head and trying to figure out why the devil he was being asked to pay for his budget holes by Scrooge McDuck, the shaman went to breakfast, at the same time admiring, with the eyes of spirits, how Fanya, in the company of a lean and slender woman in her forties with gray-blond hair, was doing vigorous physical exercises with a training sword. Her skin was already noticeably less greasy, and some wrinkles seemed less pronounced.

Smiling a kind and forgiving smile, from which some of the workers almost jumped back in horror, he looked at the mouse corpses stored by the ghostly kitty on duty, no less on duty, and promised himself to work on this mysticism seriously, as soon as he would deal with the problems of demonic nature and the rest of the tasks at the top of the list. A quick call for help to one of the workers, who had been knocked on the head by a dropped basket containing glass bottles of wine. None of them shattered, but the head of the crooked loser was cut to a bloody pulp. Stepan stopped the bleeding and interrupted the formation of hematoma, relieved the condition of concussion, and then said to call the healers, for he helped as much as he could, let him rest well. The healer, whom Stepan quietly watched, had just bandaged his head, dripped a little potion on the wound, wiped the edges of the cut with disinfectant, and professionally applied five stitches, telling him to call him later, when he was healed, to remove the stitches. This level of grassroots medicine evoked a slight tinge of respect for an albeit magical, but still near-medieval.

Stepan, who decided to watch his colleague, exchanged a few words with vaguely familiar craftsmen, who at the same time fed him with the latest gossip. They ranged from the fact that Motsiy Mochalka had had a big shit in the morning, before he even got out of bed, and had shat all over the sheets and the floor - Stepan didn't even pretend to have anything to do with it - to the rise in flour prices, because the flour-milling shops were again in violent conflict with the landowners who wanted to take them under their thumb, to who was in what relationship with whom, and who had gotten laid the best. Stepan, who perhaps should have once again taken Sylvia out to visit her for mobile games and practicing tantric magic, could do without the latter, but he couldn't shut the mouths of people for whom it was a reason for male pride. However, it should be said, that it was amusing in its own way to monitor by the spirits of words and meanings how words and boasts differed from how it was in reality.

“To make a long story short, this peasant has only recently moved to the lower quarter, but he's already settled in. He's a peasant, but he's a good potter. Strangely, he's been in the village for so long. Old Hubos saw his work and took him on as a junior master. I'm envious. I tried to go to the potters, but they told me my hands were not steady. They turned me down, the bastards. But this one was immediately promoted to master, even though junior one. His wife and daughter, who was also pretty, were given a life according to the shop regulations.” This was a vaguely familiar man from those responsible for cheese-making, which made him smell very peculiar, even though they were given the cheapest alchemy, which helped to get rid of the stench. “But while this Fjeld is busy working his wife, Gelda, is bored alone. And she's the sweetest thing in the world for a villager. And for a townswoman too, my word! I swear on the Life Giver, but she was blessed at least by some of her priestesses. Tits, yay! Legs, oh! Ass - ooh! And the way she wiggled, I could fly away with the birds! I've never been served like that in the Hot Night, oh! And, most importantly, for free, yeah. Only mine, this one, is a natural chararam."

“Tell more lies, shararam, fuck! Where did you ever see a peasant woman so beautiful, as you say? Especially if she was also given birth and had a grown-up daughter!” One of the friends and comrades-listeners was legitimately indignant, causing the other men to murmur approvingly. “You lie and don't even lie, Kir, yeah. They didn't give him that in Nochka itself! If he ever gets a peasant girl in Nochka, it's a young one, not a worn-out milf, at least you should be ashamed of lying so stupidly!”

"You're calling me a liar, you bastard!" Righteously indignant, by the way, the man who had not lied and had found himself a sexy rural woman suffering from under-fucking, and he shone a light in the ear of the mocker. "I'm going to give you the proof!"

The discussion of cheating, half of the actively whoring figures here had long been with their families, was replaced by a heated but not particularly vicious fight. Two disputants beat each other with all their might, but not on the head, not in the groin either, more on the body prescribing punches. The Earthman, who could still benefit from rumors or training in recognizing lies, truths, fabrications, and exaggerations, could not benefit from the fight, in which even injuries were not inflicted. So he got up quietly, finished his jar with kvass, which had been tested three times by various spirits, and went to his room. He had already used his limit of rest, and now it was time to start the anti-Demon campaign, and in the afterburner mode - at least a couple or three days he would not even come back to sleep on the bed.

But as soon as he began to order the Revealer to give him passage to the hideout, he was distracted by a new assignment from Automilf, which caused him to falter. His inner eye caught the familiar “...Liarat si Merrinal, Lady of Gifts and Giver of Gifts, loyal servant of Innelas Innelay,” and he almost squeezed out a refusal, but then his mind realized the images of the assignment in full, and he slowed down. He reread the terms. He reread them again, compared the due dates, tried to move the task to the journal queue without success, and sighed heavily. His obnoxious patroness could piss him off. If she gave him a morally acceptable and necessary assignment, which he was going to fulfill in one form or another without her quests, it was a bitch that he had trouble with deadlines. Well, when should he hunt for demons here, if he is offered such things?

System assignment ( average) received: to process and subjugate all of Sylvia Malter's scarlet nestlings, as well as the human servants in the nest living and working by distorting their personalities in a depraved manner within the specified specification [EXPAND].

Satisfactory execution requires rewriting basic aspects of personality, changing the life paradigms and priorities of each of Sylvia Malter's four chicks according to specifications; the changes must be superimposed over the original personalities, remaining invisible both to all inhabitants of the estate and possibly inspection or scanning of the treated; all treated must consider what has happened as normal, all influences, events, and changes must be hidden in the depths of the subconscious of the victims of processing; the assignment must be completed within twenty-six days of moment of acceptance.

For full execution, it is necessary to carry out all the effects unnoticed by the treated and without the use of direct and active assistance from the previously subordinate Sylvia Malter.

For perfect execution, it is necessary to carry out all actions with sufficient synchronization so that the final stage of processing per the specification takes place either simultaneously or at intervals of no more than half an hour.

It is permissible, approved, and desired to use the gifts of Liarat si Merrinal, Lady of Gifts and Giver of Gifts, loyal servant of Innelas Innelay.

Reward: closing of the current level; improvement of one random property; significant increase in the effectiveness of charms, significant increase in the probability of appearance of talents of the slavemancy branch, expansion of the available set of summons of the corresponding direction.

At full execution: one free talent point available to spend exclusively in the meta-skills section for each of the chicks processed; one reward token of an unusual or rare type for each of the chicks processed; boost two random knowledge to the current development maximum.

At perfect execution: one random elite meta-skill; one random rare or elite property; two elite meta-influence tokens; one characteristic unit to the most underdeveloped attribute (in case the lowest score is shared by two or more attributes - the choice is random).

Note: all consumables and materials to complete the assignment according to the specification will be provided automatically without payment from the player, but with the need to use all materials to complete the assignment; all excess or unused materials will be withdrawn upon completion of the assignment; attempting to use the issued materials other than to fulfill the objectives of the assignment will result in automatic failure of the assignment.

Stepan reread the task several times, checked the reward string several times, and tried exactly ten times to move the task to the waiting queue. But no, alas. Since receiving the third rank of the meta-skill for receiving tasks, this was the first fucking time a task had a clear and date-specific execution timer that didn't stop ticking even when placed in the log. The worst was not the specifications of the assignment and the need to do all sorts of lewd debauchery with the brains of innocent bloodsuckers. He had seen through Sylvia's memory of their everyday life, mentality, and the available sins behind the undead souls, holding back didn't want to be too hard. Worst of all were the deadlines that guaranteed he wouldn't have time to use the Stargazer's summoning window and its cheater properties to find anyone.

Yes, he could, in theory, start his Anti-Demon plan, execute it, and still have a little more than half a term left to work with the bloodsuckers. But he had seen the specs, and knew his strengths and skills, so he was aware of the simple truth - even if he somehow managed not to rest at all after the hardest work of gathering a hunting pack of inferno-eaters, starting a system assignment as soon as he finished his own, he wouldn't make it. At most, he would not be able to get to the lowest level, and even then it was not a sure thing, he just wouldn't risk it. He will take the level during the counter-demonic games, he doesn't need the bonuses to the spells, and the random property will probably be one of those given by the Autogoddess. No, if he needs to fulfill the task, he needs to at least get to the second step of the three to take meta-skills, and he can't do that.

And come on with the assignment, even meta-skills weren't needed so much. The tokens and properties would certainly be with Her Milfy vibe, the other thing there was the materials provided. He was well aware that if he wanted to use Sylvia properly in his affairs, he would need to subdue her nest. Or her constant absences, her changing priorities and habits, and her abandonment of certain working methods, which caused Stepan genuine disgust, would become noticeable and, much worse, suspicious. Sylvia wasn't lying about the fact that there was little more dirt on their nest than on any other small aristocratic or mercantile house, let alone the upper nobility and the elite of the trade guilds. But that didn't mean they were saints, no, just that other people in this world were worse than bloodsucking creatures, and Stepan didn't want to tolerate such things from his own creatures, subordinate and restrained.

But he was also aware of another sad fact. He wouldn't be able to repeat a subjugation of a level at least comparable to that of Sylvia's. Then, by the will of the Autodivine, he had been given the perfect materials and components, which he - the master of puppet practice! - barely managed to use and assemble the finished puzzle. To achieve at least comparable quality and, more importantly, reliability and imperceptibility, he would have to work on each of the vampires separately, for weeks and months, spending on summons and reagents. And that was because all he wanted was control, not vulgarities!

The assignment offered certainly not the equivalent of their parent's doll, but still far more than he could afford and was willing to pay. Stepan checked the list of consumables and blanks to be given out. Puppet blanks, offerings, witch materials, special alchemy, and a couple of temporary totems with elder entities, a full-fledged anchor for summoning higher entities, even if it was only valid for twenty-six days. A higher spirit, damn! Even if it was only for a short time, even if it was only for the vulgar purposes of summoning, it was still a mark on the shaman's spirit that he had successfully ordered a higher entity, not from the bottom of the ranking of his kind, to stay alive, and the entity had carried out those orders. In fact, this assignment not only made it possible to protect humanity from a bunch of evil monsters in beautiful guises but also covered the last vulnerability in Stepan's disguise and legend. With the ability to rely on the nest entirely, he could operate on a much larger, broader, and more confident scale.

He wasn't even going to do anything dirty with the vampire subordinates. Well, that wasn't quite accurate, but he'd try to restrain himself. He'd had enough of Sylvia, especially since only the biggest bastard in the nest was trying to fuck him in the brains. Not that the rest of her daughters wouldn't do the same if they had the chance, but they didn't and they didn't. In the end, the minuses only the probability of failure of the assignment, because it really goes to the edge of its capabilities, even though fully corresponds to the involuntary specialization. And also a missed window of attack on the demon, but damn it, he only dreamed of this obscure demoness, once she managed to break through his defenses and put her Name into him. The creature roams the world, but it's hardly looking for Stepan, and even if it is, what the hell are the chances that in these two months, it will be able to reach the city, settle in, and stealthily get close to the shaman who is always on the alert, who seldom leaves the courtyard and spends almost all his free time in an extremely fortified shelter, from which a couple of magisters will not forge him without a long siege?

No, not zero. The time had passed quite a bit, and the creature itself could have been somewhere close to Dantmark from the beginning. Stepan would not dismiss the risks, he would not take any chances, and would not dismiss the threat, he remembered how he had gone to Bzdy for bread. But, choosing between a small risk, which has all chance of turning out to be a flop, and a very significant profit, which is right in walking distance, just take it and stretch out your hand... well, the vice of Greed, alas, touched even Stepan, although he sincerely believed that cliché Hamster and Toad bypassed him. However, if anything, he would convince everyone that instead of this couple he was tormented in his dreams by Scrooge McDuck himself.
Хомяк и Жаба

“Okay, I feel like I might regret this, but if I say no now, I'm guaranteed to regret it, and I'll be pecking myself for six months.” Sighing, feeling like he's going against his own beliefs, and feeling even worse about the fact that he's actually being bent by the Autogoddess, having picked up a sweet enough carrot, the shaman accepts the assignment and leaves the room back to the courtyard. “Alright, I'll take this stress with pies, I think they promised to have them ready for lunch, and then get to work.”

There was an assortment of pies - apple, pear, cherry, apricot, mulberry, and even some obscure relatives of peaches. A team of cooks from the lord's house prepared Fania's favorite dishes, but she determined to go on a diet and refused the treats. She did not yell at the cooks who wanted to do her good, even praised them, but told them to take the goodies out of her sight, so that they would not tempt her with smells or entice her with looks. At that moment almost the whole farmstead, from masters to servants, from guards to personal servants, supported Fania Borshakl on her way to a slim figure. It was delicious, and in a normal situation, such deliciousness would not be served to the workers. Stepan, as the gifted one, got four pies at once, including the one with the kin of peach.

Tasty, but sad.

The pies are over, but twenty-six very long days of true labor hell for a very disgruntled срфкьук and brainiac are still to come.

* * *

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

Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/86785/577358

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP