Готовый перевод Настучать в бубен / Hit the tambourine: Глава 18-5

The fact that Sylvia could not be used to work with the material directly meant only that she could not be ordered to knock out her subordinates and bring them to Stepan for processing, whether one by one or together. Using her memory, her knowledge of the defenses of their mansion, the layout of its rooms and two underground floors, her personal defense preferences, and the weaknesses of each of the four remaining fledglings - it didn't violate the terms of the assignment, and Stepan was happy to take advantage of those opportunities. All four of the smaller and younger creatures were, to put it mildly, no match for Sylvia, or she wouldn't have been so unquestionably in charge. Except that didn't mean they were defenseless. Yes, after reinforcements and modifications, they were no match for Sylvia, but they were still four experienced, long-lived, and deadly beasts, each of which could cause trouble even for Stepan, albeit with reservations, if they were lucky.

Storming their nest, for example, would be a challenge, but luckily he didn't need to storm or probe the defenses long and hard. He can't order Sylvia to disengage or open the defenses tied to her blood and the land cursed with unlife. It would have made the assignment easier and saved a couple of days. An hour there, an hour here, no need to bypass the bloody field, and now, you can count those very 24 hours. However, why regret about unfulfilled, impossible, and unexistent things, if you have enough to occupy your buzzing head? Stepan used Sylvia's doll again, implanting the reading spirits through the doll, flipping through the pages of her memory, searching for everything that would help him to work as effectively as possible against her chicks.

There were four of them left, all female, of beautiful appearance and cunning character. Such an arrangement was not so unusual for nests of this particular doctrine, whose parents were female. Especially if one remembered that the two men in their ranks had also been there, but had simply run out. Stepan chased away from himself the thought that the situation was very suspiciously favorable for the Autogoddess's assignment, especially since the situation turned out to be quite normal and natural. He had already, due to the peculiarities of the grief-stricken patroness, on such details begun to have a vicious paranoia, fueled by a lot of unbridled guesses and bold assumptions. Neither paranoia nor guesses prevented him from evaluating each of the four creatures, picking up the keys to their defenses, and making a plan for wasting the equipment and reagents given to him by the task - the specifications of the compulsions he should carry out were good, of course. Still, the ways of carrying out these compulsions were entirely Stepan's responsibility.

The first of the fledglings, the oldest and, in fact, Sylvia's closest friend, who herself had only recently been the parent of her own fledgling, was Lemira. She came from a family with strong ties to the bloodsuckers. Converted at the age of twenty-six, she had been an adventurous mercenary, had mastered the combat skills of a couple of swordsmanship schools, and had used amulets skillfully while still mortal and alive. She was the only one of the nest who could match Sylvia in combat, even if only for a short time and without the use of blood magic. In conjunction with the deceased, or rather, deceased traitor, she was responsible for the nest's most forceful actions-espionage, theft, kidnapping, reconnaissance, occasional assassinations, and a number of bribed mercenary groups that didn't work directly for the vampires, but still received dividends and assignments from them.

Lemira supervised and controlled all of this, though that didn't mean she was the only one who did it. Everyone was involved in the same surveillance and infiltration, even Silvia, but it was Lemira who had the most experience and authority. Suffice it to say that even if Sylvia personally decided to participate in a major operation, like secretly copying some of the documents of the head of the representative office of a trading house, the plan of the operation and the description of roles were still put together by Lemira, and the parent only gave her permission or, very rarely, asked her to finalize certain details. And everyone, even Sylvia, in a combat situation obeyed the chief enforcer-infiltrator, following her instructions and orders. The experience and sharpening of all abilities in the right sphere had an effect. Her blood magic was not particularly powerful, but her stealth, distraction, invisibility, and blood enhancement were no weaker than Sylvia's.

Outwardly, Lemira was a medium-sized woman with perfect posture, quite large breasts, a slim waist, slightly curly dark brown hair a little shorter than her shoulders, and attentive brownish eyes. Yes, her eyes weren't vampire eyes all the time. The consequence of one long-ago ritual, and unless she was applying scarlet gaze and activating her undead essence too actively there was no unnatural glow to her eyes. Sylvia, by the way, could do that too, but her scarlet glow was almost permanent, due to her much deeper power and advanced age since her conversion. She had to either make a conscious effort or concentrate her aura very hard and tire it out to make her gaze dark brown, almost without scarlet.

Second in seniority and importance among the chicks was the honorable and revered Jaspera, who played the role of a caring nestmate, personnel officer, and accountant in the nest. This person came to the scarlet drop, not from loyal servants who from childhood prepared for the kiss of unlife, but as an employee. Sylvia needed someone who could handle her money with confidence, and this accountant, fleeing from the creditors of her merchant brother, who had gone bankrupt and owed debts to the wrong people, was right for the job. Quite quickly the still young girl fitted into the new company, proved indispensable and, when she reached forty-one years old, seeing the coming old age, asked to be a chick. Silvia thought about it for another two years but agreed. She liked Jaspera's professionalism and business acumen very much.

The converted accountant fit the definition of a vampire milf even better than Sylvia, because the cosmetic alchemy and the visit to the healer-plastician before the conversion had compensated for all the disadvantages of age, and the extra years had softened the conversion itself, burning away the slight fullness and wrinkles. She looked only a little over thirty now, her breasts could match Sylvia's or Lemira's, her waistline was the right size, and she could do wonders with her buttocks. She had soft features, light brown hair, and warm brown eyes masked by the same ritual, and her smile could melt a heart without magic. She had no trouble finding intimate entertainment. The most loving of the whole nest, this mom regularly changed lovers. Сompletely voluntary and without any compulsion. It would seem that this was an example of a moral and correct vampire, one who had no reason to kill except for his species. Jaspera, afraid of getting addicted to other people's deaths, preferred not to drink to the bottom even when she could afford it, and the list of those she drank to death consisted of a modest three people and one pure-blooded orc.

Alas, but this lady got her portion of scum from other sources. It was not for nothing that she was responsible for the finances and personnel of the whole nest. Squeezing and beating out debts, sometimes with the suicide of the debtor and the sale of his family to debt servants, which in fact was, in Dantmark, almost synonymous with slavery, with only a very small chance of redemption. That was just the tip of the iceberg. It was no problem for her to kidnap the son of a debt-ridden and unwilling merchant, sending pieces of his body afterward as an argument to hurry up. And no, even when she paid, no one returned her son to her, having turned him into a ghoul and then fed the merchant to the ghoul. In desperation, the lady began to look for help and complained wherever necessary, so that the nest had to pay the secret guard nearly three times as much as they had squeezed out of the debtor to settle the matter, so the showy elimination of the old woman was just a matter of prestige.

Of course, such performances did not happen often, not every year or at least every five years, because no one risked to anger the bloodsuckers once again, without being able to avoid their anger. But during Jaspera's long life, such episodes had accumulated. She was responsible for all the servants and those who worked for the nest in one way or another. She treated them with care and almost parental concern, but she was also utterly ruthless to those who stumbled, failed to live up to expectations, or simply outlived their usefulness. Not to the point of absurdity, those who had worked for the nest all their lives and simply grew old she, of course, did not kill like cattle. But still - the attitude of a kind farmer to her animal. You can stroke the feathers of ducklings, comb the hair of goats, and cheerfully give nicknames to cows, but when the time comes, such a thrifty mistress calmly and without emotion will slaughter the victim. Ironically, of all of Sylvia's chicks, this particular lady is the most badass and inhumane. Well, after Riksar was chewed up a bit by a black dog, he had no competition. But even the second place in such a competitive ranking is by no means a reason for pride and not a source of forgiveness in Stepan's case.

The third of the fledglings, in terms of seniority but not in terms of danger, was the lovely and seductive Rowena. In fact, her birth name was Reshka, a thoroughly peasant name for a hereditary peasant girl. Not even a bastard of an aristocratic family, but a straight-from-the-soil peasant girl. At a young age, but already conscious, she came into Sylvia's field of vision, attracting her attention not only by her dormant magical gift, which is so useful in rebirth, but also by her character, enthusiasm, and anger at the whole world. Desiring a better life, the girl quickly realized that a scarlet kiss was her only chance, and with all her limbs and even teeth began to tear competitors on the way to the coveted unlife. At the age of twenty-seven, having transformed herself through cosmetics and visits to healers into a beautiful and luxurious woman who looked nothing like an ordinary villager, she accepted the kiss and took a new name for herself - Rowena. It was a deliberately aristocratic and classical name, the name their daughters had been called in the fallen northern kingdoms, which meant something between “aspiring to greatness” and “born into glory”.

Soft figure, rather large breasts, light red hair down to her waist, dark green eyes, which she consciously tries not to make scarlet unnecessarily, a good figure, and very graceful movements. She resembled a bloodsucker-turned-aristocrat to a far greater degree than most aristocrats, and her natural diplomacy and ability to get her way with gentle persuasion were multiplied by her decent skills in magic, seduction, and blood magic. Unlike Jaspera, who, despite her older age, did not shine with magical or racial talents, Rowena was very skillful in applying the crumbs of her long life's gifts, having mastered love magic and the basics of mentalism, as well as retaining a slight affinity for water. As a result, she was able to supplement a classic blood drop or arrow strike with a liquid charged with Necros, turning a small drop into a nucleus blot, increasing the impact and its danger.

In their nest of friends, Rowena was the one who did most of the correspondence and negotiations with the other nobles, the secret guards, and the trading houses, and generally served as the one Sylvia sent to talk if she didn't want to go herself. Lemira did recognize that she couldn't do it that way, after all. To slip into any crevice without massage oils, forcing discounts, preferences and relaxations. In fact, Rowena was largely responsible for the good relations between the bloodsuckers and the current deputy head of the secret guard, Allizira de Fell, for whom Sylvia and her fledglings sometimes performed all sorts of high-secrecy tasks. To summarize, Rowena was a personality completely devoid of prejudices, complexes, shame, conscience and brakes, wanting everything she could take from the world. Sylvia is almost certain that she will try to break her bloody patronage as soon as she feels strong enough and prepares the ground for the rupture sufficiently. But whether to eliminate this former villager or just let her go in peace, taking a couple of particularly strong promises - this is a much more interesting question, to which the parent did not have an answer at the moment.

The last of the four, the youngest but also the most talented, was the main artificer and ritualist of the group, who was better at it than other full-fledged mages, despite the fact that she had barely passed the first hundred years since her conversion. Artemia was very lucky in this respect. She had managed to retain a small crumb of magical gift during her rebirth, something that even old bloodsuckers could not boast of. Yes, they were crumbs, but experience and diligence allowed her to get into amulet-making, and successfully, so successfully that her products bring profits and benefits on a par with Sylvia's alchemy. Well, the thing is, first of all, that such amulets are sold much more readily and quickly than rather specific and often forbidden alchemy. However, Artemia also knows how to create prohibited amulets and even sells them.

In the past, she was the daughter of a solidly adept magician who had gotten into some very nasty games. She had been hit with a powerful curse that was slowly killing her and guaranteed to transfer to her daughter afterward. After searching for different options and finding no help either from temples or fellow mages, who rewarded her with the curse, she agreed with Sylvia. Voluntarily sacrificing herself in the ritual, she gave her life, temporarily freezing the curse, allowing her twelve-year-old daughter to grow up a bit before the block on the curse would lift. Maybe she had hoped that something would change, or that her executioners would spare her daughter, but it hadn't worked out. And Sylvia didn't want to give up a promising chick, so she went with the bloody option. Reborn at the age of just under eighteen winters, Artemia retained some of her almost undeveloped gift, as well as the tools and records of her venerable and beloved even now mother. This was the basis of her development, and it allowed her to occupy an equal or even slightly privileged position in the nest, despite her relatively young age, at which in another nest she would not even have been allowed to sail free.

She was a searing brunette, with shoulder-length hair, a permanently scarlet gaze that never changed color under any circumstances, a slim figure, modest breasts of one-and-a-half sizes, long legs, and the general appearance of a gothic alt-girl from Earth. She even wore, almost without taking them off, typical-earthly glasses with thick, transparent panes. Her mother's most prized, blood-bound, even if the blood was no longer alive, heirloom. A highly advanced tool for working with the tiniest of power flows when assembling amulets and artifacts. Of course, she used it masterfully, creating ordinary household, combat, signaling, protective, and many other amulets, as well as those she disapproved of. And that's why the whole Dantmark knew it was from the bloodsuckers you can buy the most delicious toys: hiding traces and odor, distracting the eye, blocking aura search, carrying a poison capsule or a curse, and much more. Actually, not without the help of these toys, as well as those services that she had acquired through their sale or donation, a large proportion of those who had done bad things to her mom had long since passed away. Well, the ones who weren't sitting too high, but even the high ones she'd torn a piece of meat out of.

Thus, a respected master of general magic, who was in fact an overgrown adept, who had gotten his mastery when he was already old and unable to step up, was now living in Normgrave and didn't even know that his missing youngest daughter and her two granddaughters were not missing. Artemia, in a fit of good cheer, turned the two little girls, a little younger than she was on the day of her mother's death, into fresh and hungry ghouls, allowing them to snack on their mother slowly and deliberately. The bloodsucker, who was angry at the whole world, obviously did not know what was the degree of proportionality of revenge and its targeting. She had too much cruelty, and in any address, she snapped at anyone, and other servants had to be healed or laid in a coffin after such breakdowns.

"A very colorful company gathered in this house, I must say." Stepan, filled with not the brightest feelings, felt a little less remorse for what he planned to do to the nest's inhabitants. "They were bright, and for some reason, the color of this brightness was not scarlet, but brown."

Today all the objects of his attention were in the city, no trips outside the walls were planned, and they spent most of the day as well as part of the night in the mansion. It was the perfect time and moment to start work, and Stepan, crunching his knuckles, took up the job.

* * *

The old wisdom of the halfling clans in the mid-sea regions says that the result of the simplest arithmetic addition of one plus one depends very much on whether the person asking is buying or selling. Jaspera was not a halfling and had not done much business with them, but she knew that there was a lot of harsh and not funny truth in this saying. The main berry of any business as a scarlet kiss is that always, absolutely always, you need to lay a margin of safety in case of not just risk, but disaster. At any moment the situation has every chance to change and evil guards will come to the gates of the nest with torches, holy oils, and battle wands. And all partners, be it a mighty trading house through an unofficial representative or a simple shopkeeper, at any moment may decide that it is not necessary to pay obligations. Yell as loud as you can, scream about how you are haunted by night creatures, scream about evil bloodsuckers, demanding life and blood, and then it's over and you don't have to pay. The fact that before that you had been taking advantage of preferential trade in rare reagents and extremely difficult to acquire amulets you can tactfully omit.

"You may not write anything to Mitri. Just send a single line to “You have chosen”, without threat or disrespect, and let it marinate." Jaspera gives orders to her assistant, Varka, whom she has been training for the position of field day auditor for the third year, finding her progress meaningful and pleasing enough to mentor. "He writes a lot, but there's not much truth in it, and he certainly hasn't received any patronage from the lurkers, otherwise we would have already received a letter with a polite offer not to interfere with the honorable merchant's surplus. He's lying like a blind dog. Let him boil in his own juice for now."

“Done, mistress.” Varyka, an unassuming and not very pretty maiden, resembling a kind of gray mouse, was nevertheless very executive and not lacking in reasonable initiative, for which Jaspera drew her close. “What is the matter with the honorable Syberin?”

