Настучать в бубен / Hit the tambourine: Глава 18-7

"I confess that at this moment I am experiencing an unimaginable range of feelings, the most important of which is understanding why you are so emotional about your Tablet," Sylvia said sincerely and a bit shocked as her aura stopped churning and embedding the new elite property of the highest class, the corner of her eye twitching every now and then. "No, I'm glad to have this trump card. It's really worth a lot, not to mention the fact I'm only a few steps away from taking a new step, but I swear to God, it's still... shocking and astonishing, to put it in the mildest possible terms."

Camrad_RIP 27.10.24 в 11:42

Stepan looked at her with an inexpressible mixture of irony and understanding. Like someone who had long ago resigned himself to something that couldn't be changed anyway. Her new gift didn't allow for more powerful or sophisticated brainwashing, but it didn't make it any less colorful. In fact, Sylvia had developed a very specifically working spatial pocket. Not that kind of inventory. The pocket was completely undetectable and not blocked by anything, being a meta-skill, and working on magical principles, but still very badass. Hidden at the level of the shroud, just that characteristics did not add, extremely flexible, able to hold even magically active artifacts and mothballed divine relics, a volume of about two cubic meters. An extremely harsh and flexible thing, the dream of a smuggler or a hardened jailbird. The problem was that the disguise of this pocket was provided by its full integration with subtle bodies and the physical body - to put something into this pocket and then to take it out was possible only through three points on the body.
https://youtu.be/9OaM4kfzQ_M

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 17:34

Yes, yes, that's right, it's not hard to guess, knowing the intrigues of the Autogoddess, what these three points would be - mouth, anus, and cunt, with the last two passages increasing their firmness and elasticity, which the old and old undead creature already had quite good. Well, to be sure to fit everything you want, if you're brave enough. In fact, there were limits to the capacity, and something thicker than, say, a bicep or calf muscle would likely damage the walls of the pocket, causing the thin body to take a long time to regenerate and temporarily seal the pocket with all its contents. That wasn't the worst of it; Sylvia had the rudiments of morphism, and could, with mate and fatigue, widen her mouth to fit a melon, even if she had to soften some of her muscles, loosen or break some of her bones, and tear some of her tendons. Worst of all, it will be possible to remove something from the pocket only by using the entrance that was not used to put the object into the pocket. In other words, if you swallow something, you will have to take it out of some other orifice of the basic three, not from your mouth.

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 17:39

"So, I can smuggle anything I want at any time and then spit it in my opponent's face. An explosive amulet, a hundred vials of poison, or even an enchanted dwarven blade." Slowly and unhurriedly, suppressing her feelings she stretched out with inexpressible intonation. "But if I want to use such a trick, which can really be decisive in any battle, I have to put these vials... I can't believe it's real. And I won't say no, I won't say no, it's too much power, too little price to pay."

Camrad_RIP 27.10.24 в 11:55

"I would also add that you don't have to use vials. You can also pour the liquid into yourself with a pump, the walls of the pocket should be able to withstand it, and then just exhale it into the enemy's face, or pump in the gas at once." With sincere and vindictive pleasure Stepan, spoiled by the earthly Internet, suggests, feeling a little bit like the second Stepan. "How much I fucking love and adore my patroness, there are simply no words. Censored words. And that's why I stay in respectful and admiring silence all the time."

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 17:46

"Hush, please, Pann," Sylvia said a little frightened, but she was not angry or even puzzled by his suggestion, she accepted it with gratitude, but she stopped the hint of blasphemy against the supreme being, because from her point of view Stepan was a high priest for the Autogoddess, and she could easily hear it. "It is better to start the last stage of your training because it is the simplest and does not require additional stimulation of an emotional nature. Frankly speaking, it is a great shame to me that I was not able to complete the Steps, although I have worked as hard as you in many ways."

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 17:55

By the latter term, which was quite common, though not quite academically correct, Sylvia meant the lewd approach, with its emphasis on the humiliating sexualization of loss for the student. And the fact that such a method was not to be used here pleased him to no end. Sylvia had long ago tested the capabilities of her eyes and easily incorporated them into the general framework of mental defense, she just tested them on the servants, some of whom had received additional settings, as well as on her chicks, which not without enthusiasm tried new tricks of their mother and immediately forgot about them, out of harm's way. They were easier to interrogate than Sylvia, and she didn't want to take any chances.

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 17:56

In future plans, a great deal of time will be devoted to eyes and their use. With their help Martel plans to teach Stepan to recognize dormant commands or to uproot commands-activators, like triggers. But this level of mastering the skill is still much higher and more difficult, even for very cool mages it is considered that if at all allowed to put such a thing in his head, then already lost. So this training, which even Sylvia herself does not really understand how to conduct, they will be engaged in much later. It is a very rare situation outside of controlled conditions when the victim knows that she has commands-activators in her head, but she has not been disabled from realizing this fact. The very process of such work and training is closely related to the methods of agent work, which require literally replacing elements of personality in oneself, creating or formatting new images-roles, so that part of the commands, if they happen to leak into the mind, will be directed at the false personality. In essence, this is very advanced mentalistics, a separate branch of it, and even he, even with the system, will have to spend at least a couple of months on it. He doesn't have that kind of time anyway, and it's not that he needs to learn such things at all. They don't go through the brain harmlessly. You practically have to throw off the marbles in a controlled and directed manner.

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 18:01

No, now they would be training exclusively in blocked memory work and a little more direct resistance to the harsh subjugating influences of the higher ranks. Some of the necessary techniques he already knew from his last acquisition. Those derived from agency work. Ways of checking his schedule, finding lacunas and suspicious blurs in memory, being able to pick out strangely past moments of conversation and put things into perspective. Against really high-quality suggestion and amnesiac influence it does not help much, there the mind itself is looking for reasons not to look too deeply or completes the memory by the forces of the victim's mind, adjusting the memory to a convenient version of why everything is perfectly fine. But it's also very difficult to do quality work with the mind and memory, especially if the victim is a senior shaman, and you had to work on it in a hurry and without long preparation. That talent, obviously present, recently appeared, among the available choices, which Stepan and Sylvia were aiming at, would help some of the vulnerabilities and weaknesses of their memory not to close, so to blur, to make not so adamant.

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 18:08

"Oh, you should diminish yourself Sylvia, as if you were a native Odessian at the bazaar." He replied with a phrase that was not quite clear linguistically, but perfectly readable by the context. "You've already been given new knowledge and immediately upgraded it to an advanced base, and at the last stage you will definitely take a level. Think positively. Because if you think negatively, then with such a life the suicide is not far away."

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 18:46

“That's where you're wrong, pet, for all those who walk beneath the scarlet drop are astonishingly life-loving if immersion in our unlife can be considered life-loving.” She objected, either genuinely cheered up or determined not to show her distress too much. “As far as I know, rarely do children of the blood seek oblivion in ultimate doom, if there is any alternative. Exceptions are usually those cases where the alternative would be an exceptionally horrible existence, agonizing and stretching for years. And even then, people like me would rather spend every last drop of blood in an attempt to escape or kill an enemy than cut off their eternity. Anyway, back to business. Ready to begin?”

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 18:48

Stepan only nodded at the last part of her monologue, not commenting on the rest. The willingness to fight to the end and the desire for life was certainly worthy of respect, but in the case of bloodsucking creatures, it came from the very nature of the partially undead, low sensitivity to pain, and atrophy of the emotional sphere in the moments of transition into combat mode. But she, who had received a very advanced and subsidiary block of knowledge to her blood control called “advanced basic methods of complex composite suggestion based on blood control”, at least stopped complaining. He was surprised, but he really hadn't expected Sylvia Malter to start whining to her “pet” about not being able to grind properly! Well, even if she was not whining in the usual sense of the word, if we translate her lofty monologues and broken look into earthly analogs, it was exactly whining.

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 18:18

"Then look me in the eye, pet." With a predatory and sinister grin that made her remind herself that he, before each of the training sessions where she had the power to influence his mind, separately tuned her compulsions. "Watch and sleep. Sleep. S..."

Camrad_RIP 27.10.24 в 11:56

Her eyes, beautiful and deep, though scarlet, seemed to flash with depth, even more scarlet than usual, and then Stepan felt the effect of her influence. He had already had time to analyze it before he took up this training, and knew roughly what spirits to call upon to offset or ward off such a blow. The easiest thing to do was to wear a mask, which would simply reflect the attack with its bubble of emptiness, and if without a mask, then close his eyes and look through the spirits, so that her gaze did not work. But, in a direct eye-to-eye encounter, aura, will, and direct defense with the spiritual body alone were still not enough, even if you are three hundred times a Senior Shaman. He would have liked to say that he fought like a lion and held his ground like Leonidas at Thermopylae, but in reality, there was not even a blow.

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 18:19

Two invisible and intangible needles struck from her eyes, entering Stepan's spiritual body exactly where his own eyes were, entering through all the defense, readiness, and will to resist, instantly pumping Silvia's will under his defenses. A will that was full, complete, and pressing exactly on the right part of the spiritual body responsible for the cognitive functions of perceiving reality. He was able to hear the second command, which for his brain sounded unquestionable and absolute authority, but he could not hear the third “sleep”, rather he guessed it by its meaning. His mind was covered with complete and incredibly cozy darkness, in which he felt only absolute calmness and peace, nothing more. This, by the way, made Sylvia's eyes an excellent soporific and antidepressant, as well as a remedy for intrusive dreams.

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 18:29

"Wake up." It's a short command, but it's like an electric shock, and he opens his eyes in the same chair where her gaze found him, and the first access to the system clock image shows that an hour and another eight and a half minutes have passed. "The whole record is on the crystal if anything, but first try to restore the memory yourself."

Camrad_RIP 27.10.24 в 11:57

And he honestly tried, even starting to make some progress. There was nothing at all in the place of the past hour, as if he had just slept the whole time, but the constant stimulation of aura and spirit, almost drained and then completely spent reserve, which had to be restored by meta-skill, as well as a large knowledge base of how the suggestion worked, and accurate knowledge of the mechanics of her eyes played its role. However, the biggest role was played by the fact that Sylvia didn't even try to hide the fact of her attack and the missing hour of time from him, otherwise, everything would have been, well, different. However, he also didn't call on the spirits-guards, which would have prompted the events, didn't draw a pattern of powerful protection directly on his body, didn't call on any of the specific senior spirits, a lot of things “not”.

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 18:31

The images of the erased time were rather murky, and fuzzy, and he couldn't be sure he'd gotten them completely right and hadn't brought back fragments of some dream. Still, what he was doing had a lot of the same techniques used to correct dreams, only with the difference that now they were being used in reality. It took him three times as long, and he was soaking wet, but he was still able to calculate the fact that he'd been doing mostly one thing for the hour he'd been under control.

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 18:33

“Um... I read you poetry. Love poems. Petrarch and, I guess, Shakespeare. And I've translated them both into Confederate quite well, I can't believe it.” He gives his answer but immediately corrects himself. “But that's obviously not all, just most of the time, the most colorful. There's something else... I told you something, answered your questions... hmmm... no, I can't remember any more, unless I start all over again, and that's not a sure thing.”

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 18:49

"Well, you guessed part of it, I thought it would take a dozen tries, no less, so my surprise is extremely pleasant. And yes, the poems are really good, I don't know if you translated them or not. My lady's eyes do not know the sun - here I felt a note of sympathy, honestly." The shaman only rolled his eyes, for there was nothing to say because Sylvia had instilled in him an unearthly love, which he immediately said, adding to the previous report. "Yes, that's right, love, high and pure. You told me a couple of your little secrets too, but very quickly, and I deliberately hid those memories better than others. It's a shame. You could have recovered everything but fine as it is for a first try. Look through the crystal and see for yourself."

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 18:51

With the help of the summoned entity, displaying the image from the crystal on the surface of the table which was temporarily playing the role of a monitor, the young man made sure that he had mostly correctly restored the erased fragments. From what he still didn't understand, the answers to Sylvia's questions consisted of stories about how he'd lost his innocence and what kind of shameful images he'd preferred to jerking as a boy. He gave the vampiress an angry and annoyed look but didn't speak on the subject, for her smile was an invitation to get into an argument. It was his own fault for not putting in a clear enough restraining compulsion before he'd let her eyes activate, so why be angry when he'd have to be angry on himself?

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 18:55

That's how it goes. She activated her eyes, ordering him to turn off, to sleep, to freeze, not to think, or something else, a piece of time disappeared from his memory, and Stepan restored it with all his might, using his summons, even if not above a strong spirit, and each time different. It took him only three and a half days, which he had not expected, and eleven attempts. Already after the fourth of the attempts he was quite freely restoring his memory in full, but the System was silent. It only continued and continued to add crumbs of experience - development had ceased to be depraved and one of the experience multipliers had brazenly fallen out of the line. There were two things he could do here - to make the task more difficult by starting to mash large chunks of memory and with more imagination, and even more suddenly for the shaman, or to increase the number of ways in which he restores memory. He chose the latter option, trying out and consolidating four, or rather, three and a half approaches - working with dreams, pulling faded memories out of the physical brain, because even though he had been forced to forget, the neurons had not been reset, and working with the senses, making them relive those moments that had fallen from his memory, simply by feeding him a video and audio stream of faded minutes. And he did succeed, as evidenced by a new system message:

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 19:05

Received: “basic methods of work with memory based on shamanism”, “tendency to cognitive recovery”; improved work with memory; increased affinity with spirits of spheres of recollection and memory; increased probability of acquiring knowledge and properties of the branch of agent, suggestor and adept of spiritual practices.

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 18:34

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

Camrad_RIP 27.10.24 в 11:58

Knowledge and property - not bad for only three days. True, there was a lot of preparatory work and effort before these three days, but the final result is important, isn't it? Even if the knowledge is only basic. In terms of value, it comes from the higher ratings, at the level of remote control of spiritual entities, but significantly lower than spiritual operation. The property was from the simplest, only a little more valuable than the usual mark, not the general mark of the spheres, but the same mark of roots and leaves. It was also the kind of thing that a normal mage would sacrifice his best friend and three mothers-in-law for, even marrying three times for the sake of it, but it wasn't that cool compared to his other higher-ranked properties. All in all, he was satisfied and a little tired, even barely had the strength to bend Sylvia festively right on the desk of her office, almost knocking over one of her inkpots.

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 19:10

He spilled the second one, right at the moment of orgasm, so instead of one more round and going to meditation, he had to help her restore the damaged letters by removing the ink from them, and then, under Malter's accusing gaze, buy a special inkpot with expensive ink with a lot of properties, which were restored in the inkpot over time. And this even though the vampire's level had risen to forty-eighth and she could now buy her own store... Ahem, of course, no, she couldn't, because, in addition to characteristics, she needed the required number of already acquired meta-skills, not less than five. Otherwise, the skill just didn't appear in the list of available to take. In general, he had to give her the ink and a quality enchanted pen, which made Stepan feel quite stupid, actually being forced to make reparations by the forces of a vampire completely subordinate to him - that's what social kung-fu experience means!

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 19:14

It did not take long for the property to grow into the aura and the spiritual body, affecting those parts of the body responsible for thinking, cognitive functions, emotions, and perceptions. It was like putting a bag full of ice on his head and then immersing his head in warm water along with the bag and ice. The property itself did not provide any special mental defenses or innate barriers to suggestion, although such options were on the list of available to take for the free talents. No, the main advantage and effect of this auric modification was to make it much easier to remove any influences on the mental and sensual spheres - simple influences would be broken by willpower, and more complex ones would be easier to uninstall and burn out by direct influence. Not protection, but simplification of those actions that need to be taken in case they do get through the protection. As well as reducing the consequences and leveling of specific traumas, such as disordered emotions after hexes, obsessive desires, attacks of stupor and other delights of poorly or excessively hastily removed mental effect.

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 19:17

Knowledge, on the other hand, was of a rather valuable and advanced type, though it did not focus specifically on its protective role. Yes, it helped restore lost and blocked memories, making it easier to recognize substituted memories, or to tear down bookmarks that prevented one from remembering or thinking about a particular topic. Both in himself and anyone else, clearly, but Stepan's own memory was of far greater concern to him. High synergy with shamanic practices of all kinds and forms, a wide variety of invocations, including even very advanced ones, the ability to rely on witchcraft and totems, and the widest arsenal of working with the memory of not “protective” but “attacking” type.

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 19:19

Creating false memories, up to the complete rewriting of life and personality in several layers, a wide arsenal of work with multifaceted agents, stealing memories and confidential information in dreams, creating complete casts of personality and memory with the ability to modify them and bring them back, layering on the original and rewriting the original. Combining it with the already existing gifts and his own knowledge opened up such broad prospects that it became even a little embarrassing. In principle, if you pump this direction to mastery, getting into his head will be much more difficult, but much more importantly, he will open a sub-school of shamanism, witchcraft, and puppetry, which will be tied to the theft of lives and bodies. The ability to create from scratch puppets with the right set of knowledge and skills, loyalty settings, or activation tabs, and then release them into free-floating.

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 19:20

Catch a dozen vagrant mercenaries, which are not to be pitied at all, and turn them not into puppets possessed by spirits and not into mentally subordinate slaves, but literally create new personalities for them from scratch, in which there would not be the slightest trace of the past so that the tests would not show any traces of mental correction. These new ones can be made obsessive agents introduced into the lower or even middle strata of society, and there will be no fear that something will give them away. The memory of the originals will be stored in a separate folder on the desktop, so to speak. Ideally, and not scare themselves with disguises and past identities, and just take the material to work on the other side of the world and deliver to the right point, as newcomers who came to the big city to seek a better life. And it doesn't matter that the newcomers' aura resembles a living battle totem with a lot of additional functions - disguise from superficial or not-so-superficial checks is not so difficult to screw on his level and with his resources, and then you can send them on a free voyage and let them prepare a base for his possible entry into political and social life.

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 19:23

It was one thing to have an unknown, albeit powerful, lone shaman, but if he had a whole network of agents, a couple of mercenary units, and a lot of people in all places, it was a different matter. The picture was so clear that he was getting a little scared, not for himself, but of himself. He wouldn't want to be like Rumorias and his merry family, but he could just dress a little richer, put on the illusion of a merchant who had wandered into the wrong neighborhood, and simply harvest whoever came after his purse and his life. Thoughts like these, cold and calm and utterly collected made him uneasy. So far he would not be able to pull off such a project, but he would put a lot of effort into each agent. But his strength and knowledge would grow, and the gap that separated Stepan from an ordinary man without a gift and System would only get wider.

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 19:25

He hated to think of what this abyss and alienation might lead him to, what actions would seem normal and fully justified to a future him.

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 19:26

And he can't even get drunk. There's not much time anymore.

Camrad_RIP 27.10.24 в 12:00

* * *

Camrad_RIP 27.10.24 в 10:38

His return to the courtyard was quite successful in the sense that no one noticed his absence as before, not even a routine inspection by the guards. Stepan had time to start working hard, but the matter turned out to be quite mundane. Somebody had filed a complaint against Trabius for dishonestly crushing his competitors by putting some alchemical stuff in their wine barrels, which spoiled the wine and caused the customers to go to Borshakl. Hell knows, maybe it was true, but it ended with a simple conversation and a fine for some minor offense, probably made up on the spot. Just so he could pay the fine and a small amount on top of it, for the worry, to the satisfied guards and send them away. If there are a lot of oaths and ways to check the truth, then at any high level it is necessary to disguise a banal bribe with cunning verbal constructions and acting, so that you can honestly answer any questions so that there is nothing to prove.

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 16:43

However, what really excited Stepan was not the guards and their visit for the money, but something else completely unexpected. So unexpected that at first, he didn't even understand what had happened, and then he couldn't believe that he had understood. The spirits he had sent to track the path of appearance and death of each individual mouse had simply vanished without a trace. That in itself was very, very disturbing news, but what was more disturbing was that Stepan hadn't noticed it at all, absorbed in his training. They hadn't been banished or killed, their shadow-image-presence still indicated that they were fulfilling or trying to fulfill the contract and hadn't violated its terms by running away, leaving the shaman fooled. There was only one option left - sealing or trapping in the form of a spiritual pocket, and not of any type because some of them would definitely cut off the signal-communication. The shaman had a rough idea of how to pull off such a trick, especially if he was in a slightly alternate state of consciousness and couldn't keep track of his contracts to the fullest extent.

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 16:45

But still, what the fuck? This situation, which had not been funny before, was starting to become, if not dangerous, then certainly ominous. There was nothing in the courtyard that could seal the two strong ones and the crowd of minor spirits subordinate to both of them and the ones that could also hide. Stepan had scoured the entire lord's house, the most magical place on the farmstead, early in his career but found only the standard and dull household and protective charms, mostly based on the amulet circuit made personally by Maître Jasper. A quick check of the thoughts of both Trabius and his mage-lover - it took a bit of effort to stealthily cheat the defenses - revealed roughly nothing. They both didn't know that there were spirits here nor did they know the mice were obviously coming from some obscure place, considering them to be mere pests, albeit very annoying.

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 19:29

The enclosing circuit is completely reliable. The mice had not climbed through it since it had been set up, repulsed by the work of the appropriate spirits. There were no tunnels under the ground, none, except for the sewers, which Stepan had also checked, and which did not contain an army of mice. There were no underground caverns. The magical background was within normal limits, only slightly increasing in the main house and the warehouses protected by magic amulets. No curses were observed, and he could certainly recognize the witches' territory, if not level it. Everything was as normal as it could be but the mice kept coming and coming and coming. And the spirits, who were not weak, though not fighting, entities, had also disappeared somewhere, unnoticed by Stepan and before he had time to signal danger. He might have missed such a scream in a state of blood obsession, but the imprint of the cry would have remained in the corresponding totem.

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 19:32

“Nothing. It's fucking nothing. That's it. Like I'm knocking on a concrete wall." Stepan walked around the room assigned to him as if he was ready to dive into the transition at any moment and never come back, and he really was. “Maybe realistically change jobs? Now, with a normal employment history, I could find a better place. Only it's going to be a lot harder to work in a way that's less annoying, yeah.”

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 15:51

The idea of dropping everything and running away, just not staying in a dangerous place, was not the best, but very reasonable. Even if Stepan would come here from time to time, he would prefer to spend the night in the cave or at Sylvia's place. He would pump a hermit and an alphonse brunches at once, ha-ha. Putting humor aside, he wasn't going to stay here, especially now that the unknown something with mouse coloring might well start looking more closely at Stepan. He didn't want to disappear one night just like his spirits had. Something hiding so well might very well stand a chance at a surprise attack on the relaxed Senior Shaman. The thought of how many times he'd already slept here in a completely non-combative state, such as while absorbing new knowledge, made him uncomfortable. The suspicion that it was not normal to find so many adventures in the middle of nowhere! Yes, the shit with the mice had obviously been here for a long time and hadn't done anything sinister, or had done it discreetly, but why the fuck had he gotten a job here out of all of Dantmark? Maybe he's got the probabilities of the “see some shit” option really tweaked in his System?

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 15:57

Unpleasant thoughts, which he didn't want to think about, primarily because realizing them, whether his guesses were true or not, wouldn't change anything for him. Instead of boring theoretical and philosophical reflections, he simply asked Sylvia, figuratively speaking, for a set of bedding and a spare mattress, dragged them to his shelter, and slept there in peace. He went to the courtyard only for a snack and occasional bouts of wanting to talk to the men, since he now had a nest of sexy bloodsuckers to talk to, and they could tell him more and more interesting things. However, the latter was too washed up in the head. Even though it was not visible outwardly. Subconsciously the Earthman realized that this was not exactly the type of conversation he was looking for.

Camrad_RIP 27.10.24 в 11:40

He didn't talk to the vampires much, concentrating on the calls of the anti-demon brigade. His large reserves of system currency, which he'd added after his express training and the completed task, allowed him to buy the rarest reagents, so he didn't skimp, though he probably should have. He spent so much on summons that it would have been enough for another special lot, not reagents, but useful ones. However, there were no useful ones, even the Autogoddess didn't offer any temptations, except for one very funny statuette with a shadow of some divine essence or godlike spirit. The thing could automatically hide itself from view and follow the victim if he decided to move or simply go into the next room. This piece of art in the form of a faceless woman captured in the moment of orgasm, clutching her breasts and spreading her legs wide, gradually made any victim very docile, affectionate, and willing to do anything for whoever put this statuette under her. Wherever she went, that thing would be standing by her side - by her bed, in the corner of her desk, at a table in a restaurant, anywhere. Completely unnoticeable, perceived as a normal part of the interior and beating through any defense impact, but, alas, only disposable. Initially faceless and average statuette gradually takes the features of its victim and, upon completion of the creation of the ideal image, this artifact disappears, dissolving in the streams of ether without the slightest trace.

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 09:03

Such a trick, stretched over a couple of months, no less, could easily pierce even a female master, and even a master, even if with a bias in mentalism or shamanism, with a full guarantee of close to a hundred percent. Well, if by chance some archmagister or divine avatar does not come to visit and start checking, looking for just such a specific influence-presence. It was the most powerful of the toys offered so far, both MILF and System ones, even though it was disposable, it still had the same, not the most pleasant perfume. Stepan did not buy this thing and did not put it on the waiting list for purchase. And the other lots did not arouse enthusiasm and desire to buy them in spite of everything.

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 09:05

Some kind of very evil staff, a crooked and maimed branch stick that works on primitive and damn powerful witchcraft, allowing you to stick that stick into the ground and create a zone of control for yourself at once as if you'd been creating it for decades. Only each activation requires a huge amount of power and, which is a key disadvantage, a bloody sacrifice, and the younger the victim, the more unspent life in it, the longer the zone of power over the land will be. In the forests would be a real imba, the good thing is there is also an emphasis on the dark branches of druidism, but outside them also harsh shit, everywhere except the Underworld. The effect of the ritual needs the sky, even if not open or hidden by the ceiling of the cave, but it is the sky, not the embrace of the Underworld.

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 11:30

Totem with an incredibly strong spirit, on the border between elder and higher, which has just a huge reserve of power and very interesting combat abilities, but fundamentally attacks everyone except those who summoned him immediately after the appearance in the real world. No allies or notions of peaceful neutrals - to use only in the wilderness or if you want to organize the funniest war crime with the sawing of all living things in a considerable radius. It won't piss out a city, of course. The tower of Magister Miller he will not chew up, not immediately for sure, despite the very overpumped combat abilities, even for his rank excellent and very exotic, and the palace too will be repulsed, but the neighborhoods, especially poor and poorly protected, will become a huge burial ground. Spirit, by the way, belongs to the sphere of life and ether, and his attacks will not have any external manifestation at all, he will just tear thin bodies to shreds, partially eating them, like a huge leech-octopus-polyp-hell-knows-what. Outwardly it will look as if the person just fell, started beating in an epileptic fit, and died, that's it.

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 17:06

It seemed all the options were attractive, but in reality, each had some fatal flaw, and he didn't need the reagents yet. He was already growing up to the level where some of these items could be used in theory, but only in theory, because in practice he would not be able to perform such risky rituals for another fifteen or twenty levels. Well, at the current rate of development, if there will not fall another deed for which the System will reward separately and additionally. But, frankly speaking, let it better not fall out. To hell with the reward, the calmer and bloodless his development is, the happier Stepan is.

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 17:09

Returning to the topic of anti-infernal summons, the young man didn't hold back, donating money and summoning the most successful, resilient, and skilled entities specializing in the destruction of infernal creatures. In total, he limited himself to three main groups, independent of each other, but able to support each other. Separately, he tried to summon an elder, also very old and tough, but despite the enormous amount of resources invested, the summoning failed. The entity didn't show up to the call, but a whole bunch of hungry trifles came, from which he had to protect the offerings and defend himself. In the end, he was able to offset the cost a little by giving the offerings to his retinue. Even if not quite suitable, but still very valuable and “tasty”. Such a sudden failure in the middle of nowhere, though not the first in his career and quite expected purely statistically. The spirit didn't always come when called, often choosing not to show up even when called. But it was still frustrating because he'd summoned entities with similar quirks before, but he'd gotten it right then and there, and now he hadn't gotten a good roll of the dice.

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 17:22

However, a single creature, even if it was from a medium division or even a medium-high division, would be enough for the crowd of strong ones he had summoned. No minutiae, just spirits powerful for their rank and perfectly controlled. The first pack consisted of twins, like a trio of piglets. Only if the piggies could literally redirect their wounds and deaths at each other, dividing everything into three, this pack was capable of rising in full strength if even one entity survived. Not in battle and not immediately, but it was difficult to destroy this thing, and even more difficult to destroy it with infernal magic. In fact, it was their resistance to the effects on the soul and deep layers of the spiritual body that made them so invulnerable. It was as if they were hiding their core essence in a kind of spiritual pocket distributed among all of them.

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 17:26

Eight entities that looked like pearls or spheres of nacreous liquid, humming and rippling. Low-vulnerability, high-resistance, easily coordinated, able to shoot particles from their bodies or release blades and tentacles from the same nacreous mass of non-matter. The properties of their bodies allowed them to do more than just damage infernal creatures, any spirits could do that, to some degree or another. No, coming into contact with this viscous energy and spiritual matter broke the connections between layers and sections of subtle bodies. This is unpleasant to anyone, but it is demons, with their multi-fragment entities, which contain a bunch of stolen, taken away or honestly bought souls, from this method suffer the most from this method. Their stock of souls begins to shake like crystal in the closet if a freight train passes near the closet literally a couple of meters away. Up to the point that using these souls, turning to the knowledge and skills of their past owners, feeding from them, or transferring to them part of the damage, becomes difficult, dangerous, if not impossible. This was complemented by excellent skills in setting up general group fields of closed type, which do not allow to get a feed from Inferno and weaken the connection of the demon with the homeland, making it even harder for him to escape back.

Camrad_RIP 28.10.24 в 17:28

As the shaman was sure, this pack could replace several squads of demon fighters quite successfully, and how much for such a contract these demon fighters would pay... depended on how much the world suffered from the demon infestation, but in any case a lot. For the next contract, properly transferred and secured, they would pay more, because the creatures had a very useful property. This pack consisted of six formless entities, whose indistinct images resembled a clump of not even threads, but lines, which stay only and only in 2D format, moving along the planes and with great difficulty chasing the enemy in the air. But these lines could divide into parts and multiply, or even unite into a single entity, which was quite capable of being a weak elder.

Camrad_RIP 31.10.24 в 18:20