The bloodsucker sitting at a heavy wooden desk littered with papers, spreadsheets, summaries, and dust-covered trade tomes, leaned back in the soft chair, massaging her temples. For some reason this day her head felt like it was filled with cobwebs, and it was hard to concentrate on what was important. It had been like this for the second decade, but it was just a little thing, now she just needed to sit for a while and her head would work again. Syberin de Faler, of course, was not as brazen and rotten as Mithrius, and he did not refuse to pay, no. But he demanded not only goods that were not officially available, but also in large quantities, and the honorable Allisira de Fell, by her personal letter, had insistently requested that large shipments of special goods be coordinated with her department.

And it was clear that Sylvia would get permission to sell it, but time was running out, and Siberin was in a hurry, obviously, he needed specific combat alchemy for some project of his. We can hurry up, collect the necessary supplies from the warehouses, and issue the authorization retroactively. Wouldn't be the first time. Dantmar's Weasel, as the deputy head of the secret guard de Dantrel was called, would understand everything perfectly. But in the last two months, Jaspera had already performed this maneuver three times. You can't lose any vestiges of decency, at least outwardly.

"Write, very politely, with due respect, that we are looking for supplies, and we are making some right now, ask to wait another half-decade, hmmm, no, better seven days, and, uh, yes, seven." Massaging her eye sockets Jaspera realizes that her dress is too tightly sewn in her chest, making her downright uncomfortable. "Is the heating amulet on in here, Varka?"

"I don't know, Mistress." Only shrugged as Jaspera, now as alive as possible and able to feel the uncomfortable temperature, tried to fan herself with a stack of letters. "Anything else?"

The bloodsucker did not answer, dropping the letters, which scattered all over the table, some of them fell on the floor, an unfortunate movement of the elbow turned the inkwell, and right on her dress, on the massive breasts, which Jaspera leaned on the table with all her weight. Silently growling with anger at her clumsiness, she rises over the table, feeling her knees shake. Looking down at the stained dress, she ripped the lacing of her corset in one jerk, exposing her large breasts with their dark nipples sticking out, almost falling under her weight, barely able to reflexively brush off the ink with scarlet magic. She hadn't even realized that her tits were so heavy, a real udder, so huge that it was impossible to resist, literally pulling her down, making her fall, draining all the strength from her body and mind.

The bare skin of her breasts touched the cold surface of the desk, and Jasper couldn't hold back a satisfied moan. The strange heat that had been plaguing her for the past few hours had receded a little, allowing her to fan herself again with some papers, stroking the tender skin of her breasts, stroking her nipples, and feeling a little lighter. Her vague gaze focuses, her consciousness begins to clear and it dawns on the experienced, old creature that her situation is not normal. Why is she experiencing something like this at all, why are her brazen tits so heavy today that she can't stand on her feet, why can't she shift into inanimate thinking so that she doesn't suffer from the heat, why is she so unusually dizzy? These questions find no answer, but the woman realizes there is something wrong with her and that she should not be in this situation.

"Varka." Not stopping stroking her own huge, what a huge, huge breast she has, bigger than her puny brains, she calls to her faithful assistant. "There's something wrong with me."

"Yes, Mistress." The girl agrees, not taking her eyes off the letter to the damned Siberin

“Call, m-m-m-, call Sy, Sy Sylvia!” She had to pinch herself on both nipples at once so that the udder that betrayed her would stop pressing on her mind and let her remember the name of her bloody parent, but it resulted in a shameful moan and a completely sudden orgasm, after which the weakness that had overtaken her became irresistible. "Faster, this is attack... and my tits.... push me."

"Yes, Mistress." The assistant agrees with her again, not taking her eyes off the new line, as if she hadn't heard the direct order to raise the alarm.

"Youuu, wake up, oh, oh, I... ah! Wake up, Varka. I'm coming, why are they so, uh, big, I don't know, do something, help me, come on!" With a slurring tongue, sliding down in her chair and almost falling under the table, she tries to shout to the servant who is still writing a damn letter. "Oh, silly titties!"

"Yes, Mistress." With the same polite intonation, the same smile, still not taking her eyes off the letter, moving the steel enchanted quill over the paper. "As you say, Mistress."

And Mistress realizes that she will not get help from a stupid girl, stupid girl, almost as stupid as her huge tits, boobs, udders, breasts... Jaspera walks forward on trembling legs, feeling, with every drop of scarlet reserve feeling how the floor wobbles under her, how her tits sway and bounce with every step, but she still does not give up, takes a step, a second, a third and, somewhere in the middle of the office, she fails. The weight of her breasts pulls her forward, overbalancing her, shifting her center of balance, causing her to barely have time to put her arms out before she falls. Her arms bend a moment later, and there she is, her nipples seemingly impossibly hot for her inanimate state against the cold mahogany parquet. A wild moan mixed with a growl ripped from her throat, and she literally screamed, trying to reach someone, but realizing that she had activated the sound isolation before she started today.

"Yes, Mistress." Varka echoed her shouts and inarticulate orders. "It is so, Mistress."

The strength was leaving her. The weight of her breasts, the weight of her third orgasm triggered by the touch of her tits to the floor, presses her even harder into that floor. She pulls herself forward another step, feeling her breasts sliding against the varnished wood, the sliding squeezing another portion of pleasure out of her. With a dragon-like effort of will, Jaspera rolls over onto her back, feeling in her gut how her breasts are shaking, her tits betraying their mistress, and then tries to squeeze the unruly soft, stupefyingly tender, stupefyingly sensual flesh in her hands. And she struggles. She strokes and pinches and tosses and releases, cumming time after time and with the full weight of her mind, honed and intelligent, pressing against her tits, feeling herself winning little by little. How the mind in her head, clamped and clenched in the soft embrace of the snow-white hills, first reclaims its own and then goes on the offensive itself. She ends with an angry and victorious expression on her face, realizing that more and more of her mind and brain are inside her breasts, her tits, which have paid for the betrayal of their freedom. And, at some point, she realizes that she is squeezing not just her tits, but her mind, that her own brain is shaking and bouncing, now nestled in her huge udders, split in two.

Smiling, she squeezes her tits turning her mind off. She lets them go, putting her mind back in place again. She shakes them, moving her shoulders, feeling her very consciousness falter, and then she orgasms again, triumphant and triumphant, not even moaning, just smiling. Jaspera does not yet think about what exactly provoked this state. Someone's attack, an intrigue within the nest, Sylvia's ordeal, a random weakness in her mind, something else. It didn't matter, nothing mattered except that she - defeated her stupid tits. She had defeated and seized all the power over them, all the pleasure of that power. The bloodsucker slowly rises to her feet, feeling her mind swaying in its new receptacle, clutching her mind in her palms, she presses and releases it several times, achieving a sharp dulling, then an equally sharp restoration of the thought process.

"You are such a useless fool, Varka." She said only to her assistant, who was blowing on the fresh ink of a letter, the third, exactly the same as the first as if her mind was locked in the necessity of writing the letter and paying no attention to anything.

"Yes, mistress." She agreed, starting to write the fourth letter. "If you say so, mistress."

Without bothering to lace up her dress, still proudly flashing her hard-won tits, Jaspera entered Sylvia's office without knocking or warning, because she had an excuse. She calmly met her parent's questioning gaze and shrugged her shoulders demonstratively shaking her virtues showing her victory.

“What is that supposed to mean, Jasa?” Her leader clarified, looking into the eyes and at the tits, yes, tits she was squinting at too, of her subordinate. “Have you decided to change the way you dress?”

“They tried to fuck me in the brains, Sylvia, fuck me with my own big traitorous tits.” She explains, without hiding her rudeness, not out of insult, it's just that she often talks like that to those she trusts more than others. “But I won. I defeated my huge boobs with my smart brains. Now my brains are in my boobs, can you believe it? I think with my boobs, with my boobs, and if I shake them, I get dumb! It's great, isn't it?”

"Indeed." To Jaspera's great joy, the parent understood everything that had been said and unspoken. The accountant was covered with a soft and gentle blanket of a particularly sweet orgasm, and she decided not to go anywhere for the time being. "Sit down, please, and don't distract me."

Deciding to obey her boss, she took her breasts in her hands and began to squeeze and plant them, settling herself in a corner of the large office, sitting down on the floor and staring at the wall. It was a very ordinary wall, covered in dark burgundy lacquer and fabric drapery, but it was also a wall that was surprisingly interesting. Jaspera just stared at the wall, staring and staring and staring, trying to make out all the details, so interesting was it, so fascinating was the wall.

Wall.

Wall.

Wa...

* * *

Requests, even if polite and eloquent, coming from the deputy head of the secret guard, de Dantrel, were better taken as orders, albeit to a certain extent. Allisira de Fell was the main patron of the bloodsuckers' nest at the moment, so her requests had to be honored. Thankfully, she was paying handsomely, and not just a “live for now” kind of thing. Lemira was almost certain that the bastard had her sights set on tying the nest to herself completely and utterly. She wasn't the first, nor would she be the last. Everything was moving at a leisurely pace but with the same goal in mind. To give patronage, to give even more patronage, to keep freedoms and preferences, but demanding control of income streams, to cut off unnecessary connections, to quarrel or simply to distance the nest from other possible allies. Just like in the textbooks and exactly to the letter.

Not the first time, not the last either, but Sylvia was a very smart woman. Lemira did not doubt that she could hold her balance long enough to find another way. If she didn't, she could leave and settle into a new place. It wouldn't be the first or last time either. Right now, though, during this cursed search for the Blasphemer of Iyastar, Allisira's help justified getting her deeper into debt. There were rumors from Normgrave that the target of the search had gone to the Underworld, that there had been some large-scale battle or even a full-blown massacre, but those were only rumors that reached the ears of Sylvia or Rowena, and the search itself was only slightly less intense. Had it not been for Lady de Fell, who had authorized only minimal, albeit harsh, checks on Sylvia, and then given her an open way of temporary escape, things might have ended much more sadly than a single loss.

And single betrayal.

Lemira was furious at what Rixar had done. Especially when combined with the death of Adolso, in whose treatment, training, development, and education she had invested so much effort. But the boy, trained and experienced, did not survive another deadly adventure, and Rixar betrayed their trust, drank up their loyal servants, and fled, escaping with the intent to betray once more. When the search ritual confirmed the bastard's demise, she nearly drank one of the servants to the brim for joy. Revenge drank better than wine. But then, then she had to work, to drown in work, to work herself to exhaustion, to the point of losing her reserve of scarlet droplets and the humming of auric nodes. Lady de Fell, like the rest of the town, wanted to know who was behind the ugly scene that had not only thrown the de Marek trading house out of Dantmark with no chance of return for the next two hundred years, but not without the help of the de Mareks themselves, or rather the offspring of their merchant representative, who had proved himself such an ally that he was no longer an enemy, but had also insulted the ruling dynasty.

Everyone suspected, if not the de Falers, who had proved their innocence right there, then someone else from the trading houses, and all of them could not be forced to swear oaths. It was not an attempt on his favorite granddaughter, but only an insult. Nothing more. One had to use all manner of information-gathering methods with the flaming asses that the rabid old man had pounded them all into. De Fell had evidently remembered her red-eyed yet subordinates and had given them appropriate orders. No, Lemira was not in vain following the representation of the trading house de Romar, which was clearly preparing to transfer a powerful shipment of smuggled amber to bypass all taxes. For such information or its confirmation, for the bloodsucker did not believe that the squalid Robert managed to pull it off without anyone but her noticing, one could count on some preferential treatment. But there was no trace of the beast master who had worked on the parrots.

And, as if following the peddlers wasn't enough, another request came immediately. Only now information was needed on a different subject. The loud, ostentatious, brazen, and very mysterious murder of Valdis “Whip and Pincers” de Lonnier, with the emphasis on the attempt to smear the owner of the Orchid, m-m-m, so much stink was raised, as if someone had thrown an explosive potion into the cesspool. I mean, let's just say the murder itself and the deliberate attempt to shift the blame. It was clear to a fool that the old hag couldn't pull off such an operation, and she was simply put out into the sunlight, taking advantage of the public quarrel in which she had eloquently wished Valdis to be boiled alive. But when she was brought under interrogation, simply out of compliance with instructions and the general panic of those very searches for the mysterious villain, that's when she drifted. She turned out to be a longtime tightly knit agent serving several masters at once. Usually, she was warned about interrogations, even if with the Daromar relic, in time to prepare and distort the truth, but this was an unfortunate coincidence. Now de Fell is drinking blood from her agents no worse than Lemira, even though she is not kissed with scarlet, and the city is undergoing unnoticeable external, but very hot internal purges.

As a result of all this, Lemira, of course, worked out the contract, tracked down the right person, and led the capture group to him. But, given the preliminary tension and work with the trading house, she was exhausted to the point that she had to drink drops from the flask, having unsealed the reserve, because alive she would have spit out to the bottom, would not have been able to hold on. And then, having restored her reserve, she collapsed into the grave dug for her, sprinkled with scarlet, replenishing herself from the bad earth and restoring the strained nodes and veins of her thin body. The best proof of how exhausted she was was that she awakened not immediately, but gradually, as if almost human, as if nothingness and the negativity of dead stasis did not want to let her go. It was as if in her head inaudible bells were ringing, pages of books rustling, and drunken minstrels playing on their lutes. The last time Lemira had something similar had been when she had drunk an orc shaman drunk with his infusions and had eaten special mushrooms. Though, admittedly, she'd been much worse then.

When she comes out of the grave, she habitually looks around with all her senses. It's a reflex, embedded in her subconsciousness with the transformation, with the transition from life to non-life. At the moment of lying down, the vampire is very invisible, for ordinary and not so ordinary search magic it is indistinguishable from a simple corpse, just well preserved. But he's also very vulnerable. That's why the accepted rule of good manners is not to be present in front of the initiate of the scarlet drop at the moment of awakening, otherwise, you can run into a reflexive attack, like a wild animal, which will be a shame for both sides. Shaking off the sticky earth, even rather fine earthy dust, Lemira gave a command to the servants, falling into a rut of routine. How many times had she laid down like this, how many times had she awakened? She herself had given up counting long ago, preferring to enjoy that very routine and rest after a job well done. Wake up, wash her body in the bathtub, bring herself to orgasm with a couple of toys, drink some scarlet drops, read the new news, talk to Sylvia, let her puny and stupid mind be braided with passion, spread her legs before her master, find out the list of tasks for the coming decade - a typical morning, just like the living, only her heart hadn't beaten for a long time.

The bathroom greeted her with warm steam, prepared oils, a fragrant wand smoking in the corner, and a pair of quality lady saviors. Washing off the dirt and just lounging in the water, Lemira habitually stuck them in her slit and ass, setting the vibrating enchantment to the maximum, feeling the wave of pleasurable sensations bring her to ecstasy in a matter of seconds. Very expensive toys. They could be used instead of a stun rod, because one touch, for example, to the nipple on her breast, right in front of the corresponding auric node, and even she, Lemira, will be twisted so that she can not even move, not to mention resist. Putting her legs behind her head and watching the phallus pulsing in time with the contracting walls of her ass, she wondered how much such a thing could be worth. At the same moment, she frowns her eyebrows, because it's a strange thought. She pleasures her lust with these toys every waking moment, so why such questions, why can't she remember the answer to them? The space in her head ends abruptly when the orgasm hits her particularly hard, and she throws away the silly musings and literally shoots the savior out of her ass in an orgasmic spasm. For some reason it made her laugh wildly and she spent the rest of the ablution time giggling stupidly, remembering that moment.

The servants in the house were especially quiet today, so she decided not to get dressed. Her brains would be twisted soon anyway. Her clothes would only get dirty with her love juices when she cummed. Lemira made her way to her parent's office as quickly as it was unobstructed. Looking at Jaspera, who was sitting in the corner, staring at the wall, kneading her lovely breasts in her palms, Lemira only shook her head. It was always like this, if you delayed a little in the bathroom, this clever bitch would let her brains get twisted before her scarlet firstborn! And how not to be angry with her, how not to resent her? However, the bloodsucker didn't want to lose face, nodding hello to her old friend, mentor, and practically mother, who had made her what she was.

“Sylvia. I suppose since I wasn't awakened, there were no new wishes from our ever-hungry Weasel?” When she received the same welcoming nod, she sat down on the edge of the chair, throwing her spread legs on the table to Sylvia and stroking the bud with quick movements, trying to soften her will with the pleasures of the flesh, so that her future master would turn her into a semen-sucking puppet as quickly as possible. So, she would go on with her own and other things as quickly as possible. "Are you in no hurry to screw your head in?"

“Night to you too Lem, you can take it easy, her ladyship has forgotten about us for the time being.” With a slight satisfaction at a job well done, the lady of the nest replied, reading what seemed to be just Lemira's report. “And no, friend, I'm certainly not going to let anyone mess with my head.”

“Well, your loss, then I'll be first, or rather, second, since our gold-hungry one beat me.” Very satisfied with the fact that the queue had shifted, Lemira flopped her bare buttocks on the soft carpet next to Jaspera, putting her legs behind her head again and caressing her flower. “Then after I've been processed, I'll run through the correspondence and add to it if I need anything, okay?”

"Yes, yes, okay, good luck, friend." Sylvia was in her usual state of complete concentration, clearly already thinking about the coming days, for which Lemira respected her parent, because her thoughts tended to materialize, allowing her to seek benefits and avoid harm with amazing skill, which the chick herself could not achieve. "Tell me later."

She would tell, of course, after she had been braided... after she had been proceeded, enslaved, made into a bed toy. Something in that phrase made her, waiting for the one who would turn her into a toy that could only spread her legs and suck her seed, not alarmed, but confused. She always did just that, every time she awakened from her grave embrace, didn't she? Wake up, wash, self-satisfaction, report to Sylvia, rewrite her mind, meet the master, return to work duties... Something seemed strange to her in this list of events, as if something else, superfluous, wrong, had crept into the usual and routine things. But then Lemira's fingers pinched her flower bud as if by themselves, and the bloodsucker, moaning in orgasm, forgot about her worries, continuing to wait, not noticing how her eyes rolled back involuntarily and her head, her head, her he....

* * *

Men can afford to be only slightly prettier than a cave goblin and still be successful with women, but the opposite is unrealistic unless you hire the coin boys from the Orchid. Few men even realize how much effort a woman's beauty requires to preserve - creams, powders, shadows, ink, eyeliner, lipstick... oh, another treatise would not suffice to describe how the cunning female mind deceives nature. Rowena, of course, has it much easier. Her skin does not age. She does not get stretch marks and wrinkles from her years, but still, her beauty is not only gifted with a scarlet drop but also painstaking work. That's why she got herself a whole cosmetic dresser of elven work, enchanted, with a mirror, a lot of shelves, and stands for jars and flasks with cosmetics, as well as constantly needing to update the stock.

However, sweet, kind Sy was so stingy that any other dwarf would write her off as a parent, even though she was undead, but even she didn't argue much with the purchase. Rowena had explained to her that cosmetics and appearance were no less important to her than alchemical equipment was to her parent. As she realized later, Mrs. Malter was just playing with her, letting Rowena prove the necessity of the purchase herself, training her ability to press and argue, to persuade and prove. Sylvia Malter was the one who could seduce, persuade, and ruin anyone she wished. The vampiress, making up in front of her favorite mirror, didn't know the specifics and names, but she was sure that her mistress had her network of agents, and at least a third of them were not voluntary, but they didn't even know it. For a moment the red-haired bloodsucker thought she had roughly delineated the boundaries of Aunt Sy's personal group of puppets then she vividly showed her chick the fallacy of her judgments.

A few solo trips were “on business”, some reagents, which were bought for her by the servants or she took in the warehouse. And then, quite suddenly, another search ritual revealed that Riksar was done. Rowena couldn't imagine who her parent had hired to do the job, but there was no less than a strong and very specific adept of Maleficism. Well, or she'd sent a whole group of undead bloodsucker hunters over his head, for Rowena knew for a fact that Sylvia had a few contacts with that crowd as well. The kind of contacts who listened and answered questions first, rather than rushing into battle with a silver-plated saber at the ready. But let's leave Sylvia's riddles to Sylvia. Rowena won't know more than that, and it's useless to ask, she has to look for it herself, pulling out information little by little and putting the picture together. Just to know, to understand, to have a bargaining or talking point - it was her nature to always be looking for more and better.

Sylvia probably thought that Rowena would try to repeat Riksar's maneuver by also setting sail without her parents' will and knowledge. And it must be admitted, not entirely without reason. So the lesson of how a stronger and more experienced fighter, versatile and good at hiding was destroyed at the will of the one he betrayed, was a good one. Rowena didn't want to set her mistress straight but she was already cramped in her arms. She wanted more. She wanted to soar in the flow of words, to shine in dialogues and tense battles of wits and not to remain in a third role. It was Rowena who had brought the treaty with de Fell on a saucer with a scarlet border. It was her actions that resolved that conflict with the river guard. It was she who had managed to chew out the right to suckle in a portion of the smuggling traffic! She understood, understood perfectly well, whatever her parent thought, how much her success depended on the help of the rest of the nest, but she couldn't escape the feeling that she was, to put it mildly, being pushed around.

Like a bedside table.

A luxurious, albeit a little pale girl, dressed only in a loose robe made of thin and delicate fabric, who was doing her evening toilette, allows herself a grimace of irritation, immediately copied by her favorite mirror. And it's too early to break the patronage, it is not certain that she will be able to do it, even if she successfully repeats the trick with the sacrifice, like Rixar. You have to be patient and save up skills, strength, resentment, and, of course, information. For power is not in blades or battle wands, it is in words and letters, in unspoken agreements and unspoken hints. And here, on this field, Rowena felt like a fish in the water, a bird in the sky, a leaf in the forest, and a drunkard in the wine cellar. Yes, for now, goody-goody Aunt C still had her. She is still better than she is, but the limits of Lady Martel's specialization and skills are already visible, as she begins to fail to keep up with her chick's thoughts and ideas. It will not be a year, a decade, or perhaps even a century, but the hour will come. Rowena will become a free bird, perhaps even moving her former mistress from her position as the one who speaks to the rulers of Dantmark and does their bidding.

She smiled slyly from beneath her lowered eyelids, as if she were innocence and vice in one body, and sent her reflection an air kiss, winking at the same time. The reflection also smiled and winked, only with the other eye. Abruptly dropping all playfulness, Rowena stepped back, digging her flushed eyes into her dresser, looking for traces of something, but finding only, well, a mirror and a dresser, nothing more. Simple, albeit high-quality, household charms, magically active cosmetics, the most expensive part of it, but definitely not an illusion or anything else that made the reflection behave illogically and incorrectly. She walked slowly to the mirror and stared at the reflection for a good two minutes, and the reflection looked at her just as perplexed and wary.

Rowena lifts her pen and swipes left and right in front of the mirror, once, twice, a second, a third, a tenth, and, almost at peace, her eyes see that all the while the reflection is smiling a little more brightly and broadly, repeating the movements of her hand. Rowena jerks sharply to the left, then back, then forward, almost digging her nose into the mirror surface, but the reflection once again obediently does the will of her real one. Her undead tribe has its own relationship with mirrors, their reflections too empty and devoid of what makes such a reflection a bit magical, reduced to a simple play of light, without sacred meaning. But this also opens the way for other vampires to the basics, or even not only basics of mirror magic, and gives a certain degree of protection from those who managed to master such a rare school of magic to some extent.

Rowena looks at the reflection, and the reflection looks at Rowena. Now she can definitely see that that version of her has a slightly different pose, like the gaze, the angle of the smile, and the position of the hands. Just a little, the tiniest bit, just a little bit, but different nonetheless. The slight flash of apprehension passes and Rowena looks on with pure interest, trying to figure out what she's even seeing. Her eyes continually glide over the reflection, looking for differences and finding them, slowly realizing what those differences are. Rowena looks in the mirror, a refined, noble, and well-bred noblewoman who knows and can do everything a noble of noble blood should know and be able to do. From the mirror looks Reshka - a village slut, a deceiver, and an impostor, who has appropriated someone else's name, someone else's memory, someone else's life and title. She is almost like Rowena, like what Rowena has become by ripping out and blotting out the shameful pages of her life and early unlife, but still not the same. Instead of grace and elegance, only natural flexibility and monkey-like repetition of nobleman's grimaces; instead of nobility and nobility, only a greedy hunger for approval and recognition; instead of a beckoning and promising gaze, only a lustful smile and a lust for pleasure.

The girl comes closer, throwing off her robe and exposing herself completely. They are both absolutely identical in appearance, to the last hair, no matter if it is a neat triangle of private hairstyle or loose hair of a long braid, to the last line, the only difference is in movements and behavior. The woman stops in front of the reflection and looks at it, looks and waits, and then, as if afraid of revealing herself, looks back, absolutely identical, similar, mirrored. It's as if she had imagined it all just a short time ago as if she had seen those wrong movements of hers in the mirror, as if Reshka wanted to convince Rowena that she had only dreamed what she had seen. No, she couldn't do that, she couldn't imagine it, she was sure of her memory, completely and utterly. Motionless and naked, the bloodsucker stares at her reflection for a minute, a second, a fifth, finding a certain beauty in this immobility, finding it pleasant to look at her naked body. She had always liked herself. From the moment of her conversion, she had been delighted with her new, improved, perfect appearance. The flash of pleasure is so sudden that it nearly shatters her motionless ambush on Reshka's reflection, but it gives itself away only by the movement of her eyes, which roll back in their sockets.

She deliberately keeps them rolled a little longer, then focuses her gaze, smiling victorious. There goes Reshka in the mirror, and there goes her mistake, losing this competition to Rowena. Tails in the mirror didn't just roll her eyes, she clearly had less self-control, because the pleasure she experienced made her mouth open and stick out her tongue. However, the slyly grinning, conniving, and seductive Rowena quickly repeats this facial expression, preventing Reshka from suspecting the disclosure. And so they stand in front of the mirror, both of them, moving in time with each other, only now Rowena repeats, perfectly repeats the beat to the beat after Reshka, who didn't realize the trick and therefore became daring.

Reshka fondles her soft and tender breasts, tugging at her nipples, and Rowena repeats in mirror-like precision, biting her lip in pleasure, with exactly the same plaintive and sly expression of passion on the face of the still inexperienced peasant girl. Reshka rubs her bud over her slit, oozing juice, and slips a finger into the secret entrance, and Rowena repeats the same, even cumming at the same time as her outdated counterpart. Reshka moves her hand in front of her face as if trying to put herself into a trance, gradually taking on an increasingly stupid, lost, and bewitched look, Rowena does exactly the same, managing to put her mind into a lustful stupor at the same moment Reshka did. Reshka leans from side to side, bending at the waist, swinging her body like a pendulum, but keeping her feet together on the floor, her face smiling like a typical damsel bewitched by a visiting brainiac, while Rowena is just pretending, pretending perfectly, and cumming at the same time as her reflection, spurting a flood of love juices onto the floor, shuddering in orgasm, spreading her legs wide and spurting again, in front of herself, staining the mirror, and then, when her legs bent involuntarily at the knees, she almost fell on the mirror.

Miraculously not breaking an expensive item. She smiled at her reflection, repeated after Reshka, stuck out her tongue, rolled her eyes, shook her breasts, no, not her breasts, but her big peasant tits, which Reshka could have, not Rowena. Reshka fondled herself, Rowena repeated after her, the wench cummed, and the noblewoman flew off after her, the dumb wench shoved an oblong vial of essential oil up her ass, and Rowena did exactly the same. And, at some point, the real her, an aristocrat and noblewoman who had left her shameful origins in the past, had simply had enough of this game, and she stepped aside, leaving the maddening mirror and the one who somehow appeared there, as if from the past had returned, alone.

Rowena and Reshka, who hadn't been able to keep up with her when she realized she'd been discovered, took an out-of-sync step to the right, closer to the door. The reflection of the second one hides behind the mirror, and then she just steps towards the door, picking up her robe on the way. Only at the door, the bloodsucker realizes the obvious - she is not Rowena, but Reshka, though she is sure of the opposite. She suddenly realizes at the moment when she almost dropped the mirror Reshka and Rowena had switched places, and now it was Rowena who was in the mirror. And she was Reshka, simply because of the same mistake, who had started to temporarily think of herself as Rowena. These strange thoughts and incomprehensible events gave her a headache and the lusty villager, who had barely learned to pretend to be a representative of high society, drove away these thoughts in the usual way - properly rubbing her berry and slit, cumming and moaning, long and ringing. Trying to go to the mirror again, to change places back to Rowena, gave nothing - the reflection behaved as usual, reflecting only the second Tails, who was fooling around and caressing herself, unsuccessfully trying to repeat the recent experience, but achieving only two more orgasms.

Thus, cumming once more, she went to Sylvia's office. She should tell her about it, probably to help her put Rowena back in her place, because even though she had become Tails, she was still herself, and she realized that there was something wrong in all this, that everything was not as it should be. In her parent's office, there was already a naked Lemira lying on the floor, with her legs behind her head and caressing herself with two hands, alternately grabbing her tits and slit. And also Jaspera, who had her breasts out of her dress and was completely immersed in the tossing of those massive tits, truly tits worthy of the title. After looking at Sylvia, who was busy with some letters, and finding no reason to distract her, Tails sat down between her two sister-girlfriends, spread her legs, lay on her back, rolled her eyes, and began to think about how good it felt to be just an ordinary horny rural slut.

Too bad there's no mirror on the ceiling.

* * *

Artemia was fully immersed in her work and satisfied with it. Leave bloody sorceries and martial arts, all those scarlet armor and bloody claws to those whom nature and the new non-life had not gifted with any noticeable talent in something more elegant. The passion of the breathless and bloodsucking eternal maiden even before this eternity was a magical creation, and it remained this passion even after she, saving from death, happened to take a scarlet drop. Creating a good amulet is not an easy thing, requiring very deep knowledge, theoretical and practical, which simply so not to acquire, not mastered by self-study. A self-taught weatherman can summon rain without training, or chase away unnecessary clouds. A talented elementalist can learn to create clumsy but correctly created fire arrows, even space will submit to the basic magical manifestation of the one gifted with the affinity with it in due measure. There, the Apostate is a witness to all unbelievers. Well, if the version that says that he also grew out of self-taught nuggets before getting into training is right because there are so many versions of those that it's not even funny.

And only magical craft, the act of creation, the creation of a permanent magical phenomenon by investing power in the material - only here any talent will be hampered by the lack of at least basic knowledge. There are also those facets of magical giftedness that determine the propensity to create - whether it be alchemy, classical artifacting, enchantments, or exotics like magic forging, as not to be. But even a very great talent cannot succeed without materials, textbooks, and teachers. Or rather, it can, but then you have to be very lucky, very persistent, and very talented. Roughly speaking, the limit of self-learning in craft magic is much lower than in any other magic, especially if you count ritualism as a kind of craft.

Artemia liked this kind of magic. She liked the peace and almost meditative methodicalness with which the preparation of a single amulet takes on life, charge, and vector and closes in on itself, turning it into a completed masterpiece. Well, let's say, not a masterpiece, but just a good amulet, which can be easily sold either officially if it is from the authorized list, or from under the counter if it is from the list of disapproved or simply absent from the list of available purchases. As far as Artemia knew there were exactly four craftsmen in Dantmark who could make not just an amulet to counteract magical search of the wave type in the academic tradition, but the very same Branch of the Black Fern, a slightly simplified and modified version of the basic elven amulet of a similar type for human needs. One of them was Magister Miller and the second was Master Enye, Herbert de Dantrel's court magician.

It was pleasant for her to feel not only useful but also really good at what she was doing, a kind of aesthetic-intellectual superiority of the gifted over the simpleton. At such moments she remembered with kind and sad words her mother who had given her the necessary knowledge, records, tools, even her favorite eyepieces for fine-tuning the blanks. But the recipes she now so easily executed and the blueprints she freely used, were not ordinary knowledge, not the kind of things that would be taught for nothing, even if you studied at the Academy of Neirat itself. At such moments she was a little sad and also had to regret that she did not have time to say much to the poorly remembered and constantly absent woman, because her nanny Artemia saw her much more often than her mother playing her adult games, which, one day, got to the end

The bloodsucker had long since run out of emotions and feelings about it. Even her hatred had long since cooled, and she hardly dreamed of making the murderers' descendants eat their parents alive. That girl was long dead, or rather, undead. Her mother's stolen knowledge had become her legacy, allowing her to rise above the common herd. Some of those involved in that curse on her mother died themselves. Some died in typically gifted squabbles of a small guild where, unlike Neirat, no one was concerned with the proper mutual oaths of non-harm. Some died, and very badly, already with her help. The dwarves say that revenge should be taken when it has cooled down well, like an ancient stone that remembers all wrongs and transgressions, but if they are right, her revenge has long since managed to become part of the Great Northern Glacier.

Artemia lived, worked, and improved herself and her skills, and she seemed to herself so self-sufficient that it was as if she had managed to turn herself into another amulet, or even an artifact. She seemed to herself to be an artifact at times - calibrated, calm, feeling only what she wanted, doing only what she had to do. This thought, which had haunted her particularly vividly in recent nights, seemed to her incredibly amusing, even tantalizing. She, who had finished another amulet, even wanted to take a pause in her work and imagine herself as that very magical object - a golem, even a puppet, a toy on magical power. Probably a very vulgar toy of some promiscuous rich man - the ever-young girl knew perfectly well that she was very beautiful, knew that such a doll, such a toy, any grown-up boy, or even a girl, would want it in a very special way, would play not at all childish games.

Artemia laughed mentally at her own idea and put aside her instruments, took off her eyepieces, and froze for a few seconds, trying to make her appearance as empty and motionless as possible, as if she were a doll. Unexpectedly, she even liked it. It was as if the more immovable she became, the more she resembled a doll, the better she felt, like a fine needle of pure pleasure straight into her pussy. Involuntarily she shuddered with pleasure biting her lip and moaning softly at the utterly sudden orgasm that almost overtook her but as soon as she broke the immovable image, the pleasure immediately vanished. Her usual state seemed somehow bland, dry, unpleasant even, and she again, completely, froze in immobility. A new prick of pleasure, just as sharp and gradual, as if the needle of ecstasy was growing longer, thicker, and more numerous, jabbing into her pussy, her ass, her nipples, every nerve in her inanimate body. And again she couldn't take it, but this time she did cum first, folding herself into a ragged heap on her tucked legs, flying off into the night eternity on wings of genuine pleasure.

She came to her senses again quickly, came from the familiar feeling of impropriety and lack of pleasure, immediately getting to her feet, before she could become a doll again, become a toy, she pulled off her clothes, exposing the taut, pale body of the daughter of the night. The prudent part of her mind didn't want to soil those clothes further with her pleasure but the other part, the part that was sincerely trying to sink as deeply into the appropriate role as possible, understood - that sex dolls didn't wear clothes unless the owner wanted to dress the doll up. At the thought of being dressed, motionless, and frozen, in all the frivolous rags of expensive minxes, she seemed to cum before she could even stiffen. As soon as she imagined those touches, the touches of other people's hands on her body, cold and moving only under someone else's will, she was overwhelmed again. Well, at least this time she didn't stain her robes with love juice, and she would wipe up the drops that splattered on the floor and the desk later.

Artemia entertained herself for at least an hour, and at the end of it she was able to endure almost ten minutes of immobility, during which time the pleasure had brought her to a peak at least seven times, but it was hard to count. At some point, the ecstasy merged into one endlessly soft stream, under which she seemed to sink. Thoughts, desires, and feelings disappeared, she literally became the lecherous plaything she pretended to be to herself. In front of herself. It suddenly became painfully obvious to her that if she wanted to become a puppet after all, to deceive everyone, including herself, to pretend to be it to the fullest, she would need an audience, an owner who would guide her movements, who would play with her, who would watch her, play with her, have pleasure with her. This time she didn't hold back her doll-like pretense for just a fraction of a second - her mouth opened a little wider, but she immediately froze it again, forming a scarlet ring from her lips, her eyes rolling up, quickly returning to their place.

Immobile she stands, cumming, feeling her juices flowing down her thighs, and also thinking feverishly, thinking about how not to think, how to be more puppet-like than any puppet. With deliberately clumsy movements, as if hinged at the joints, like a marionette on strings, she walks out of her workshop. Every movement is extremely mechanical, like a golem of dwarven work, and not the most expensive, deliberately unnatural in movement. Mouth still as open, lips ringed, eyes staring sternly ahead, not moving as she walks more by memory than by sight. Even Artemia's hands are folded into a kind of winter mitten, molding four fingers together, folding one palm into a ring to wipe someone's rod right now, and the other straightened and slightly bent, as if right at this moment preparing to caress someone's bud. She was sure that even the most attentive eye would mistake her for a doll, a toy, a bedtime plaything, and not for what she really was. And that made her juices run down her skin even more abundantly, but no orgasm, which gradually turned into a permanent orgasm, no longer stopping even for a moment, would make her lose her image any longer, would not make her stop being pretending to be just a lecherous doll.

The whole nest had gathered in her parent's office as if they had been waiting for her alone, and if she were in her usual Artemia form, she would have been surprised to see Jaspera's hands on her own breasts, Rowena gazing dreamily at the ceiling, Lemira's naked legs over her head, rubbing her bud with concentration. And the fact that Sylvia didn't seem to be paying much attention to what was going on, methodically checking some letters, and making important notes for herself. But that would have been the right thing to do for a normal Artemia. She-doll was only glad that her parent was distracted, which meant she wouldn't notice the oddities in her pretense and would believe it to the end.

"Dark night, Artemia." Sylvia, who didn't wait for a word from her, still turned to speak herself, clearly unhappy at being distracted and forced into distraction. "May I know the reason why you won't let me work?"

In another moment the youngest of the fledglings, most exposed to the bond of bloody patronage, would have been wary of angering her mistress in the scarlet drop, but this is Artemia, and she is not here, as she must convince everyone around her and Sylvia too. She can't show her usual reactions and emotions. She needs to keep pretending, so there is no fear or anything but the same bright and continuous pleasure. Stepping forward awkwardly and stiffly, as a golem mechanism should, she immediately assumed her new role, believing with all her might that she would not be caught.

"I. Not. Artemia. I. Her. Lusty. Doll. I. Not. Thinking. I. Need. To. Quench. Lust. Of the owner." Measurefully, quietly, word by word, like a pendulum chipping away, she introduces herself, mentally considering herself a true genius for such a well-crafted idea. "Created. To suck. Created.. To lick. Created. To fuck. Created. To cum."

"Yes, yes, I understand, then stay in the corner and don't distract me." As powerful as her parent was, Artemia's disguise, her perfect pretense, allowed her to deceive with remarkable ease, and in her nest, the place of her greatest strength. "And don't stain the carpet... too much."

The last request said not to Artemia, but to the doll, was not superfluous, because the moment the bloodsucker realized that she was really considered a doll. Right at that moment, the juices flowed even more furiously. She did not hold back, opening the ring of her mouth a little wider. Reaching the wall, standing next to Jaspera looking intently at the wall and her bouncing tits, Artemia freezes. She's pretty sure she can take the pretense for as long as she needs to until she gets bored. Or until her future owner orders her to. Somehow there's no doubt that an owner, surely willing to play with such a seductive doll, she's bound to have, can't have him or her not. Slowly and not without diligent efforts, she finally merges with the chosen image, staring at the wall with an immovable gaze, extinguishing her own thoughts and becoming just immovable, thoughtless, stupid, depraved, submissive, obedient, good, beautiful, perfect, adorable, gorgeous, frozen, stiff, numb...

* * *

The four adorable and deadly bloodsuckers who entered Sylvia's office a few minutes apart were completely immersed in their dreams, reveries and desires, paying no attention to the world around them. Nor did they pay any attention to the slightly changing magical background in the vicinity of the heavy closet, which you wouldn't notice if you didn't know what to focus your perception on. The closet creaked and wobbled a little, and there was a muffled thud and a low cry in a language that two and a half people in the world knew. After that, the door opened quietly and without a creak, letting out a wrinkled, tired, sleep-deprived and glistening with bags under his eyes to the envy of any raccoon, a shaman, an isekai, the chosen one of the Autogoddess and just not a very nice guy named Stepan.

The shaman looked at the composition and sighed wistfully, looking at Sylvia, who was still doing her own thing and whom he had no right to use to open the manor's defenses, and turned his gaze back to the four bloodsuckers. His gaze grew even more wistful as he thought of the amount of work he still had to do to meet the deadline. Closing his eyes and partially leaving his body, not at all afraid of the glare on the protective charms of the mansion and the study, since his spirits had already successfully inscribed the shaman on the list of privileged inhabitants on par with the rest of the vampires and inferior in control rights only to Sylvia personally, as the creator of most of these charms, he gave a command to the spirits that worked with the brains of each of his victims.

All four of them got up leisurely, warmed up a little, and, glistening with buttocks of varying degrees of clothing, entered the closet, hiding in the darkness of its opening, pushing aside Sylvia's clothes hanging there. Stepan was the last to leave, carefully closing the door behind him and welcoming all four victims into the large hall of his main workshop. Each of them, following inaudible instructions, stood strictly on the right point, right in the small protective and reinforcing feature of the small circle. Stepan took the last of the five small circles, the largest, the most complicated, and still sprinkled around with slightly smoking crystals of salt, which seemed to melt before his eyes, evaporating and turning into vapor. My throat is a bit scratchy, and my nose seems to pick up the smell of chlorine, although the air is carefully filtered from all harmful impurities.

The young man stares at the four clients of his personal fucking beauty parlor named after the Lady of All Milfs, barely able to contain his curses, and reminds himself again and again why he took this assignment. Yes, that's right, free meta-skills, materials to work with, and a controlled nest of bloodsuckers. All four of the beauties were looking pretty tempting right now. It was worth admitting that Sylvia hadn't given the scruffy ones a blessing of scarlet drop. The feeling of complete power over them could encourage bad thoughts if Stepan had even a little energy to execute these thoughts. Jaspera's voluminous and soft breasts writhing in concentration, Lemira waiting boredly and irritatedly for her to be brainwashed and considering it a daily routine on a par with Lemira's morning washing, Artemia frozen in the image of a doll, even entering the circle as if she were an articulated student golem, Reshka-Rovena smiling sweetly and stupidly. That was certainly a flower garden. Only flowers of the kind that grow best on graves and are watered with blood. The shaman felt exactly what these four were.

No, they didn't stop being seductive or repulsive. Unlike the standard undead, vampires' energy and spirit bodies were still full of life, albeit alien. They could be admired or enjoyed in proximity, and there was no instinctive rejection or repulsion but it was like admiring a beautiful predator and a poisonous snake at the same time. They are also very beautiful, only there is still a clear realization of the mortal danger that this foursome represents. So different and so similar at this moment, being in the final stages of processing. During these decades Stepan carefully planted branched and deep roots in their minds, several times rendered softening suggestions, reduced suspicion, provoked the desire to relax soon, wiped the memory where they noticed something wrong, and also twisted all the servants of their mode of not-my-care to the maximum, so that they did not fuck up all the scenarios of the specifications specified in the task.

In fact, he had to actively assist Lemira in her hard work as an agent, helping her to uncover a large smuggling conspiracy for a considerable sum, just to get her back to the mansion as quickly as possible, and at the same time planting a spirit on the owner of the Orchid. The spirit, what Stepan would call a “truthful oath enhancer,” had sharpened the ritual overrides that the bitch used to deceive her patrons. The secret guards had long considered her their agent and milked her for information she had unwittingly found in the possession of the city's finest courtesans. Without fanaticism. If rumors about the trade of information were obtained in the walls of the Orchid, then the problems would not be ravenous not only for the owner. And here, it turned out, she was trading in that information herself, not on a small scale? de Dantrel's wolfhounds knew about this sin, deliberately fed and flaunted, but on a very large scale for anyone. Stepan had seen, of course, that she was somehow covering herself from oaths and checks at the mentalist's, but he hadn't thought it was that severe.

Lemira and her tasks of surveillance and operational work were a trifle. That was the least of the problems. The assignment of the Autogoddess... let's just say that the young man was not just tired, he was really tired. He worked without breaks and rest. And he had to make Jaspera smear her tits with special oils every ten hours as if nothing happened, from which they had grown almost a size, considering it part of the evening routine. He had to repeat the scenes in front of the mirror with Rowena exactly eight times, until on the ninth time, when she finally got the hang of it and was able to form the personality matrix of Reshka, and then switch places with her. Additional reorganization of Artemia's aura, so that she would enjoy immobility and it would not be noticeable in the scanning, was also not easy. Against this background, Lemira simply haunted by the spirit constantly sucking on her mind, distorting her perception of the routine, was the most trouble-free of all. That's good because larger and multi-component influences would be problematic to conduct while she is on a mission and has to be extremely focused.

And so, he came to the final stage. He had to do the final fixing, binding each of the four to the already assembled doll, and yes, collecting the blood and hair of all four had to be done in advance, almost from the start, camouflage effect to hide the very fact of reshaping the personalities, and then pass the quest. The reserve of time, exactly the reserve, which may or may not be unnecessary, he has about an hour and thirty minutes, and that is not a fact. He can't be slow or dumb. He can't afford even a normal rest. He has to pour into himself high-quality alchemy gifted by Autogoddess. Yes, yes, the Autogoddess took care of her Stepan-chan, even if not the one she originally planned to send, providing a set of free tools and quite a super-elite invigorating alchemy with the minimum harm and rollback. And yes, the side effects of the rollback included a slight increase in libido and a significant increase in the likelihood of wet dreams but Stepan wouldn't have enough currency for analogs of comparable quality and with more standard side effects. Some of those analogs weren't available in the store at all.

The shaman clapped his hands, resoundingly and unnaturally loud, as if to cut off his thoughts, which tended to scatter in different directions, like cockroaches in a student's kitchen when the lights were suddenly turned on. The offerings burst into flames, some of them burning at once, and some of them beginning to smolder or dissolve like in acid. The shaman's phantom hands carry some directly to the spirit world as all four bloodsuckers look up to the ceiling of the hall. Stepan does not look at that ceiling and nothing will make him look there, but he knows that now they see instead of the ceiling some inexpressible mishmash of literally brain-shaking colors. It is a direct manifestation of only a small part of the body of the supreme essence, which more or less resides in the high spheres, in their very depths. The manifestation itself looks like a failure to those depths as if this spirit is not an essence, but an information and spatial coordinate, not otherwise.

The presence of a higher spirit who had come at the call of a very short-lived contractual anchor felt very different from that of the Old Root, primarily because the spheres and aspects were so different. An essentially ordinary spirit of dark nature, albeit a very powerful one, against an extremely exotic spirit of thought and feeling, even though it was closely tied to the very concept of perception and energy. But the spirit's degree of influence on reality played no less of a role. Whereas Root had simply thrust out one tentacle limb in an attempt to take the offering, the spirit had now manifested itself, if not completely, then very close to it. Not only had it shown itself, but it was also scrupulously maintaining the ++opener's field of defense, reinforcing it with its influence and helping to conceal its presence. It was not possible to feel this presence outside the cave, but inside the cave, the shaman was literally shaking, shaking, and almost farting from the pressure he was under.

It was not just friendly, but also caring, seeming to care about the shaman even more than he cared about the offerings or his profit. The mark of passions played a role here, as well as the correct dialog, and the highest quality of the anchor, which bound the entity so tightly that it was cheaper to die than to harm the shaman. But it was not for nothing that he was the elder, not for nothing that he was considered by the system to be the master's equal. Stepan withstood the first, hardest moment and gave the order. The focus of the spirit's attention immediately shifted to the four bloodsuckers, who sighed and giggled as if they were being tickled. In a way they were, but the spirit was tickling the auric body and spiritual basis, not just tickling, but remodeling and supplementing it.

Now each of the four creatures was covered with a whole bunch of separate bookmarks, influences, alchemy circulating in the blood, and traces of the work of strong and elder spirits. Their minds were fully preserved and a talented adept of mental magic would be able to notice the subjugation on their minds, as well as the patterns of secondary personalities or behavioral activators. The spirit was working with this very notability. It blended all the individual elements together, pieced them together as naturally as possible and blurred, made older, rooted, and hidden in the deepest depths of unconscious memory, in the farthest reaches of the spiritual body, in the very core of the inaccessible areas of the auric nodes for ordinary scanning. He turned a simply beautiful work, into a work outstanding and undetectable without the deepest scanning of the subtle bodies, mind, and aura at once, and at a level not lower than a magister and knowing exactly what to look for. Yes, the quality of submission was still inferior to that of Sylvia, but only in terms of the ability to “accelerate” the doll in terms of combat - the degree of control and stealth could, with a creak and reservations, be considered comparable.

Simultaneously with the spirit's work, the corresponding doll began to levitate behind each of the four. They were made by Stepan, albeit from ready-made reagents. They, too, had to be worked with a ready-made set of parts, more like assembling a billet than making a doll from scratch, but to a much lesser extent than in Sylvia's case. Still, they were works worthy of a full-fledged master, and an advanced one at that, made of materials worthy of a full-fledged master, but to compare them with Sylvia's doll... It was like comparing a brand-new armored Mercedes or BMW from the showroom with an equally brand-new Bradley-type armored personnel carrier with an autocannon, guided anti-tank missiles, modern optics, and full ammunition.

The dolls were even different in appearance, if only because they were completely material and could not go into spiritual space, hiding in the subtle bodies of the owner. They were anatomically accurate, even somewhat mobile as if composed of hundreds of tiny scales. The base material was clay charged with magic to the extreme, the core was made of cold magma, which, because the volcanic eruption occurred right inside a very powerful magical anomaly, where even time failed, was still scarlet and semi-liquid, but did not burn. The second core was made of very necrotic ashes and bloody iron in equal measure, and inside that second core, like a matryoshka doll, were drops of blood from each of the four bloodsuckers.

The last moment of synchronization with the dolls, the finalization of that synchronization by the summoned higher spirit, which connected the essences of the victims and their envolts even more strongly, checking the work of the new dolls, testing effects on minds and bodies, planting a couple of fighting spirits, specially designed for vampires, switching between different personality matrices, each of which had at least five, and in the case of Tails, which was already prone to the stratification of her personality, as many as fifteen. And only when he was satisfied with everything, when the quest timer froze at thirty-one minutes before failure, when the reserve began to show the bottom for the last time, because there was nothing to charge it with, and he had to feed the work of the calling circle with his blood, replenishing life with the second meta-skill, he let the spirit go and began to rake up the traces of the ritual and clean up the “circles on the water”.

By the time he was done, time had long since passed, but thankfully the quest had been counted as completed while he was still working with the higher entity. The motionless vampiresses were honored with a tired look and nothing more. If the side effects promised problems with carnal attraction, he was too tired to notice them. All four dolls were stacked in a separately grown closet room, each on its stone stand. He would not carry them with him. It's too conspicuous and dangerous. Here, if he treated the room with witchcraft, and he did and treated it correctly, he would be able to increase the effect of control. A new opening of the passage, taken amulets and a set of reagents, again the exit from the closet in Sylvia's house, only now she also covers the passage from her side. The treated dolls in the mode of normal individuals go about their business without paying attention to Stepan, the servants also do not pay attention.

By the time he reaches the guest room, his vision is blurry, but he still finds the strength to activate the sleeping protection contracts, as well as to hang primitive amulets, dream catchers, and a couple of watch totems near the bed. And then that's it, Stepan is done, finally allowing himself to collapse onto the bed and bury his face into the soft pillow. No, it's probably not clear enough here. He falls face-first onto a soft and quality bed of the level of a full-fledged aristocracy, not the usual hard straw, perfume-insulated cloak, or shitty mattress in the room at the farmstead. He groaned in a voice of high and desperate irritation, commanded the perfume to cleanse itself of odors and sweat, threw off the cramped and soaked clothes, covered himself with a thin blanket, and passed out.

* * *

Stepan vaguely remembered the dreams that came at night but remembered that most of them were as decent as movies with a twenty-one-plus rating or videos from very adult websites. Some pieces of dreams were better remembered, others fell apart at once when he tried to comprehend them, while others consisted of a meaningless stream of not even images, but colors, shapes, sounds, and sensations that would have burned a normal person's brain. A consequence of the too-close connection with the spheres that he had been keeping for the last few days. Somehow, in passing, the thought came into his sleeping head that if some demonic scum tried to get into his dreams now, he would run away faster than his own shrieks and screams, but it was not certain that he would be able to do so in time. Dreams could be dangerous, especially if there were far fewer dreams than aggressive and destructive visions.

In most of them, Stepan saw himself. But in most of his visions, he was in a slightly or not-so-slightly obscene situation. Here he was walking down the street, for some reason without a retinue of spirits around him, as if he were a very ordinary ungifted isekai, just dressed quite decently, being lost in his own thoughts. And after a moment this vision is replaced by a continuation, in which a pretty girl with the features of a northerner comes up as if by chance and shows him a strange amulet, in which even without magic one can see traces of the light and holy power of the Sun itself. And as if he remembers something, he follows her to some room in the inn, where he first answers all her questions about his current place of work-legend in great detail, then licks her crotch with great enthusiasm, takes from her a set of spy amulets and leaves, excited and forgetting about the meeting on the way. He also forgot that he had given her the same set of amulets, but they had already worked out, and he didn't remember that he had them at all.

The same dream, the same time, or maybe a week later or, on the contrary, earlier, and he, Stepan, again met the same girl who had started a cheerful conversation, which for some reason centered on religion and what a man or a non-human would do for a good cause. And in the course of the conversation the shaman, for some reason deprived of his gift, somehow became filled with a desire to help the good girl, who would certainly do a lot of good things herself. They were again in a rented room, and the girl was riding on him, relaxed and as if blinded by the radiance of her smile, riding in a jagged and sharp rhythm, demanding and at the same time generously giving caress in response to the demands. Behind her back, her window is open and the midday sun is shining in, and every time she lowers herself, pressing her pelvis into her partner, he is blinded by a ray of sunlight from behind her back, making him blink. And she'd already convinced him that closing his eyes was consent, was the promise, was cum, was forget, was fulfillment.
Солнцелюбы

* * *

A new dream, in which a shaman scolding the spirits who misunderstood the spatial coordinate is traveling through a wild and incredibly wet jungle, breaking through clouds of bites, and parasites and driving away abundant amounts of predatory stuff. The retinue of spirits around him is unceasingly vigilant, scouts flying in swarms, someone from the battle retinue constantly present, literally one step away from manifestation. Again the same jungle, but a little later, the same trek through the green hell, only now the shaman, whose clothes are worn out quite a bit, and shoes completely missing, has already gotten used to a little bit of the new biome. And now he, still surrounded by spirits, like a shiver, when in the jungle carried inaudible, distinguishable only in dreams, but not going through the forest shaman, rustle. It was as if a child's rattle rustled somewhere far away. The young man shuddered, but no more, thinking that it seemed to him, continuing on his way. A few more shots show how the same inaudible sound is heard near the shaman for a long time or for a few seconds, on the way or at the camp, day and night, awake or asleep.

With every beat, with every frame, there are fewer and fewer spirits around him, he himself is more and more indifferently tired, but there are almost no attacking creatures. At a certain moment, he leaves only household protection, from bites, parasites, and weather conditions. At other times he simply does not leave the night parking lot, deciding to take a day or two of rest from the constant journey, in which it seems to him that he is wandering in a circle, or rather, in a gradually narrowing spiral. The first day is followed by the second, and then the third, he does practically nothing, not practicing and not camping, just listening to the forest, in which more and more often there is an inaudible rustle. The moment comes when idleness awakens lust, and here he is already lazily and steadily jerking, thinking about what kind of beauties would be in this jungle, with whom he would talk and communicate. And the beauty comes out, or rather, crawls out before his eyes on a long, a dozen meters long snake tail with a rattle at the tip, pleasing his eyes with humankind of body, huge breasts covered with very, very small scales, large dark nipples and, of course, a cute face, in which there is something from the aborigines of the Philippines or Polynesia.

And her eyes, incredibly deep malachite eyes, from one look into which Stepan involuntarily descended and sank into a deep and so cozy trance. Every single spirit that had been with him so far either did not react or had received a command not to interfere, all the mental shields, softened during the days of travel and rest, did not stop the impact, and now he listens attentively, obeys and agrees. After all, she says, why should he leave? Why strive and desire anything when he can be near her, serve her, kiss her, protect her, obey her and, of course, take in his mouth a nipple on her huge, as big as his head, breasts, the size of the snake queen herself, and drink a sip of cold and so warming nectar, closing his eyes and again, again, again, again cumming at her will. He falls asleep and in his dreams sees the lovely eyes of his snake queen, her huge, alluring, and perfect breasts, those dark brown, almost black nipples, which hypnotize him as well as his eyes, sees her requests and orders, which can be executed even without waking up. Add her to the group, give her the characteristics and other gifts of the system, help her to subdue the minds of her rivals, help her in everything she asks, and, as soon as there is a single doubt, a single free thought, he will come to her, begging her to let him kiss her second eyes, to lick them and receive their next gift, and then again and again to do as she says, squeezing in her serpentine rings, cumming uncontrollably from that embrace.

* * *

A group of high-ranking dark-elven women, actually the board of a major House, along with the matriarch, the first magician, the supreme trapper, and the chief emissary. All of them discuss the situation that has happened. A Human boy was caught and delivered by one of the group with a great talent in magic, and, they suspect, with the Soul Tablet. Caught in the nets of the trapping group at the moment of extreme weakness and exhaustion, the young man had already undergone primary processing, was ready to sell himself into eternal slavery for the right to lick any high-born drow properly, and Tanaisash, the same supreme magician with a specialization in working with the mind, had tightly entangled him with her webs. And now, seemingly already obtained assets simply disappeared from their own securely fortified chamber, and every single person present suspected each other, suspected that one of them decided to steal the cream of the crop, leaving the others with nothing. Only the oaths sworn beforehand, as well as their repeated swearing immediately after the incident, prevented it from descending into direct accusations and, quite possibly, conflict. Even one's closest kin could be killed for control of such an asset, they must be killed if there was no other way to gain the power they desired by joining another's great gift and taking it for themselves.

The matriarch with face covered with a layer of semen proves that this is obviously not an escape, because a human boy, even a talented one, could not escape from his dungeon. He couldn't, simply by definition. His apartments were made precisely with a strong shaman in mind, even if one did not take into account the mental tabs and compulsions that made the prisoner spend all his free time in a sleepy slumber, looking at illusory records of dark elves washing, dreaming of getting their favor, at least touching their skin. So someone had helped him, right now bending the matriarch in his waistband over the armrest of her throne and fucking her from behind. Someone let him out. Someone let him escape. And she, as soon as she cum now, will find out, surely she will find out exactly who. Her further words were hard to make out, for the captive who had emerged from her pussy brought the ruler of the house to her knees and gagged her mouth with his still straining cock, spurting directly down the throat of the matron who coughed a little. It didn't diminish her arrogance, and it didn't diminish her angry mood either. No matter how delicious the treat poured into her mouth, they should still focus on finding the fugitive. He couldn't have gotten far, after all, and was quite possibly still here somewhere, maybe even in her dark cave, which she'd already lubed with massage oil to make it easier for the human to fuck her right there.

Tanaysash had a great deal to say. She had enough arguments, and the accusations against her were ridiculous, for she already had mandatory access to such a valuable toy, performing the processing and re-forging process. There was no need for her to take the human for her own use when he was already hers almost entirely. No matter how sophisticated the other bitches were, it would be her control as the one who wove his mind that would be initial and primary. Right now, though, that was exactly what she didn't need to say. The best proof of her innocence was how willingly her dark hole was taking in the specially enchanted and massage oil-coated vibrating balls shaped like snake eggs. The mentalist who had gagged herself with her own panties only cast victorious glances at her rivals, cumming again and again, involuntarily and quite often releasing the balls that had been placed inside her in a considerable assortment. One of them flew right under the chairs of Melissara, the Chief Diplomatess, and Fayassash, the Supreme Catcher, who licked each other's feet selflessly, not forgetting to argue and accuse each other, too, which made them lick their sworn friend more and more actively while shaking their crotches violently as if believing that the first one to cum would thereby admit her guilt.

Stepan, who had already calmed down a bit and was saved from guaranteed slavery and brainwashing only by a miracle in the form of a super-elite token activated in time, was obviously thinking of something else to think of while the effect of the token and his own influences continued to work. No, there was still enough time for the second round, and he wouldn't leave the other bitches, besides the four of them, without a parting gift. Not even those sisters with the mind-affecting alchemy that had managed to capture him and bring him to that damn underground city without bringing him back to normal consciousness!

* * *

That morning Stepan woke up in such a good condition that he almost believed he had died in his sleep. If it hadn't been for the brutal hard-on and dry mouth, he would have thought he had skated off after the overload. The bed had to be cleaned of traces of bodily fluids himself, so as not to leave any possible traces for creating an aural anchor, but that was just the obligatory little things. After his deft handling of the blood samples of the four victims, he began to worry about it even more, remembering the early stages of his journey. Like the cabin in the woods he'd left at the beginning of his journey, there had definitely been bloodstains when he'd practiced working with healing spirits and healing minor wounds. Whatever it was, he made a note to clean that hut of its marks and impressions.

Sylvia, who had stopped by to check on her toy, immediately felt a strong desire to prove her control over the shaman, pushing him onto the bed and first sucking a portion of his semen, and then riding him and riding him around. And when the passion that had been so hard controlled by potions had passed, he tried to decipher the images that came to him in his dreams - big tits in a halo of sunlight, covered with fine scales, huge tits, onyx-black and dark gray anthracite tits, as well as a dozen other tits and other intimate parts of the body. Then the young man set about trashing what he'd gotten from the System, falling out for four long days.

The level twenty-eight did not give him the gifts of the Autogoddess, which pleased the shaman. But he had enough load on his mind and from the completed quest. The knowledge according to the description of the quest he was promised only two but immediately brought to the maximum skill. Or rather, increased from the already existing level. Stepan had noticed before that the System was economical and cunning in such situations. If random knowledge was promoted by one rank, the one that was less developed than the others would most likely be chosen. If we are talking about promotion to the limit of development according to the characteristics, then the knowledge that has less developed than the others will be promoted, on the contrary. Add to this the fact the quest was given by Her Milfness, and we can not be surprised at all by those talents that received their promotion in the course of the quest.

Received: “advanced mastery of puppet-envolt magical practice”, “advanced mastery techniques of shamanism-based suggestive influences”.

The acquired talents are added to the Player's overall status.

As if it was not enough the very fact of bringing two skills to the maximum rank for the senior shaman, the System activated their assimilation at one moment, both of them at once. Apparently, the security algorithm thought that here, in a completely controlled estate and under the protection of a whole nest of absolutely obedient bloodsuckers, he could not be threatened by anything but a direct assault. There was some logic in it, but he was learning this knowledge not painfully, but tensely, getting tired in the process. In principle, there was nothing much to say. It was simply the ultimate improvement of everything that these directions had been able to do before. Stronger spirits, of various types, influence minds and thinking, both purely suggestive and tied to certain knowledge, effective use of them in agency work and combat, interaction with totems, contracts or witchcraft. Caught even more of the higher entities, their exact recipes for summoning, proper offerings, and general rituals, the usual absolute synergy with charms, goodness they are the reflection and the other side of the coin from suggestion.

Some of the invocations or techniques were more than suitable for working in conditions far from depraved, providing large-scale fields of control or distraction. Combined with a couple of elders or even higher entities, witch control of the earth, a bunch of smaller spirits tied to an extensive network of totems, and a multiplicity of awareness, it was possible to cover even a hundred people who were actively talking to each other, allowing them to hear their own version of the conversation, answers, and questions, without anyone guessing or suspecting anything dangerous or wrong. It is possible, for example, to create a dome field covering an entire tribe, gradually brainwashing them with an insensible influence, so that in time a small town or village of faithful servants does not even suspect their slavery. Higher entities, capable of twisting the brains into a tube and another master, and right in battle, arranging a transformation into a vegetable, after which the victim will consider himself a pineapple for the rest of his life - this is awesome.

With envolts everything is even simpler. It is much less related to shamanism. It's closer to witchcraft, so the degree of cascade of synergy was lower. Well. Lower against the background of Suggestion, while it was and still was knowledge at the level of advanced skill. Basically, unless you counted percentage increases in the effectiveness of various techniques and new niche tricks of creating this or that bond of similarity, the direction of this rank of knowledge evolved into the use of more extensive envolts, non-standard or mimicking the standard by a non-standard property. A doll, which is a single one, can affect a hundred people, especially if they live in the same territory or close to each other. And, both on all of them at once, and switching between single targets and small groups - a rather specific thing, but this approach can be useful in many situations, examples of which he can easily take from agent or combat tricks.

In general, the tendency for the envolt to be unusual was prevalent in the connection with witchcraft and at the current rank: arrays, cities and towns, palaces and fortresses, even magical towers, if you try hard enough. Such a relationship is quite obvious, for it is precisely through territory that the auric reach of the puppet is expanded. The classic puppet envolt is limited to the source of the aura density of its reflection, the body of the person from whom the doll is made. In this case, the aura, spirit, and subtle bodies act as a rigid limiting framework, but also as a support for the power and inevitability of the impact, that is why it is so difficult to make and embody a puppet, that is why it is so difficult, to the point of impossibility, to adjust and provide protection in the case if the puppet is already there if it is ready and charged with a trace of the aura, and even better with a part of the victim's body.

But witchcraft is very much about controlling the land, and the territory. Because of this, the envolt method has a window of opportunity to capture a larger physical target. For a territory-controlling spellcaster, his entire land is an extension of his aura, an extension of himself, and therefore he can take impressions and create envolts from larger objects. In terms of classical voodoo dolls, advanced skill opened up the very limit of attack or defense, blessing or curse, killing or saving - irresistibility, complete penetration through the defense, as if you were hitting not a doll, but the bearer of the image. But with witchcraft, oh, with it the same, albeit weaker for obvious reasons, the connection can be made with something bigger. Strengthening of shields, such that you spend a tiny amount of strength as if you were closing a small mockup, and the result is like a full-fledged siege shield, or even vice versa - pour all the strength into the small shield on the dummy, making it dense to the limit, so that the large reflection will become more powerful by almost an order of magnitude. Three times more powerful.

Free teleportation within an envolt, with little or no energy expenditure. It's quite possible to grant this right of passage to someone else, especially if you have their puppet. And yes, there's no way in hell you can intercept or block such teleportation until you get hold of the envolt, but given its specifics, it will be stored in the most secure place possible, and then, in that case, if someone does get into the heart of the palace, it's too late to do anything about it. With a probability close to absolute - it was either a very cunning betrayal of those you trusted, a successful enemy assault, or a lone lurker of such a level that it would not be possible to notice him until he cut your throat.

The fully-fledged and powerful area compulsions on those who live within the mass envolt and, it should be noted here, the standard defenses will also fail or barely work, because, roughly speaking, entering the territory of such a town, village, palace, or tavern, it is as if the entrant gives the owner of the envolt some power over himself. And suppose you back it all up with contractual control, no matter witchcraft, through a summoned spirit, through his own spiritual distortion, or even all of this together. In that case, it will be even more powerful, inevitable, and epic. Yes, the forces for a model of a whole city, such as Dantmark, will take an impossible amount of effort, and such a model will not have the full effect, if you do not fix yourself on the territory of the city, preferably by registering in the palace and getting a certain degree of sacral influence. For example, by entering the ducal family. Or by entering the duke's wife, - she seems to be quite a beautiful woman, noticeably prettier than the widowed and remarried young old man, - and better still, a wife, a couple of daughters, a granddaughter, nieces, nephews, and anyone else. Immorality is immorality, but the effect of it will really be very good! If the Earthman is crazy enough to do such nonsense as taking over a city, he will also take this option into account.

These were the bits of knowledge raised in rank after completing a System assignment as part of the reward but he had invested a lot in his development, constantly working with complex tasks, using rare and elite materials, spending a lot of reserve, and pouring his own blood. This selfless attitude could not do without quite noticeable results from the System, so it did not do without: the System also gave him two knowledges, and these, for the sake of variety, were completely new. One of them related to puppetry and was, in fact, a branch of the main skill, while the second was something that he would have preferred never to pump, until now seeing the knowledge of this branch only with the note GIFT, and not earned personally. And yes, again the System activated all the mastered at the same time, but this time it turned him off not so much - still the scale of knowledge and their rank was noticeably smaller.

Received: “basic techniques for achieving sympathetic resonance”, “advanced basic techniques for achieving sympathetic resonance”, “technique of mental-emotional processing of protected targets”.

The acquired talents are added to the Player's overall status.

The first of the knowledge, which reached the second rank at once, was inevitable in its acquisition. If a shaman had been properly engaged in work with envolts, and not in shamanism alone, he would have obtained this or other similar knowledge long ago. In the case of work, hard work, with materials and blanks that were extremely difficult to use, and with the bonus of peaceful and lecherous development all at once, the acquisition of this talent was truly inevitable. Envolt construction involves the creation of resonance and subsequent spiritual likeness, this knowledge is part of the root knowledge for puppet magic, especially one so advanced, having achieved advanced mastery. But it's hard to argue with the fact that by gaining this talent as a separate line in his Status, he began to be able to do noticeably more, just as it's hard to argue with the benefit of the synergy of knowledge.

Sympathetic resonance not only increased the effectiveness and penetrating power of puppet magic, it accelerated the process of creating these puppets. It allowed you to achieve similar results and effectiveness faster, with less clear guidelines. For example, if the aura cast is of insufficient quality, but the puppet itself is created and it managed to point at the target, to find the connection, then due to the similarity it is quite possible to bring this very puppet cast to the ideal, to supplement the already finished image to the maximum similarity. Compensate, to a certain extent, changes, intentional or just age, which occurred with the aura of the target for some time. The doll loses some of its power if the victim's aura and spirit, say, change a lot or simply become more developed. With this skill, the puppet can be augmented and modified little by little, so that its reflection takes in the changes of the real body and aura. A very versatile, but specific to the extreme tool, most of which is suitable for working with dolls and other envolts of any kind.

A whole range of shamanic techniques, as well as some tricks when working with witch possession, also used this approach. Transfer the curse from yourself to the spirit, which will take a disguise for your aura, whether it is a section of it or a whole picture, and then either eat the curse or even hit it back on the caster. Creation of special totems, which are different and duplicating each other, are perceived by the same pattern, the same totem, even if located in different corners of the world - like the doll with its mirror. This is, after all, almost a direct ticket into the section not of teleportation, but of creating persistent portals through the spirit world. A single totem-arka in duplicate and you can conduct if not an army, then a squad, and even those have no gift. Several spirits with fun manifestations of aspects of the kinship branch, similar to what the Three Little Pigs do. Only these can take damage from the shaman and his strongest spirits, allowing them to fight more effectively and not be afraid of being hit.

Methods of direct control of spirits, in which the shaman, skilled in the indwelling of spirits and spiritual symbiosis, arranges a reverse indwelling, literally indwelling his essence in the chosen spirit. You can do this traumatizing and lethal operation, literally tearing the receptacle to, for example, hit with all your might through a minor spirit with unusual properties, using his aspect bond, and even from an extreme distance. You can also conduct a full merge with an elder, receiving for a while his power and abilities, helping him with your mind and the power of the spirit. real-world combat skills. You can not get cocky and plant spirits in each other, getting, with proper concentration and a lot of training, a kind of hybrid units, you can plant the same spirits in material carriers, creating pseudo-elementals, you can plant spirits in specially created dolls for them, not envolts, which will be considered a very peculiar form of golem building. And it is possible not to complicate and use resonance simply to strengthen the overall coordination of large flocks of spiritual little things in conjunction with the plurality, polishing it all by improving the process of dialog with the spirit, planting it in a resonating totem and much better understanding what he said-message wants.

The second knowledge... well, there were few decent words here, though it was clear why this skill was given to him. He was brainwashing well-defended and cautious targets, and successfully at that. Involuntarily, he thought that if someone suddenly would see his Status, where the highest ranks of skills, if not to count the root, shone all sorts of charms and suggestions, then this presumed observer would obviously think about Stepan as something very bad. But he's not like that, it's his life... and, what's so fucking remarkable, this time this clichéd phrase is absolutely literal, and not just another justified hypocritical shit. But of course, it didn't stop being an exculpatory hypocritical shit.

Knowledge was very synergistic with agency work and elimination, and like the art of elimination, it too came from agency skills. Only of a slightly different focus. A rather obvious list of different tactics and appeals, and also a terrifying imagination of being able to utilize all the things he already knew how to do. Whatever it was, it was the ways to brainwash the enemy, or better yet the opponent, that Stepan had no problems with since the very first levels. Now all those skills, tied to every line of his status, which he could use to influence someone, formed an even clearer system. Like fighting tricks, only not fighting tricks, but brainiac tricks. The ability to analyze the defense and nature of a target, only with a focus on brain defense rather than general defense, the ability to look for gaps in that defense, to select techniques, calls, tools, and tactics for each target, and then to successfully braid it with his influence. The ability to work with time frames, then for months conducting slow and weak gradual suggestions, to steal the target for a couple of hours unnoticed by the guards and return it with already enclosed bookmarks.

Whether you're working against someone wearing amulets, an elf druidess or a fellow shaman, a master of magic in his tower or workshop, or someone from a ducal ruling family in their private chambers, an orc warrior, or an experienced mentalist. Catch the moment for exposure at home or on the street, while shopping or at a social gala, being a guest, masquerading as such, pretending to be a servant, infiltrating secretly or at all, as Stepan likes, from an extreme distance through a bunch of proxies. And proxies can be used in different ways, too. It's not for nothing that he has a whole bunch of ways to turn random losers into living puppets or agents of influence who don't realize their role. Stepan, as already lived in Dantmark and had time to analyze the main defenses and strongholds, suddenly realized that he decided, for example, to leave some surprise in the head of “object Granddaughter”, who loves birds, he will quite manage even without big stress. Of course, not in her private chambers, he would not go to the palace and at a cannon shot, although the chances of success would be very significant, but the girl likes walks and leads an active social life, the window for a blow to find is not so difficult.

Somehow having coped with the most difficult stage of assimilating the reward for his labors, Stepan moved on to the gift properties and was, in principle, much more satisfied. The sensations of modifying the aura, of course, are also specific, but they at least do not require such a wild concentration of mental energy. Just lie still, monitor the state of the aura, and try not to twitch from phantom sensations of tickling, itching, acupuncture, something else, words and feelings indescribable, like fucking Lovecraft's prose.

Received: 'the trust of the creators of passions and the weavers of feelings'.

The acquired talent is added to the overall Player Status.

Who the fuck would doubt it, eh? Stepan, for example, did not doubt, not even for a second, not even a little bit, that this particular, well, or other, also Autodivine, property would increase. The third rank of the mark plunged him into a state that could only be described by comparing it to falling into a vat of honey, wine, and cotton candy. The mark grew on the spirit with a wide front, becoming deeper than any other, allowing one to order the spirits of the corresponding specialization with even greater ease, with even greater discounts, or even just for free, and even other strong ones may well offer their services for a symbolic donation of the reserve, and cover the cost of the task. Younger and lower - those with this level of the mark may not think about demanding payment for anything at all. For them, the will of the mark's owner, so deep and related to their spheres, will simply be about the same as the will of their own instincts and purpose, especially if ordered something that is natural for spirits. Roughly speaking, at high ranks such tags allowed one to pretend to spirits, especially those not powerful enough, by the will of the very sphere they belonged to.

Wind dancers love the wind, and are happy to twist it into tornadoes or gusts. If the possessor of the corresponding property in the third rank offers them to create a wind in the form of a blade in that direction and with such force, they will perform the proposed as if they came to such a decision. Spirits do not think conventionally, for them, the sphere, aspects, and essence mean much more than the decision-making process. This is the basis of the control of the stronger spirits over their kindred junior entities. It is not only and not so much that they subjugate the retinue, it is simply that the retinue sees no reason not to obey. In a way, Stepan, especially with his transformation and patchwork echo, which allows to strengthen the work of the marks even more, is perceived by them as the same inhabitant of the spheres, only stronger and more authoritative, and also clearly knowing what he wants, and able to convey what he wants. And then the same story goes on. The wish of the shaman becomes the wish of the spirit, without any entreaties and persuasions, simply because.

Yes, the stronger the spirit, the worse this trick works, the smarter the spirit is, the more it has its own decisions and thoughts, so the mark does not give absolute control, but just a lever of pressure, growth of authority, and huge discounts. There are probably a lot of weak spirits, which are also invulnerable to such control. But where before it would have been necessary to coax, cunning, bribe, respectfully negotiate, and slowly bring down the price of requests, now you can calmly and uncomplicatedly press, demand, and prove the right to demand. And he will prove this right, which, as if, is not bad at all, if it was some other mark and not this one. All right, Stepan is calm, he actively uses the same suggestors even outside of vulgar purposes in a variety of situations. Only thanks to the already summoned entity of this type no one noticed his almost ten-day absence from the winery. Before that, he had come by once every three days, spending almost the entire time of the task in the shelter, trying to keep up with the schedule.

The communication spirits he'd sent to scout which he'd controlled right at the moment of sprouting the auric property, allowed him to contact the entities that had been covering up his absence all this time. In fact, it turned out that people didn't really need him that much, especially while the mice were being destroyed, reappeared, and destroyed again, and again in a circle. There were a couple of times they wanted to find him and call him out. Once in order to treat a couple of cold individuals, and the second time to invite him to go to a pub together. The invitation came from one of the previously treated. Both times the spirit controller gently knocked the thought out of their minds, and they went drinking without him, while the sick were called a healer. Otherwise, if they remembered him all this time, it was only in passing, in the style of: //“Somewhere he is walking there, busy, I saw him recently, to hell with him, let him walk”.

Received: “steady-state stability of the absorption properties of the source”.

The acquired talent is added to the overall Player Status.

He liked the elite property, on the contrary. Although it was a gift from the Autogoddess, it was almost neutral and very useful, including to the shaman. Yes, it was still not an elite Shroud and its kind, but only some step lower in the awesomeness ranking. This property worked with the source replenishment process but didn't increase the reserve or its natural regeneration. It allowed for more efficient feeding from totems, drives, sources, and anything similar. Not just more efficient feeding, but not suffering from such feeding. That was more important than anything else! For the average gifted person, too frequent use of storage devices and other methods of accelerated replenishment of reserves with powers other than their own is fraught with very real problems. There are a whole bunch of separate subtypes of diagnoses and auric defects, which are usually described by the general term “source atrophy”, although this is not academically correct.

This property helped against such atrophy, reducing the probability of its receipt, allowing longer and fuller feeding from anything, speeding up the process of natural recovery after intensive feeding, easing the load on subtle bodies, and, of course, increasing the effectiveness of meditative drawing of power from the surrounding space in general. It was useful for both mages and shamans, because the former worked with accumulators and ritual circuits, and the latter often had to feed their forces from the totemic structure. The sources of magic were equally often used, probably, by adepts of almost any school, except for the most exotic ones. It didn't make him particularly stronger or more dangerous, but like a number of others, it increased the efficiency of his training, allowing Stepan to develop even more effectively and with less concern for the possibility of injuring himself.

The sensations of germination were, it must be said, surprisingly tolerable. The young man felt as if he were stuck in a soft maelstrom of warm and cold water, and he was trying to breathe the whole maelstrom in as if it consisted of only dense mist and vapor, cold and warm. It wasn't just the absence of any particular discomfort, it was almost pleasurable. So pleasant that he simply shut down and fell asleep drowsy from the previous ordeal, awakening only to find the maid had entered his chambers with a hazy gaze, put his washed clothes on the dresser, and quietly left. He had almost no dreams, except for some delirium, in which a man with the ability to transform into an immaterial and deadly ghostly creature with huge clawed blades was swearing in Finnish, putting bomb charges on some military base. I also remembered a flashing scene with a group of very strong magicians, ranks not lower than magisters, dressed in quite earthly clothes, sitting at a heavy and obviously very artifactual marble table, conferring about something important. It would have been nothing if it weren't for the fact that none of them thought it necessary to cover their breasts, proudly displayed for all to see.

Stepan woke up without embarrassment. The effect of the alchemy was wearing off, but he still had to call Sylvia, distracting her from her work, so that she could help him regain consciousness and drive the excessive passion out of his body and mind. The dream catchers worked properly again, but no special images could be caught. Some very tired and angry man-ghost, whose face could not be remembered anyway, a couple of goats, literally goats, that is, animals, fighting with each other on the checkers, a pretty big-breasted Negro woman smearing aromatic oil on her breasts, two toy pistols with suction cups clamped in crab claws, a statue of Lenin offering to give some communism and then running away from a statue of Gogol, who chases it shouting about drug addicts. Typical dream delirium, nothing special, the Earthman did not even bother to parse these images and try to identify them. Most of what he had seen was related to Earth concepts and now did not concern him in the slightest.

Somewhere during his sleep, a unit of characteristics was added to the Constitution, which brought it up to a three. It was a very good level, for someone who even does morning exercises through sheer force. More survivability, strength of bones, ligaments, and muscles, more resistance to physical damage, higher pain threshold, and the scale of vital forces is also much fuller. He doesn't have any knowledge devoted to working with life force in his Status. But, at this rate, it will appear very soon. The more Constitution the higher the degree of work with the life reserve, and the more spirits can be lured and fed with blood, adding to the retinue of very interesting samples of spiritual life. Oh, and the same blood magic, damn it. He could try to start mastering it as a purely optional method. He had plenty of teachers, albeit vampire-specific ones. The scarlet magic of bloodsuckers, of course, was very different from classical blood magic. They cast not from the Source reserve, which they either don't have at all or is relatively undeveloped even among the higher ones, but from their Constitution, the reservoir of bloody power and stolen life. Stepan had no doubt that with the help of the System, Sylvia, and profanity he could adapt this knowledge and techniques to himself. But it would take a lot of work, of course.
С помощью такой-то матери.

For obvious reasons, vampire dining in their nest was not of the highest standard. They rarely had guests, and the pale masters did not require gourmet food. Nevertheless, they had their supply of food, both for servants and employees and for likely guests, so they were able to feed Stepan better than he had ever been fed in this world. A perfectly cooked steak, medium rare, with assorted vegetables and a bottle of light fruit wine. He deemed himself worthy of a nice relaxing meal to reward his successes. Frankly, it became very envious of those who eat this way regularly, not just on special occasions. However, such was the lot of an isekai - to pay for anonymity and power with a lack of comfort and honor. Of course, he would be glad to be taken under the wing of a duke, or better, a duchess, providing maintenance, teachers, and resources. But dukes, that's kind of petty! Give him an elven queen, and a personal tutor with bigger tits to complete the package.

Отсылка

He decided to distract himself from his stupid and clearly unrealistic dreams by sorting through the rest of his rewards, as there was nothing left to burden his mind or aura, just tokens, and meta-skills. He was understandably reluctant to spend the only free talent point he had for his increased level right now. Not because he didn't want to fall out again, but because he was thinking about his new class. Of course, the guy was not so close to level thirty, a full two levels, which at the current rate grows very slowly, but it's still not that long. Especially if you fulfill a few existing ideas. And there, after those plans a new window of call star tracker will come, and then the attack on the demonic creature. And no one and nothing will prevent him from the necessary pack of hunting spirits to call in advance and strike literally at the same moment. However, this is a little later, time is patient, and no one is pushing him in the back, but the talent points he holds on to now. When a new class opens up, he will need to develop it at least a little, otherwise what use is it, this class?

He invested four free meta-skill points right away, right at the meal, because he had already made plans for those points and had time to think about and compare different options. He spent a bit of time reading the help again, checking to see if anything new had been added. Something had been added, something had changed its description, but the decision had not changed. He invested exactly where he had originally intended to invest. The first three points went into the same meta-skill, immediately bringing it to its current maximum, otherwise he would have invested four. At its core, “regular inflow of System Resources III” was something like an expended token, only more regular and not yet as steep and massive. But where the token was spent all and to the end, the influx of resources was not called regular for anything. At the first rank, this skill gave about one small box of quality resources at the level of the lower bar of what the token gave, every decade. That is, these were the resources that could be bought for money in magic shops, but the perfect quality with a full guarantee and only for very serious money sold for gold, not copper and silver. The second rank increased the amount of resources when summoning, increased their average quality, and also accelerated the recharge of the skill up to five days.

The sweetest part came on the third rank, as it usually happens with meta-skills. There was a qualitative improvement in several directions at once. The recharge was reduced to three days, and the number of materials increased again, as well as their variety, quality, and overall price. But, more importantly - now, each summon had a chance, about ten to fifteen percent, to summon some reagent or resource, whose price corresponded to the upper segment of the token. Not a special lot of the System Store, a little lower and leaner, but you can not get such a thing for just money. You need connections and acquaintances to be sold something like this, or you'll have to pay much more if they put it up for auction. Most importantly, it was now possible to formulate an approximate branch of practice for which the summoned stock would be suitable. Very roughly, without complete accuracy, but it was possible to give the system an image-request in the style of: I want something for fire spirits calls. And in the next parcel this “something” would definitely be there, and it could be only a part of the parcel or the whole parcel.

It is impossible to predict what exactly the system will give you because many types of reagents fit the definition. Volcanic stones that have preserved the heat of magma and the Earth's interior, or ashes of burnt tropical forests? The slime of a young salamander, carrying a trace of fiery essence, or the feathers of a funny bird that likes to eat hot peppers so much that it has bonded with the aspects of heat and fire? A page from an almost decayed grimoire on fire magic, which can no longer be read, and there is no point, but which keeps the fiery will of the creator, or a branch of a tree, which was struck by lightning, charring it and hardening it in the flames? In general, there was a lot to choose from, the main thing is to carefully formulate requests, and also not forget to spend the available calls. They accumulate, but no more than five three-day packs, otherwise the last one burns out and a new one takes its place.

The choice was perhaps not ideal, it didn't strengthen Stepan directly, but it definitely accelerated his development, and was very noticeable and guaranteed. The young man perfectly remembered how quickly things went after unpacking the token, how pleasant it was for him to spend reagents confidently and without fear, knowing exactly what he had in store, and without counting the stock of the currency system for the store. In fact, if he practiced actively, he would hardly have enough of that box of consumables for more than three days, and it might not even be enough for three days if he was really active. But still, something will be accumulated - blanks for totems or amulets, some alchemy, unnecessary powders and herbs at a particular time, that sort of thing. The speed and comfort of development, multiplied by complete anonymity and lack of attachment to the purchase of reagents - that's what this skill is.

The last of the meta-talents he decided to invest in “intensive development II”. If he was going to actively train in the company of bloodsuckers this skill would come in handy, especially if not at the first, but already at the second rank. Ideally, it would also reach the third rank, but the influx of resources at the third rank is much more useful than intensive even if it was at the fourth rank, so the desires had to cut back. The second rank of intensive development gave exactly the same as the first one, just a little better - training, especially full-fledged, going to wear and tear and, preferably, with a competent mentor, now gave even more speed to the advancement of the experience bar.

The last of the meta-skills was another gift of the Great Molf, fitting the term “elite” quite well, but also causing the familiar twitch of the eye when reading the certificate. “A small seductive gift in the name of Liarat si Merrinal, Lady of Gifts and Giver of Gifts, faithful servant of Innelas Innelay” allowed to give any beautiful woman a free property, and not less than rare, which will have unambiguously corresponding to the Autogoddess nature, i.e. it would be something related to brainwashing, love magic, hypnosis or mental control. Sylvia's hypnotic eyes or voice, some sort of pheromone release system, automatically activated tantric submission during sex. Included are instinctive skills to control the new property and modification of reflexes and aura to be able to use the gift. If you have sex with a woman before giving her this gift, the gift is guaranteed to be an elite property, maybe even with the effect of adding characteristics.

The eye twitching was at its peak, of course, but, really, what was he expecting? He'd been expecting Her Milfness to give him a bunch of bullshit! On the contrary, he should be glad that the other gifts were at least a little bit useful. At least the stability of the source, the usefulness of which is not a drop, but a full-fledged lake the size of a third of Baikal. Again, as strange as it might sound, Sylvia could be strengthened, and the other bloodsuckers wouldn't refuse such a gift if their wishes and desires had anything to do with it. Twenty days of recharging was not a big problem either, for he saw no reason to give such gifts often, just walking down the street. He could give it to Sylvia, and maybe to the other vampires, too, in case it came in handy, and if it didn't, fuck it.

There were still tokens left, and Stepan was mentally prepared for anything without being disappointed in the process. To be honest, he was still surprised that of the five new tokens, as many as two of them were useful and, well, normal. The first of the useful ones, one of the ones received for the full execution of the task, was called “meaningful meta-skill renewal”, had ten charges and allowed to neutralize the rollback of those meta-skills, which were not used too often, and not just one, but all of them, which were present in the Status. Renew the super-lot of the store, call a new task immediately after the canceled one, charge the replenishment of life and reserve, grant characteristics to ten individuals in a row, and, well, the last property was also deprived of the rollback. It does not work on Deals, as well as on the gift of attribute enhancement - in the latter case, you must first serve the penalty on characteristics, and it is not deactivated by this token in any way.

The second useful and also received for full performance token was a bit simpler but had even more charges. Fifteen. The “Temporary Confidentiality Creation” was activated inside a room or another room, even a palace chamber or a tent made of brushwood, and then the room was cut off from all attempts to listen in, at the system level. Neither spy charms, nor a lip-reading agent with a spyglass, nor a listening amulet with a recording function placed in a cupboard in advance would have any effect, producing only white noise or complete confusion. In the case of a bug and recording, for example, the two hours while the token is in effect will either not record at all or will be filled with noise. In the case of a spyglass, the image will become blurred, as if some kind of illusion magic was used, only behind this veil even the eyes of a god will not penetrate. The only way to bypass this token is to be present during the conversation, even if hidden under the bed, for example, and unnoticed by those in the room who will talk. Not exactly the thing that Stepan needed, but he would not hesitate. This token did not find a pocket and could be quite useful in some situations to an isekai who wanted to keep confidentiality. Of course, the young man could take care of the wiretap himself, no worse than he could wiretap someone else, but it was always nice to have a backup, especially if it was absolutely reliable, wasn't it?

Those tokens are another matter. Her Divine Milfness had scored on them, they just blew my mind and the roof off, as they always did. The first of the three had a dozen charges and was called “Persistent Feet”, being a good way to earn a lot of experience, and even more experience. The effect of the token was somewhat variable, depending on the personality of the person it was activated on. That is, obviously, because it only works on women and only on beautiful women, no other way. When activated, the token makes the target herself take the seemingly most natural and logical decision to play with the player who activated the token with her legs, of course, in the most erotic sense of the word. To make him kiss, to order him to lick, to fondle through clothes or skin to skin, quickly or stretching the pleasure for several hours. Everything depended on the circumstances and the amount of free time, as well as on the attitude towards each other. It was impossible to activate the token in direct combat with the victim, but otherwise - no restrictions.

During a combat operation, where every moment counts, a beautiful ally under the influence of the token will at most allocate five minutes to fulfill the conditions of the token, and then return to combat mode. And if there is plenty of time and no one will interfere, she may well squeeze every drop, every moan out of the shaman for a couple-three hours. And during the action of the token the universe is distorted in such a way that nothing distracts and does not interfere with the couple's privacy. If the case takes place in public, the same distortion will make it so that no one notices or suspects anything while she plays with her feet under the table. The same distortion won't erase the victim's memory but make it so normal that even an elite spy suffering from terminal paranoia will consider everything that happened to be a quirk of hers and won't remember it. And even if her superiors scan the agent's mind, they'll at most criticize her for risking a blunder during a combat operation, not sounding the alarm.

All in all, an amazingly complex and powerful token, which Stepan had about as many reasons to use as there were reasons to remember Rodislav Gastoldovich Yanin's seminars with a kind word and nostalgia. In other words, not a single fucking reason. Apparently, the System or Autogoddess's scripts suspected something like that, because the token had another function. By activating it, he gained experience, at the very least, regardless of what he'd be given for lewd development. Not less than an eighth of a level, which for his current rank was a very good reason to diversify his intimate life. The token worked on any woman even all ten times in a row, but the reward was given only for the first activation for each victim. But then again, that was bullshit. He'd get all the experience he needed, especially with his new meta-skill and upcoming plans.

No, the best part is that the more unusual the victim is and the higher the level, status, and position - the more Stepan will get sweet fresh cakes from Great Milf's generosity. There's a very meaningful difference - to apply a token on a random townswoman or on a duke's wife, isn't there? In terminal cases, you could close the entire level at once and get a free point of talent, or even a characteristic. However, it is difficult to even imagine what, or rather who, you need to get a token for the last effect. The same elven princess or queen, a master, or better, archmagister of magic in a skirt, or, here, incarnated in the real world Gaia personally. At the moment of this thought Stepan, who had habitually sent the Autogoddess and her gifts away, was pierced with shameful greed. The reward there would be huge. But he overcame this greed which is a grave human sin and a gamer's virtue, heroically..

The second token of a specific nature was called “Smoothness of Beauty” and it was one of those that Stepan might even use if he had the chance. Hundred and fifty charges, to be used only on females or individuals of the equal to female gender, only one use per individual, and as a reward, an improvement in appearance. It works best on ugly and plain girls because the effect will be barely visible on an already beautiful and desirable target. Appearance is improved not immediately, but gradually, within a week to a month, emphasizing the best sides of the existing image, blurring all sides of the negative. The effect of distorting reality does not cause others to suspect the fact that such plastic surgery in conjunction with cosmetology, in general, may not be too natural, especially if we are talking about a woman disfigured by scars, burns, or the consequences of severe diseases and curses. All will blame it on a new diet, alchemy, improved mood, or something else, and then will not check or look for inconsistencies.

He thought about it and decided to try it on Fanya, not primarily for the beauty effect itself, but to remove any suspicions about the improvement of her appearance. Now, if to believe the regular peeks, her work on herself has already brought quite noticeable results, removing most of the excess weight, rounded breasts and buttocks, while reducing the waist, as well as improving the condition of the skin. Something here could be written off to diet, to regular exercise and training, and of course to cosmetics, including alchemy. But still, it worked out even too well, even if so far it was written off to the fact that the merchant who decided to change something in her life took on herself with full dedication. It's still to be seen, maybe you won't have to use anything. Still, the local alchemy works wonders and all the oddities could easily be written off to the fact that she simply prescribed herself better samples.

The last of the Autodivine tokens was also the kind of token that could be used at least once and also had a rather amusing one-in-ninety-nine charge count. The token named “Mighty Melons” had different effects depending on whether it was used the first time out of a hundred or the other ninety-nine. The entire hundred charges increased the token's victim's breast size, not badly so, though without exact numbers - a flat zero could be taken out by a four, a four by a six, a six by a seven or six and a half, and so on. The larger the original sizes, the smaller the effect, but at least a size-half size will still give a raise. Along with the increase, an attention cutoff field will be issued - neither the victim nor anyone else will note the breast growth as something odd, not even the fact of the growth itself. But the first person to fall victim to this token will receive one unit each in Source and Power, as well as five free talent points, which can be invested anywhere if the victim is in a group with the activator. Otherwise, the talents will be distributed themselves in the category of properties, not knowledge, which is even quite logical. And yes, even a woman in a group with a shaman will not notice the effect of the token until it is directly pointed out to her. She will consider the knowledge as her own.

Stepan is quite logically and obviously going to strengthen his doll named Sylvia with this systemic gift. To be honest, he even envied her a little. The help immediately obligingly suggested that Her Milfness would approve the activation of the premium version of the token on himself, at the same time adjusting his appearance and giving him breasts of size D at least. It was added separately that it was Stepan the Junior would be in no danger, to which Stepan the Normal laughed bitterly and began again to recall his namesake with unkind swear words, from which he must have been hiccupping somewhere out there, in the infinite and endless distance. Of course, he did not activate the token on himself, rather he even took his attention-image away from this token with panic-stricken swiftness, fearing to activate it with a random thought. The system did not allow itself such bullshit before, activation of its individual elements by random thought was impossible, but with the Autogoddess one could not be sure of anything. And he didn't want to repeat Admiral Akbar's phrase every time he looked in the mirror in the morning.

The inspection of the awards only seemed like something big, but in fact, he had just had time to eat, and that was all. Neither the jokes of the Autogoddess nor the fact that his greed echoed some of them spoiled his appetite. Sylvia, who had come quietly at an unheard step, had been sitting at the same table with him for some time, politely sipping a glass of scarlet, alchemically enhanced, and saturated blood. She was looking at the shaman with a mixture of economic approval, as if she was figuring out where she could throw his strength, to get more out of the fact of power over the shaman. There was, however, some sincere concern, as much as possible for a bloodsucking creature, and not all of it was instilled through subjugating effects. Malter was very possessive but did not like to spoil her toys, caring for them with an almost maternal tenderness and strictness.

If the shaman had been in the mood for a philosophical debate, he would certainly have wondered whether the undead lady was taking out her maternal instinct in this way. But he was not, first of all, philosophically inclined, and, secondly, he was still reinventing the wheel. The fact that vampires embody and stretch parental instincts to their own nest is, in general, practically common knowledge to anyone who studies the question of vampirization. Mostly, of course, such stretching acts only on the nestlings, but in rare cases it stretches also on a part of those who serve the nest. Her puppets, the most useful of them all, Sylvia really valued, protected, patronized, and helped them settle in life. The flip side of how they helped her herself. In a way, she was an aristocrat in a measure far greater than many of the hapless nobles, doing to her nest what an aristocrat should do to his House.

"So you've regained your strength, Pann. I'm certainly glad you appreciated my hospitality, but now we have a legitimate question - what do we do next?" She said with the slightest of languor in her voice, a grin that would make your brain swim without magic. "I confess I have a few plans that were impossible before due to lack of funds and power, but now, with your help, my pet, I may well not try, no. Succeed."

Stepan only nodded. He knew the plans in question, just as he knew that Sylvia was bound to succeed with his help, especially if it was done wisely and without haste. In part of these plans, he was even ready to support her wholeheartedly. And with part of the plans... let's just say he was pretty sure that his Mistress would at some point feel that the best way to help those plans come to fruition was to have rough sex in a submissive position. He certainly didn't want to get involved in the drug trade and the trafficking of alive and not-so-alive people, and for the tastiest part of her plans, he'd given one provincial aristocrat mage a family thriller not so long ago. So under his guidance, Sylvia would improve, if not her financial condition, then her moral character and the level of karma cleansing. Well, if karma is cleansed at all from those deeds, which you do under the effect of enslaving control.

“Whatever you say, Sylvia, I'll be ready to assist my mistress in any way I can on her journey to the pinnacle of power.” He agreed eagerly, getting an approving look and a slight and promising smile. “And to make it much easier for you to get to that pinnacle, here's a ladder for you, Sylvia dear, to gauge your progress. Just give your sincere mental assent and don't fidget; it's quite a jolt when you're not used to it, I know.”

And with these words he sent her an invitation to the group, realizing perfectly well that he should have done it in the first days of their acquaintance, right after the submission. But he was very angry with her then, and he didn't want to see the traitorous bitch again, let alone accept her into the group. Now, having cooled down and becoming more philosophical about the way she had fucked him at the moment of moral and physical weakness, he was not going to give up such ways, if not to strengthen himself, then at least to cover the rear with a group of loyal fighters. On the other hand, besides Sylvia, there was no point in accepting anyone else into the group right now. None of her subordinates could even come close to her parent. Except for Lemira, and only in the combat direction, and that only until Sylvia becomes extremely serious, plus without taking into account the recent reinforcement from the gift of characteristics.

“What? What?! But how? I mean, how?! I asked, I asked, and you, you told me. No. No, you couldn't lie. You couldn't. It won't work.” Sylvia, who had obeyed the order and accepted the invitation, was now clearly losing her self-control, but that was precisely not surprising, far more surprising was her reaction to gaining access to the System and the fact that she knew what was happening to her. “I can't believe it... So that means it was you all along? You? From the beginning? And you're the one who got me in the blood loop? You? The one who was in Iyastar? Are you mine now?”

Stepan fell into a stupor from such a question, understanding approximately nothing, and also he began to be covered with signals from the subjugating structure of the doll, which stabilized Sylvia's state and thoughts. Because the vampiress was completely and utterly convinced that she was in charge, and he was a subordinate, that he could never subdue her, no matter how great a shaman he was. Normally this element of her control was hardly strained, for the bloodsucker, imperious and dominant was herself eager to believe in her power, just so long as she didn't destroy her power illusion. But now sharply, several times in succession, she began to suspect the fact that her toy might somehow have influenced her, inspired false security, for she, however good she was, however completely she had subdued and entangled the mind of the obedient boy, was still a realist, not inclined to overestimate her strengths and weaknesses. And she could not, without the aid of suggestion through the control circuit of the spiritual likeness bond, believe that she had succeeded so easily and successfully in subduing one who had almost succeeded in subduing the real God himself.

At that moment, reading these images, Stepan, who had tried to sip his wine, almost choked on it, trying to get through the storm of Sylvia's emotions, even forgetting his desire to look at her Status. He waved his hands to attract her attention and silence her, then he breathed out some of the wine that had gotten into his windpipe, feeding some of it to one of the appropriate spirits as a sacrifice, having previously thrown it out of reality into the sphere. He blinked his eyes for a few heartbeats as if he were a student at an exam who had forgotten the name of the teacher and the subject, but his ++fortitude, which he had in his properties, allowed him to come to his senses quickly after a shock.

“Who do you think I am?” He gets an immediate answer from the images of her thoughts, but he doesn't understand the reason for those thoughts, the reason he's being mistaken for someone else. “What the fuck am I, Master, which is a name and not a fucking rank? I've never even been to your fucking SSun City, I fucking heard about it less than a year ago! And, wait? Is this guy trying to brainwash God? What the fuck kind of master is he if the archmagister wouldn't do it? Whoa, fuck it, first question is, why the fuck am I him?”

At the edge of his consciousness, was a glimmer of understanding, still fragmentary and incomplete, not clear even to Stepan himself. He suddenly felt hot and cold at the same time, an intuitive realization that he would not like the coming news. It was not the first manifestation of shamanic intuition, but the most obvious, complete, penetrating his whole being to the very root and therefore even frightening. It was scary because he was not ready to receive so abruptly a prophetic half-trance, in which he could catch some fragments of images, the glow of the Sun, the darkness of the Underworld, and fuck knows what else.

“But it is the Tablet, the Tablet of the Soul, my loyal Pann.” Sylvia, who had calmed down with his help, looked at him with a strange look, one that read the same incomprehension and suspicion that Stepan had decided to mock her, even though he was her toy and completely under her thumb. “The ability to write on the pages of one's soul like a book, mastering in weeks and days what to others would not be bestowed by centuries of labor. It was this power that the one who came to Iyastar then possessed. It was for this power that he was called upon to capture and destroy literally everything. Though I can bloody swear how a couple or three players would definitely wish not to exterminate, but to negotiate or rake it up for themselves, it can't be otherwise. I've seen the recording of the Queen of the Forest's address, there can't be two interpretations."

Stepan simply turned Sylvia off, wiping his sweating forehead with a trembling hand, and then looking at his fingers shaking violently. He looked at himself through the eyes of the spirits, suddenly almost laughing at how broken and depressed by the sudden news he now resembled old Adolf from the meme scene of the movie “The Bunker,” only he wasn't going to throw a tantrum. He already has Sylvia's doll clutched in his hand. He read directly into her mind what he should have realized long ago, what he was almost directly told, but he just didn't understand. Because he is used to calling the System a system, not realizing that the local population, as it turns out, has its own designation for it, quite apt and even poetic. Because he quite reasonably, though a little naively, considered himself the only isekai player in this world, seeing no reason to think otherwise. Because he damn well just couldn't imagine otherwise, having also succumbed to the stamps and hackneyed clichés of typical fantasy fiction.

And the answer was pretty close.

So close, it's a shame.

When he came across references in Sylvia's mental stream, he just didn't relate one to the other. Even though he knew that the mysterious Master who fucked-up everyone had a certain Tablet. How many powerful artifacts are there in this world? He had a couple of them, too, and a store where he could buy a hundred of them if he had the money. The information from his doll's mind flowed into his consciousness, and what he had already known before became complete, revealing a picture that made the fingers on his hands tremble even more. He absorbed this knowledge, automatically planting several spirit-readers in the woman's frozen mannequin, and for a brief moment, he was able to remember everything that she remembered.

Remember about a mentalist mage with a dozen related schools at the level of a magister, about what he did in a city of local theocrats who love and practice prayers in the style of Heart to Sun, that is, ugh, Glorify the Sun. To remember that his main blow, of an unclear nature and in what manner inflicted, literally set off a huge orgy in one of the largest metropolises of this world. Remember that this Master was a great expert in creating from women of all races, including elven, high-class sex toys stuffed with reinforcing energy constructs to the brim. Remember, remember, remember, remember, folding the picture into something very disturbing, if not for Stepan, then for the world around him.

What's in it for him? He's not the one they're looking for and that's the main thing, and with his current abilities, it's not hard to hide his existence. Anonymity is the best shield. He's capable of evolving on his own. He doesn't need to remake a piece of society for himself. He does not need a huge support and support staff - without which even a master cannot become, not to mention a magister, if you play outside the system cheats. The main thing now is to be even more carefully silent and be many times more careful than he was before. Because it is very easy to get under the hot hand. They will hardly look into it. And they will hardly believe that he specializes in brainwashing and hexes only involuntarily and he is completely different from their Master. Never mind, never mind, never mind at all. Just work stuff, nothing that actually changed anything for him personally. He was going to be careful anyway. He was already planning to pump himself up unnoticed by the local orderlies. He was not in a hurry to show off his awesomeness and shout that he was a system isekai, kiss his ass.

Everything is vanity.

Everything is shit.

He was worried about something else, something almost forgotten for lack of use, remembered only briefly and not seriously. That long ago day, or rather morning, the last morning he had spent on Earth, the last minutes of his old life. He was going down in the elevator. He was going down with the one supposed to be here, in his place. All this time Stepan believed that the other Stepan, his very alternative-thinking namesake with broad tastes, had remained on Earth, because he was looking at the Great Milf's answering machine, believing that he had gotten an audience with her instead of Stepan That One.

But.

But.

But!

What if he was wrong? What if this tape was played for the right person, and he, Stepan Normal, was just an extra? What if the one who should have been sent here in the first place did get into this world? The timelines are a bit off because a certain Master has obviously been in this cruel world much longer than Stepan, but this is also explainable if we take as an axiom the fact that it is Stepan who is superfluous and not the one who should have been under this sky from the very beginning. He came here first and, remembering the properties and characteristics of the “Outstanding Master of Depraved Fetishization,” the class he had given up, putting these characteristics in perspective for further growth, and multiplying the result obtained by the character and preferences of Fatty... Asking himself the question of whether his namesake, armed with a class specially selected for him and pumped up, could try to fuck a natural deity and in the process organize a huge orgy for the whole city, the answer for the shaman was absolutely obvious - he could.

Sylvia was in pause mode, which was probably the only reason she hadn't turned gray the moment Stepan's emotions went wild, out of control, and giving free rein to what the normally peaceful and unconflicted young man kept deep inside himself. The light faded, and the light that remained was suddenly much brighter, blinding, and almost sharp. Darkness and shadows rustled with unearthly voices, hungry howls, and wheezes trying to burst into his ears. A breeze, not unlike a draught, whistled, carrying the notes of a storm that could strip flesh from bone in seconds. The rumbling of the rocks, the crackling of the flames and the roar of the sea, the babbling of the brook and the snarling voices of the beast kings - every sphere he touched, every spirit he had ever summoned, seemed to embody not themselves, but the memory of themselves here before him.

His spiritual body spilled out over his body, acquiring the features of a skeleton and shell, four huge clawed hands and a pair of wings sprang out from his back, and his face was completely hidden behind the ever-changing whirlwind of spiritual flesh, now and then taking different evil images, in which you can easily recognize the skull with a fanged grin, and the faceless face of Slenderman, and good clown Pennywise, and even scarred face ghoul from the game about radioactive fallout. But there were a lot more faces and expressions that did not fit into any clear concept, equally angry and angry, simultaneously furious, agitated, surprised, and who knows what else. Stepan opened his mouth and with his voice, he chanted, and with him, his spirits chanted, repeating what he had said and adding parts of themselves to it, trying to please the shaman. The voice formed into syllables, and those into words in the dialect, which the sky, he was previously sure, had not heard at all, formed into a phrase, which he spat out, spat out with all the accumulated anger at the world, at the Autogoddess, at his namesake, at the system and even at Rodislav Gastoldovich Yanin, who never gave him the last credit.

"Fatty, run from the city. You fucked up!!!"

* * *

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

Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/86785/577359

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP