Готовый перевод Настучать в бубен / Hit the tambourine: Глава 20-3

Chapter 20-3

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The basement hall for combat training in this mansion was very good, as much as thirty by thirty meters with a high ceiling and all the necessary strengthening and isolating enchantments on all surfaces. It was not made by vampires. It was given to them as is. Initially this place was a ritual-cult hall, where the long-dead head of the family of the current formal owners of this mansion did his dark deeds. Actually, for the elimination of that head, saving the remains of the family from being sacrificed to some very cunning demonic creature, and also for keeping silent about the details of that story, then not yet local Sylvia Malter who had just arrived in Danmark with her chicks, this house was granted as a gift.

The bloodsuckers had painstakingly cleaned, scoured, destroyed, and melted down even the most valuable relics of gold. The creatures of the domain of Greed were worshipped here, so a lot of material was wasted. They buried the melted relics in a deep pit, carefully shielding themselves from the greed inspired by the glitter of the metal. The hall itself, properly fortified and insulated, they have used for training ever since. There were few places in the city where one could safely use blood-type combat magic or perform various rituals without fear of being exposed to the signalling ritual stars of a magical tower or palace. Or rather, such places are not few. Every normal magician has a training room, only most of them are well known to the Secret Guard. And this place, despite the many years that Sylvia had spent in the city, was hardly known to the same de Fell, who sincerely believes that she knows everything about her ‘almost tame’ bloodsucker.

"I'm ready, here we go." He said in a calm and businesslike tone, nodding to Sylvia, who was concentrating and holding the healing alchemy kit, wearing a closed suit of armour that looked more like light armour and was not a badly enchanted set of uniforms for Secret Guard operatives, albeit an outdated one. "If anything, the first thing to do is to wait until I break contact with the spirit. Before that, don't make any sudden movements, or he might also consider it an attack and attack first, without removing my body."

In response, a concentrated nod from the now not at all seductive big-breasted bloodsucker, who was now in the inanimate phase and had lost much of her attractiveness. Pale, even paler than usual, completely immovable, her face like a mask, her whole face like a taut string. She wasn't seductive with her big, pale tits, but intimidating, as a higher vampire should be. Her fledglings didn't even respond with nods, taking up positions behind their superior's back and preparing to help in case Stepan screwed up. The summoning itself is not so dangerous, no matter how absurd it may sound in relation to the higher entity, the protection of the hall should be enough, there is no need to go underground. The spirit is summoned directly into his body and, as long as everything is executed correctly, not much is shown to the outside. Yes, a direct gaze will definitely lead to the disclosure of even a talented student or a simple adept, at the same time giving those grey hair and stuttering at the sight of such an aura, but the release of power into the surrounding space is minimal. This is a consequence of the very nature of the Goat, whose spiritual body has a very high density and concentration, and therefore gives very little, as for its power, outbursts of energy into the surrounding space.

The shaman is dressed only in wide, huge trousers, temporarily tied with a rope, and otherwise completely barefoot, naked, and slightly frozen. Because there is no heating in the underground training hall for the undead. He begins the call unhurriedly and cautiously. He could hear the summoned entity responding, moving towards him like an arrow. If it weren't for the contract and the security guarantees given by that contract, the very image of Goat's imminent and inevitable approach would have made one empty his bowels involuntarily. There was something in this entity, an entity not aggressive and not evil in itself, even a little playful and positive, something that made even a master of shamanism with an overpumped spirit involuntarily shiver. The spirit approached swiftly, and the shaman's eyes, seeing beyond the real world and looking into the worlds of the spheres, saw how it was at the very edge of reality, abruptly stopping its approach, slowing down and beginning to prepare for a soft and unhurried entry, though it could burst into the body quickly, combat-style.

It was as if the shaman was looking under his feet, not lowering his gaze or even opening his eyes, which were closed in slumber, but seeing a huge and somehow sharp, dangerously nondescript horned figure covered with white wool moving under the thin film of the stone floor, making itself comfortable. The shaman's eyes, his cone of spiritual perception rather than real eyes, meet the spirit's eyes, big, clear and not scary in any way, but frightening to the point of shivering in the knees. Eye to eye, perception to perception, they come together and touch each other's essence with their gazes, and then, as if they embrace each other and then, there are no Stepan and Goat separately, there are only them, but united in a temporary union of two personalities and essences. Pain comes distantly, but it is not the agony of death or injury, but only one consequence of the changing body. Average height ceases to be average when the body gains at least half a metre in height, the bones and muscles expand, the rope supporting too big trousers bursts, and the trousers also begin to tear, holding in place at the last moment.

The body is covered with white, even snow-white wool, long and tangled, unkempt in some way, except that it is not material, but phantom, moving in the invisible wind, covering the body, which is spread out to the sides, with a cocoon and armour. The body itself is not completely material, but there is more matter in it than in the weightless woollen cover, except that the cover itself, being phantom, retains a strange materiality. The flesh on the feet is flowing and becoming stony, and instead of them there are two heavy hoofs, which are black spots on the snow-white background, while two long straight horns stretching from the head, adding thirty-five or even forty centimetres of height of the absolute blackness. The horns are both goat-like and not, too straight and too different, sinister and wrong. The shaman looks at himself through the eyes of the spirits summoned beforehand, and their understanding tells him, whispers, screams in his ears - one blow of his hoof will break the defence of the same anteroom, one poke with the horn will cut the flesh through the knight's armour, through the dragon's scales.

His face had become distorted, acquiring animal and goat-like features, not ugly, but even beautiful in some respects, only unkempt and unpleasant, giving off an ominous valley. From the chin falls a thin and the same phantom snow-white beard, tangled, long, up to the bottom of the neck, spread wide, thin and even funny. The lower jaw moved funny goatishly, becoming a little smaller and flatter, the shifted features of the face became a little schoolboyish and cheerful, but behind this cheerfulness there was bloody anger and readiness to explode in all directions with true ultra-violence. And the eyes, the eyes changed, became bright blue, like two pieces of sky, pure and innocent, like two candy-cars, but the pupils on the lens are somehow wrong, like an hourglass, placed horizontally. And this gaze, the gaze of the one who looks through the eyes together with the shaman, assesses the environment, tenaciously and attentively to details, examines everything around, as if through a scope. This gaze made the spirits nervous, and Stepan, who was looking through them, and the frozen bloodsuckers, which would have forgotten about breathing, if they were no longer alive and did not need that breath.

"Impressive, Pann." Only Sylvia dares to overcome the pressurising presence of even a non-aggressive Goat, but even her inanimate voice, devoid of any emotion or colouring, conveys a part of the underlying fear, unnatural and incomprehensible even to her. "I admit, it's hard to bear the presence of such an entity so close to me."

"Khme-e-e-e-e!" Stepan, who was amused by the fact that at this moment Sylvia did not even think or dare to call him a pet, even though he had not imposed a direct prohibition on her, tried to reply with an ironic laugh, but instead he only managed to mutter, both amused and mocking, but there was something unnaturally nauseating in it, frightening to the point of stammering. "Who are you talking to, me-e-e-eh?"

Again, breaking off into a bleat instead of a simple ‘me,’ he suppressed the urge to cough, clearing his throat, which was fine as it was, and listened to himself instead. The spirit had settled into his body snugly enough, neither harming anything nor doing anything, waiting patiently for further orders with a sense of slight boredom. But even his doing nothing was weighing down on his shoulders like a multi-tonne steel weight. Even his mere presence, without active actions, was eating away his reserve little by little, took away a huge chunk of the resource of concentration. The shaman's eyes saw a lot, the spirit saw every speck of dust, saw every drop of blood magic that flowed through the frozen veins of the vampiresses, heard how upstairs and outside the barriers of the ritual hall, outside the mansion in general, some merchant scolding his coachman for a broken wheel, inhaled the air, distinguishing in it innumerable odours. And also perception was different, faster, even if the world did not slow down, but still. Now vampires would not surprise their duo with speed. Now they would be frankly slow for him.

The shaman takes a step forward, backward, tries to jump from side to side, involuntarily crumbling the hard floor with his hooves, does somersaults on the spot, feeling in his body both strength and agility, and coordination impossible for a human. A moment later, he experiences Goat's only special skill, for a moment as if letting the world feel his and his weight, not breaking through the boundary of worlds as ordinary spirits do - noticeable, difficult, costly, and at the risk of being caught in a moment of vulnerability - but squeezing through it naturally, so that a fraction of a moment later to become weightless-light again and fall back into Reality. Before his puppets could blink, he had shifted three metres to the left, transporting rapidly and leaving virtually none of the disturbances characteristic of teleportation in the fabric of space and reality. He was here, he was gone, he dived into the Spheres, and then he was thrown back out like a float. And both diving and surfacing were completely controllable. He could clearly trace where he wanted to surface, and appear exactly where needed. He ducked and surfaced again, only now he was back in the same position, throwing a few punches into the air.

The shaman's attention focused on his hands. On the hands, covered with slightly shorter and stiffer snow-white hair, still as untidy and tangled as ever, on the long and thick nails, which were not claws but still dangerous, cracked and very thick, and also long, as if no one had cut them for a long time, and as black as horns and hooves. He involuntarily noted that even though he had never attended a martial arts class, his movements and kicks were correct. Not only could he hit hard and fast, but he could also hit the right way, even though his movements didn't have the feel of a martial style, of a perfected school of the art of combat. It was pure practice, the habits and tricks that come from the most primitive understanding of combat, from one's own mistakes, from the experience of the one who stayed on his feet where all the others had fallen.

Unwillingly humming, which made him mumble again, making that sickening and frightening sound, the shaman immediately repeated his trick of carrying the jump, shifting again and again, jumping all over the room and striking the void. He was transported right at the moment of a step, in a leap, in a somersault, in a pirouette, time after time, continuously shifting and as if fighting an invisible opponent. The reserve is rapidly emptying. Such stunts require the expenditure of strength, and Goat takes it generously from the shaman's reserve. Spirit fighting at the expense of only the shaman's reserves, although, in principle, he is ready to use his own. If it is necessary to strengthen himself even more, fighting against something very strong and no less fast. At the same time, with these pirouettes Stepan tries to control the summoned spirits and summon new ones, calling pre-selected contracts. This is not easy. It is very hard to filter his dialog so as not to affect Goat, not to interfere with him, and not pass a particle of images of the shit planted in the body to the rest of the spirits.

But it works, slowly with reservations, albeit barely a third, even a quarter, rather, of what he could do in normal conditions and without using the support of the hall of rituals, but it works. And then, having already spent about a quarter of his strength in about fifteen seconds, he stops, abruptly and quickly, drawing furrows in the stone floor with his hooves, glaring at the vampire girls who had picked him up. Sylvia still instinctively wary, had already pulled herself together, looking at him with a gentle yet commanding smile of contentment, as if she had summoned Goat. Stepan only cleared his throat, for fear of vomiting again, giving the order everyone expected.

"Let's get started." Even without the breakdown of voice, there is something goatish and disgustingly good-natured, disgustingly cheerful, wrong at its very core, in his voice. "Attack."

There was no need to beg the vampires. Before he could finish speaking, Jaspera, Lemira, Rowena, and Sylvia were already rushing to attack, blood rushing through their bodies and covering themselves with the rapidly appearing scarlet protection of their Bloody Armor. Rapid for Stepan in his normal state, but now, with the essence and perception of the Goat coming through him, he realizes that he would have had time to nail a couple of them even before they finished manifesting the Armor. Just rip their heads off and that would be the end of it. Even the non-live wouldn't save them. Not from the wounds that Goat's hands would inflict. The spirit isn't too pleased that the fight with the bloodsuckers isn't real, that it can't seize control of the contractor's physical body and slaughter all of the attackers, but that discontent only plagues the background. The entity does not seek to disobey orders and is perfectly discerning of all that is required of him. He is unaware of the concept of training sparring, the very notion of training is unknown to him. For him there is only combat, either he is there or he is not. But the spirit is still superior, intelligent, and able to listen to the dialog of the shaman, and the shaman is not in vain carries the title of senior and pumps the spiritual dialog, so that accidental death of some of the dolls by pure carelessness can not be feared.

All four of them move unhurriedly, even slowly, but in fact they burst in a rapid spurt, blurring to the sight. The Goat-Stepan simply goes deep in the Spheres evading the general impact of blood magic and appearing behind their backs. These strikes are at minimum power so as not to damage the hall's defenses, but under the pre-determined conditions, blood arrows count as full-powered spears or burning blots. Carefully, not using kicks, deliberately dulling the aggressiveness of his aura and the piercing destructiveness of his coat, he delivers a savory slap to Jaspera's luscious and lush ass. Her Bloody Armor, the weakest of the four, clearly used more for self-cleaning than combat training, bursts like a soap balloon. The vampire opened her mouth in a painful and frightened hiss, was tossed into the air, almost up to the ceiling, which here is three and a half meters high, sending her flying in a beautiful parabola straight to the wall. At the same time, she broke her pelvic bones and beat up her undead muscles, even though they were stiffer than wood in the combat state.

//“Oops.” - That was all the shaman thought when he realized that even after deliberately weakening himself by more than half, he had only miraculously not caused any real serious injuries, including to the subtle body of the boob vampire. - “Okay, we need to recalculate the power commensuration. Goat seems to have undocumented advantages to breaking through barriers.”

The spirit inside him was pleased. He didn't like the profanity of the slaughter, but he appreciated the pleasant thought of his strength, and the crunch of Jasper's pelvic bones echoed in him the cheerful and mocking notes of another's pain. The bloodsucker that had slammed into the wall hissed, rolling away and pouring bloody power into her wounds, regenerating rapidly and making no attempt to move, admitting she was out much to her relief. Rowena must be very jealous of her, because her Stepan the Goat chooses as his next target. He starts his movements as soon as he realizes he hasn't accidentally killed Jaspera. The goat spirit leads his movements. Impossibly bent at the waist, he lets the swift blow of Lemira's Bloody Whip and the sweep of Sylvia's Bloody Claws which goes into maximum acceleration, moving only a little slower than Stepan the Goat.

The movement of his hand and nails shattered the Lash into scarlet dust and droplets of blood that had become ordinary. A momentary duck and dive let a swift and very fast Bloody Drop fly at the speed of a bullet, allowing it to pass through the place where Stepan had been gone for a moment, so that he and Goat would appear there immediately after the projectile had passed. Rowena, to her credit, tried to spit out a torrent of bloody crap mixed with Necros-soaked water, but Goat took control again bending backwards and then twisting around so that he was close enough to poke, not with a fingernail, but with the pad of his finger right into Rowena's forehead. Her Scarlet Armor weakened for the chance to spit out a surprisingly good attack. Her head snapped back, nearly breaking her neck, her jaw snapped audibly, slamming shut, bits of cracked fangs flew, and her body staggered to its feet, receiving not a concussion but a destabilization of auric and bloody acceleration. In a second motion, the Goat gently and carefully grabbed his victim's arm, throwing her straight at Sylvia.

She did not show any maternal feelings and did not take her daughter in her arms, ducking to the floor, letting the flying and hissing body pass over her, allowing it to slam against the wall and slide down it in the company of Jaspera, who was also watching the sparring with interest. She ducked again, and Lemira, who had been chosen to be the sacrifice, countered with an afterburner and a blind punch, counting on the fact that this time Goat would strike in a similar way, from the blind spot, while simultaneously closing by Lemira from Sylvia. She had calculated it correctly, but she was also calculating by Goat. The entity's perception, seeing the blood flowing under the vampire's skin, recognized the spell that was about to break, and so it appeared only for a moment. He let it strike, not even with a claw, but with a Roman gladius growing from her fingers, where it flickered only for a moment to appear in front of the face of Lemira, who was striking behind her back. With a deft swing of his foot he kicked his opponent's legs. He didn't hit her with his hoof, or the bloodsucker would have been left without legs and would have regenerated the torn off leg, but with his shin, but her Armor, the strongest after Sylvia's, barely withstood, cracking and crumbling into scarlet dust, protecting her legs from injury. The vampiress, tossed into the air, stared helplessly at Goat, who had disappeared in another transfer, and felt the bones of her pelvis cracking but holding up as the second slap on her ass sent her flying to the wall.

Lemira, receiving a more measured slap. She managed not to be injured at all, aside from a soft tissue bruise on her tight ass, but she didn't continue the fight, recognizing that a full-fledged punch would have finished her. And there were two of them left, Stepan and Sylvia. That was why the shaman had ordered the spirit to take up the defense, not end the fight. Also to the silent disapproval of the spirit, because the entity did not accept the stretching of the battle without a purpose. But the shaman wanted to see what a full-fledged Higher Vampiress could do to him. And Sylvia, who had reached the limit of her acceleration, was showing her class, attacking with claws, blades flying out of every pore of her body, spits and exhalations of scarlet mist, and a very strong armor of blood. The Goat reacted without laziness, without disdain, only with seemingly careless unkemptness, like the beast he was in no small part, dodging and blocking not beautifully but utilitarian, deceptively clumsily taking claws to his wrists. And attacking back, not slowing down intentionally, but not accelerating to full speed either. Sylvia, whose face was as contorted as Edward's had been when he'd become the hungry mask of an undead creature, barely had time to dodge.

The attacks were not exactly masterful, but always appropriate and correctly applied, as it happens in attacking beasts, which a hundred times one trick is repeated and thus honed to perfection. She dodged the first four swings, bending as if her spine had decided to take a day off, using every moment for a possible counterattack, which the Goat dodged with the same laxity and false awkwardness, swinging on two hooves and mangling the stone of the floor even more. The fifth swing of the palm of his hand forced Sylvia to twist, turning her claws on her left hand into a longer and tighter lash-blade that made Goat step back and throw back his head so that the blade passed within a millimeter of his neck, hitting for the first time not the body of the spirit-shaman, but the halo of tangled and already dirty, stone-crumbed snow-white fur that covered him. The goat didn't like it, so he attacked back a little faster, though within the limits of what the shaman allowed him, dragging Stepan's body to the right position and hitting his hand from above, as if intending to slap Sylvia on the head.

Strike stumbled into a hard block of crossed arms, where the bloodsucker had maximized the protection and strength of her Scarlet Armor. The defense shimmered, spewing out a cloud of out-of-control scarlet mist, in which Sylvia tried to hide, breaking the distance. TFalling out of the cloud she was able to block another blow. This one caught her in the act of stepping when her legs wouldn't hold her steady enough, which resulted in not flying, but sliding along the floor. The glide turned into a somersault and a controlled fall, in the course of a Sylvia flickered, trying to evade a follow-up attack, but Goat's and Stepan's senses in symbiosis easily discerned the real silhouette of her opponent, trying to give a third slap on her ass, but failed, at the last moment she twisted again, Again ignoring the presence of bones in the body, and then tried to respond. The palm covered with a scarlet glove struck against the attack of Goat, almost managing to hit Stepan's altered body on the inner side of the elbow. The duo of the shaman and his summon had to duck again, giving the vampiress time to get to her feet and cover herself again with the Scarlet Armor, baring her fangs and letting out a loud, mind-numbing and terrifying hiss.

Such tricks didn't work on Stepan, and it didn't work on his symbiosis with Goat. A moment later, Sylvia had to block the goat's fist again with both hands. He lunged to the left, pushing the vampiress's defensive body into a short flight to hit her right before she could dodge. But she was able to release two scarlet lashes, one attacking the eyes of the appearing Goatman, and the other clawing into the already damaged floor and pulling herself out from under the attack. At the same time she releases a wide scarlet cloud, albeit with a minimum of force, but according to the terms of the battle, it is like a full power strike, forcing the Goat to move again, emerging at a new point. Except now it has a limited number of possible directions of emergence. And the new attack is met with a stare, piercing and overwhelming, forcing him to freeze and withdraw his spirit, to kneel and kiss Sylvia's pale tits.

Alas for her, it could only work on Stepan alone. Their symbiosis with Goat, they were taking too much from each other, so instead of bowing, it only caused a brief stupor. Very brief, less than a moment, even with all the speed of a vampire, will not be able to turn it into a victory. Now Goat had to defend himself, directly blocking the blow of Scarlet Claws on his face with an incredibly black horn, bowing his head and tucking his knees. Sylvia's hand was not maimed by the contact with the horn, material and immaterial in equal measure, equally dangerous and deadly. She didn't maim it, she managed to pull her palm away, and the bloody spell only broke along its length, as if Sylvia had tried to strike glass tubes on a steel crowbar. Her real claws, which the dainty hand had turned into, didn't reach the horn, or it would have been a fingernail clipping for sure

The spirit swayed habitually on its hooves, again giving the impression of almost falling down in a loss of balance, and then lifted one leg, pushing off and twisting on the second hoof, almost burying itself in the stone, to dodge a Scarlet Arrow that almost hit her stomach, to disappear again and reappear on the left, not attacking at all, disappearing again, reappearing on the right and hitting the buttocks of Sylvia, who had turned back to the previous exit point, throwing her up and destroying the scarlet armor, or rather, breaking it at one particular point. Sylvia used levitation and full weight reduction, hovering in weightlessness to pull herself up to the ceiling with another sliver, spitting a Scarlet Bullet at Goat on the ground. She was very surprised when he appeared next to her, also standing on the ceiling. After all, he was now not only flesh, but also spirit, both of them in such a state the gravity is not a law, but a recommendation.

Sylvia pushes herself off the ceiling, bringing herself back to the normal dimension and trying to get closer to the floor and away from Stepan, but he manages to reach out and grab her by the collar of her costume with his long paw, ruining it hopelessly and mentally hoping that Sylvia will have a replacement. The bloodsucker showed no pity for the outfit, instantly modifying the scarlet cover as it sliced off some of the fabric, which, along with the jerk of her and Stepan, left a massive piece of fabric in the hands of the possessed body, and Sylvia landed on the floor partially undressed. Her enormous pale tits were completely naked and swayed excitedly under the influence of gravity, despite the dust and stone chips covering them. In another situation this sight would have made Stepan freeze, or even cancel the battle by ordering the vampiress to smear slippery oil on those tits and jerk him off with lush tenderness until Stepan got bored. In the current situation, Stepan the Goat only muttered something mocking, appearing beside him and lazily attacking again, deflecting the blows of scarlet magic just as lazily.

He'd already spent more than two-thirds of his reserve, though the battle hadn't even taken half a minute, most of it spent clashing with Sylvia. She was in a state of rage, almost ecstasy, not erotic but martial, the ecstasy of realizing her powers. After she had been strengthened by the shaman's actions, Sylvia had no chance to test her strength in practice. Training with the fledglings hadn't yielded normal results. And here she was holding the pace of an order of magnitude more dangerous opponent, and did it successfully! Yes, the shaman did not use the most dangerous tricks, consciously held back and did not finish the fight where they could, avoided attacks with hooves, horns, and claws, but still Sylvia held on and managed to counterattack. And the shaman, who caught the synergy of his mentor's skills and combat tricks, masterfully kept her on the very edge of defeat, forcing her to find a new path time after time, forcing her to strain all her strength and reserves to keep up the pace.

And so, after another five seconds, after exchanging a few tacts and still forcing the shaman to use a meta-skill to replenish his reserve, she jumped back, bringing her arms to her chest in a cross. It wasn't an attempt to cover her pale tits, no, just the analogue of raising her arms upwards to signify an admission of defeat. Her face was contorted in a hungry grimace and it didn't immediately disappear even after activating her meta-skill, which allowed instant blood recovery. But as soon as she exhaled and brought her face into a more human shape, her scarlet eyes widened and then narrowed to a point, and she sighed in shock, looking somewhere inside herself. And the shaman, who knew that facial expression firsthand, realised even without peeking at the status or through the doll that someone had just taken a level. Given that her level had been forty-ninth until recently, the new level could give her a super-property, by the way.

"I, oh, I've taken a new step, Pann." She said, looking nowhere with a lost gaze, ignoring her fledglings, who were slowly bringing themselves to order, huddled together at the entrance to the enclosed hall. "And I received gifts from the one who bestowed her favour on you, my good one. Let's finish this, I can't stand the urge to accept these gifts."

She had clearly stopped the urge to call him a pet at the last moment, which was the best indication of how impressed she was with Goat. Stepan realized the test was really over and he would like to rest. He recorded a successful symbiosis with a higher spirit of the combat type, closed his eyes and began to break contact with the spirit. The entity left without special effects and farewells, with a slight irritation at the profanation of a normal massacre, to which he was called. However, without negativity, he said goodbye to the contractor and indicated his readiness to come to him next year. The Shaman was not going to wait that long, intending to use the contract book renewal token at the first need for such a powerful trump card.

The first sensation of losing contact with the spirit was the savage pain of a body changing back, where every muscle was stretched and almost torn. A normal shaman would have come down with a fever and then treated the injuries of the body, which were far more numerous than the overstretched aura. Stepan had deliberately focused on saving the subtle body at the expense of the physical one, and now the reckoning had come. And it was gone as soon as he used the healing meta-skill on himself, then on Jaspera, who was more traumatised than the others, and finally on Rowena, though her teeth were only slightly damaged. The tiredly exhaled financier returned to her lively appearance and smiled gratefully at him, demonstratively clutching her large pale tits with her hands and raising and lowering them as if to show how she would thank him. The rest of the bloodsuckers were not seriously injured at all. Even Rowena would heal her fangs in half an hour, and all of them, congratulating each other on the successful completion of the training, cast lots and then went about their business, leaving Lemira, armed with two amulets with stone control charms, to fix the floor and walls and ceiling. The rune cloaking array is hidden at least half a metre deep, and the top layer of stone is regularly destroyed here, but usually not so seriously. Afterwards, a couple of blood-sworn maids, the daughter and mother, will come here, clean and wash everything, and then they will forget their visit.

They used to lose a whole day afterwards, which gave them a day off, because weaving blood still strains the mind and makes the body weak. Stepan, at Sylvia's request and, more surprisingly, with the sincere consent of the servants, who had been working for Sylvia for the third generation, worked with them and ensured a more gentle regime of memory wiping. It was only three hours' work, most of which he spent on checking the existing bookmarks and adjusting his work to them so that there would be no conflict.

He went upstairs, in company with Sylvia, who had successfully cleaned herself with scarlet armour and still had not covered her tits, to a warm bath, dinner and pleasant conversation. Not his level, but still interesting, for Sylvia, in a way, was also a part of him, fully belonging to him. The vampiress walked in silence, only nodding at the comments of her fledglings, who sincerely praised her and admired how much stronger she had become. Though Rowena had little of that sincerity and a lot of envy, so if Stepan hadn't encouraged her, she might have done something stupid. And the shaman was also silent, pondering whether or not Sylvia would be given a second class choice? Judging by the fact that on the fiftieth they didn't give her a second specialisation, she would have to wait until the sixteenth. This was confirmed a moment later by the help. The members of his group, if they didn't have specialisation initially due to the peculiarities of their training, were given the same as him, on the twenty-fifth. But the additional class only on the sixtieth, while the thirtieth will give some other bonus, but without specifics. Another important thing was the lack of bonuses for a ten in some characteristic, instead of a ten it was necessary to gain fifteen, and only the first two characteristics that reached this value were counted.

"Oh, pet, it was worth it, and I don't care about the damn robes, I have a few more of them." Sylvia, seated in her chair and not even thinking of covering her naked breasts, was so bursting with positive emotions that she seemed almost alive. "I swear on my blood, my darling, I would give myself to you right now, maybe even letting you do more than just pleasure my flower with your tongue, but this gift is too tempting. So tantalising that you'll have to wait, but for now, here you go. But, please, be kind, silent and without moaning, don't distract me."

Before he could realise what Sylvia was talking about, a piece of perfumed and feminine-smelling fabric flew into his face. Perplexed at the dark purple panties with some lace, and also amazed that Sylvia had put them on under her now completely removed battle suit, he didn't immediately realise what she was expecting from him. It took him at least five seconds to realise.

///“Oh, right, I am, after all, according to her beliefs, now obligated to experience incredible passion and embark gratefully on satisfying myself right on this particular piece of closet.” - Shaking his head, he convinced Sylvia through the doll that was exactly what he was doing now, putting the panties aside. - “And that's exactly what I didn't put into her, all this just her fantasies and desires, which if she were really my mistress, she would definitely fulfill.”

He put the underwear aside and added another suggestion, which would prevent her gift from being seen as unstained by the grateful pet, he hardly looked away from the huge pale tits, which he wanted to oil and fuck till morning, and then he watched Sylvia's train of thought and her choices. He had to check the award, too, for he'd missed Singha's token once and it cost him a lot. Yes, the vampiress had a lot of compulsions, they covered each other, and it would not even occur to her, for example, to change something in Stepan's head, because he, from her point of view, was perfectly subordinated, and to change it further would only ruin it. But some Autogoddess-style crap, not dangerous and not lethal, might well come to him. The tokens had a very special effect, and he wasn't sure if his compulsions would take them into account.

At level fifty, Sylvia was given two units of characteristics, one unit each in Constitution and Sensitivity, according to her class scheme. At the sixtieth level, she'd also get a plus to her Resistance. But the choices of properties made Stepan chuckle maliciously and gloatingly, though mentally, because it was nice to watch someone else suffer from what tormented him. Personally, he was not going to influence the choice, not knowing which of the options would be more optimal, and Sylvia was torn between almost six dozen proposed super-properties, realising that there was only one thing to choose. Most of these properties added only two characteristic points each to different attributes, mostly Constitution and the same Sensitivity with resistance, but not all of them, not at all. Some gave three at a time, but such and such restricted in other ways or gave other nasty debuffs like increased vulnerability to holiness or the sun, increased thirst, or increased risk of loss of control. Others gave only a single one, but their overall effect was as useful as possible, like the property that allowed rebirth in a pre-prepared body of properly treated chick with certain stipulations.

There was one property, the system called ‘Scarlet Nightmare Shape’, which gave five points to attributes at once, without having particularly negative vulnerabilities, giving greater resistance to all sorts of specific anti-vampire crap, increasing blood magic, charms and opening access to the magic of darkness. But this stuff distorted the appearance in the manner of Nosferatu from the World of Darkness or Count Orlok from the classics of black and white cinema, changed the proportions of the body, increased physical size and just deformed. Sylvia was ready to do a lot for the sake of power but she realised that such a transformation would destroy her whole life and habitual ways, forcing her to either run away and turn into an outcast, or to sit in her office without a word and meet people only under the multi-layered ilusion of her past appearance. Stepan in principle understood that the appearance of the bearer of his favourite pale tits could be saved by the same beauty token, turning her from an ugly monster into a sexy monstrosity with huge pale tits, but he also benefited from a normal Sylvia.

In the end, the bloodsucker opted for ‘scarlet shards of feelings and hearts,’ which increased her Spirit and Sensetivity by one, as well as significantly enhanced her ilusions, blood control, and subjugation abilities, adding stealth and subtlety, making them even more difficult to detect even in the active phase, not to mention the search for the consequences of carefully worn compulsions. Stepan accepted her choice, knowing perfectly well that he needed her not only as a combat unit, but also as a basis of cover for himself. Therefore Sylvia's agent development was even more advantageous to him than the combat one. All the more so because he had separately made a group of compulsions with the expectation that this bloody coterie would not create a cruel game and not arrange those things that Stepan himself would condemn. To be fair, he had to adjust the general course of the nest only slightly, because they were already very pragmatic and therefore merciful in many respects.

Well, merciful by the standards of the world and society.

Sylvia had intended and lusted for the opportunity to cast her scarlet net into the local criminal environment even without him. And now, with this improvement, she could start her work with a high chance of success. He didn't mind Sylvia brainwashing the local mafia, having heard and in some places seen their methods of work. He wouldn't have minded if she had decided to give them a bloodbath right off the bat, to be honest. To be fair, a lot depended on the gang itself. The smugglers, market and gambling-house keepers were comparatively adequate. Robbers, breakwater pirates, slavers, and begging crybaby holders evoked little pity from the shaman. If Sylvia could get her sweet arse on the throne of the local king of thieves, he'd be happy about it, as long as it didn't draw attention to himself. As it was, he spent a lot of effort trying not to stand out and attract the stern gaze of the Knights of Cloak and Dagger.

In addition to the property, Sylvia also received a gift from the Autogoddess, and Her Milfness was generous with gifts. She is giving Sylvia the second rank of a very important meta-skill for any carrier of the system: ‘issuing system assignments II’. The first task, a small one, by the way, and not a tiny one, required her to create some particularly interesting potion, of the blood-charming type, which works on vampires first of all, but not on the alive. A subtle and mild version of the gradually emerging attraction, thickly mixed with the principles of scarlet patronage. Sylvia, whose skills and erudition had been raised to the proper levels by the System, knew the recipe, even before the System was taken, but the specification of the potion was very demanding, yet unfamiliar. She had never brewed such a thing before. Bloodsucker would have rushed to do the assignment right away, but she was distracted by the change in aura and spiritual body under the influence of the implemented property, so she remained seated and even thought about going to bed.

And there was something else in her mind that Stepan could not see in her Status, though he could view it on the rights of the group's creator. Yes, she had indeed been given a token, and not just any token, but a Her Milfness marked token. It was called “Pleasant Suck” and had a hundred and fifty charges, which was more than any other token he'd ever seen. The meta-effect was simple - the target she'd chosen, like all the witnesses, saw nothing strange in letting Sylvia suck him off, and then letting her bite his arm or neck to drink a couple sips of blood. It worked only on men, and only on good-looking men, or on good-looking women who were breastfeeding at the same time, but it worked differently for them, they let Sylvia suck their breasts. The accepted blood, milk, and semen could not be used to impose control, such a thought simply did not occur to her, physically could not occur to her.

And you have to take into account the usual conventions of the world. In order to activate the token on, say, the Duke de Danrtel, it is necessary to meet him in such conditions that he normally perceives the presence of Sylvia. For example, a chance meeting in a crowd, which is theoretically possible if old Herbert is there for some reason in the middle of the crowd. And if she breaks into his office and activates the token, he will, of course, fall under the effect of the token, let the bloodsucker suck, but then he will immediately call the guards, because why the fuck is the bloodsucker in his office?

He duplicated the suggestion that Sylvia was forbidden to use the token on him, and only then did he release the doll of his puppet, letting the artefact disappear from reality, returning to the depths of the spiritual pocket where it usually resided. Well, he had helped Sylvia sort out her pumping, so he could slowly get back to his development. There was still the option to pump an entire branch of knowledge from the reward and the Autogoddess' gift for choosing a Warlock class.

"I suppose you'd better go and lie down, if not in the earth, at least on the bed, and then go into a trance, meditate while the aura changes." He suggests, keeping his gaze on the pale nipples on her enormous tits. "Speaking from experience, it's easier that way."

"Well, I'll use your experience, Pann." The bloodsucker said tensely and tiredly, standing up on slightly shaky legs, making the shaman wonder if the pumping, because of her undead nature, affected her more than him. "I'm not supposed to be out of the world for long, but I'll have to, yes, I guess I'll do just that."

Her aura had changed, the stirrings in it intensified, as if she had invested another stat point. And this time, Stepan was ready to swear, she'd invested in the Source, not the critical Constitution. Reasonable, actually. For a vampire, the benefits of a full-fledged Source acting in conjunction with blood magic powered by Constitution really outweighed mono-stat development. It's just that most vampires don't really have a choice in terms of what to pump, since they only develop Constitution and Sensitivity properly, plus Resistance and Control, but they raise them with much more difficulty.

Looking more closely, the shaman noticed a distortion in the aura around her head, immediately recognizing the effects of the knowledge he was receiving. A quick check through the System from the group leader confirmed his suspicions. Sylvia's status did not include the talent point she had previously saved, but it did include “advanced master control of scarlet droplet”. Stepan thought something unprintable, picking up the still naked body of the stunned vampire under her elbow and leading the unresisting lady vamp to her room. He was pleased at the thought that this time he would be sleeping with the cool, soft dakimakura in his arms, his hands unashamedly groping Sylvia's huge, pale tits as he led her into the room and gently placed her on the bed. And yes, the check, already what for today on account, through the doll artifact showed that for a vampire because of his nature and unused to intense sensations, which usually can always be driven away by the transition to the dead phase, auric pumping is given much harder. And the assimilation of knowledge is also not easy, especially in combination with the previous point. The growth of stats does not affect Sylvia so much, but it is a powerful and multifaceted property whose sprouting completely broke Sylvia.

Laying his pillow on the bed and nearly drooling over her pale sweet juicy tits, the shaman decides to open the Autogoddess's gift first, and only then allow himself to relax. There is no particular resistance to the thought. He chose the Warlock class rather than an explicitly Autogoddess Weaver so a gift wouldn't be extremely powerful. Nope. At most some meta-skill or token with useless and vulgar effects. But the result of the gift activation surprised him a little, because after he had been given a token with twenty charges called “Passionate Sensuality”, he immediately received another message giving him a property, and such a property that Stepan immediately twitched his eyebrow and the flames of impending butthurt started to flare up in his chest. Well, Milf of All Milf can't do it without her jokes, she can't fucking do it!

Received: "control of heritage in blood and spirit."

The acquired talent is added to the Player's overall status.

This property complemented the already existing and almost consonant property called “heritage in blood and spirit”, which turned his descendants into very powerful and talented from birth and potentially gifted with whomever he conceived those hypothetical descendants, and Stepan himself into an ideal breeding bull. The new property allowed him to control the past quite tightly, but only within certain limits. He could choose which legacy would be more important, his or the mother's, and it wasn't just about the gift for magic, per se, no. He could influence the deeper essence, the very nature of the child of him and the hypothetical mother. If he pushes his heritage, the children would be human-Europeoids with all the pros and cons of the species. Pure-blooded Caucasoids of the human tribe, even if the mother will be a Negro, an Asian or even an Elf or, say, an Orc. If a woman can give birth to a human child due to her anatomy, she will give birth to a human child.

The same way he can strengthen this property in the opposite direction. So an elf woman will give birth to a pureblood elf of any sex, which, by the way, is considered impossible. According to Sylvia's books. Because they always come out with half-bloods. Well, or you can just not worry and not call on this property, letting nature and chance work the way it should. That's where normal hybrids and half-breeds go, as they should be with the original inputs. In addition to this awesome ability to deceive genetics, this property allowed, let's say, to orient the direction of development, the child would have the most talents. You can choose only from those branches of the gift the parents own.

Stepan felt a small fire in his loins, not painful, even pleasant, which was reflected in the rising flesh and the pleasure that came with it. The flame moved down his abdomen and slowly spread throughout his body, and the property itself embedded itself into his aura in a surprisingly pleasant way. No discomfort at all, except for the excitement that, combined with the naked Sylvia lying next to him in a trance-like stupor, could lead to a somewhat embarrassing situation. Stepan suspected some kind of mockery on the part of Her Milfness, because the token-gift somehow suspiciously matched this set of sensations - as if it was specially selected for the property, having written the necessary script in advance. This Token, when placed on the target for exactly one year, significantly increased erotic sensitivity, and it worked on women, but only beautiful, and on men, here on any man at all, even a male dragon, while making this effect ... not normal and taken for granted, not suspicious.

The victim will feel shame, embarrassment, and other emotions, try to somehow contain the new feelings, but there will not be the slightest suspicion that all this was the result of an outside influence - neither the victim, nor the specialists visited, nor anyone. A woman can cum just by pinching herself once or twice for nipples or peeping at a handsome young man in the bathroom, and a young man will easily and uncontrollably spurt at the sight of a deep cleavage of some femme fatale beauty or from an innocent kiss on the cheek of some milf and a distant relative. And so time after time, all year long, and not around the clock, but in flashes, several times a day. Sometimes zero, and sometimes a dozen, but on average about five attacks of sensitivity and sharp orgasms per day, not counting wet dreams at night. As a side effect - a very significant increase in resistance to dehydration, general stamina, and for men, the amount of semen produced by the body, or it will not be possible to react so violently so many times a day. As a result, when the effect wears off, the victim gets a well-deserved stat point in a random stat.

You can also activate it on yourself. And on Stepan, this token will only work for a month. In the end, it will give him not only a random characteristic but also an elite property, a rank lower than those given every tenth level, as well as an elite meta-skill, also random. For group members or other players, the effect is exactly the same, only instead of a month it will be two months, and the effect of normality and not suspiciousness will also extend to the system's gifts received. In general, just a great reason to stay away from other players, if Stepan had not planned to avoid direct collision with the object “presumably Fatty” before, because these players, especially “presumably Fatty”, will definitely have analogs of such a gift. It would seem to be not fatal and even useful, but Stepan would prefer not to let such things near him, just out of indulgence of his sense of beauty.

"Well, Sylvia, I guess we can relax. Her Milfeuille wasn't quite so brutal this time. She's losing her grip. She used to be better at burning my ass." Stepan knows that she is in too deep a trance to hear him, but he speaks more to himself, feeling a little blasphemous, while at the same time gazing at those tantalizing pale tits, at Sylvia's juicy sweet pale tits. "I think I might go to bed. Or should I cum on your pale juicy sweet pale tits first? Yeah, I guess so, only first I'll lube the sweet tits with some slippery massage oil... what the fuck...."

A new system message catches him by surprise when he is almost finished from the sensations provoked by the assimilated property and the sight of Sylvia's pale tits. The young man does not immediately realize what exactly he perceives, first blinking reflexively, and then shaking his head, driving away thoughts of Sylvia's sweet juicy lubricated slippery pale tits.

Received: "basic methods of casting witch love spells"; "advanced basic methods of casting witch love spells"; "advanced methods of casting witch love spells"; "advanced developed methods of casting witch love spells".

The acquired talent is added to the Player's overall status.

"Yuk!" The shaman gave out a profound philosophical concept, mentally preparing to forget about Sylvia's tits, having lain for at least twenty-four hours in a knowledge-absorbing trance. - Fuck you, Autodivine Milf! You've got to be reasonable! Couldn't you just give this stuff one by one?"

Received: “basic techniques of witchcraft-based suggestion”; “advanced basic techniques of witchcraft-based suggestion”; “advanced techniques of witchcraft-based suggestion”; “advanced developed techniques of witchcraft-based suggestion”

The acquired talent is added to the Player's overall status.

"Uck, fuck!" He gave out an even more philosophical maxim, putting into it his knowledge of the linguistic layer of the steppe cultural code. "For what..."

With a quiet and penetrating groan, Stepan fell face down into such tantalizing tits, managing to enter a trance state and realizing that Sylvia seemed to wake up much sooner than he did. His aura was whimpering from the transformation blazing in his lower abdomen, his thoughts were flooded with very detailed and complex, but fucking unnecessary information, and a distant part of Stepan's consciousness was thinking one really smart thought: //“Never fucking stutter out loud about Great Milf losing her grip! And who the fuck pulled my tongue?” - That clever thought haunted him like an annoying mosquito, but Stepan ... but Stepan was still faster!

* * *

Thanks to the synergy of suggestion, spells and spiritual operation, Stepan was already quite good at influencing the victim's mind and feelings even without the help of spirit summoning. The essence is quite simple - emulation of what the spirit does at the expense of his own spirit. Ways and methods are countless, but the basis, as always, in a perverse application of spiritual dialogue, when the spiritual body of your own and another's temporarily come into contact, and the shaman will make changes in the spiritual body of the victim. The method is already at your choice - you can mirror the impact, first distorting your spirit, and then passing the distortion, you can put a patch of false feelings and memory over the real picture, you can temporarily turn off the spiritual-cognitive centres responsible for thinking, and then put the right opinion.... you'd really get tired of listing.

He had expected something similar from his mass promotion, eight talents into knowledge, because he was already familiar with the principles of witchcraft as such. He was very surprised when he realized he had been wrong and misguided. The basic and fragmentary knowledge he had was still too shamanistic for him, and only now, having comprehended the witchcraft class in full, the young man realized his misconceptions. If to generalize as simply and dilettantishly as possible, removing all superfluous things, the first and the most persistent association would be a comparison of witchcraft methods of influence on brains with the way stereotypical or not so stereotypical computer viruses work in Hollywood movies. This is a very primitive point of view, but at the same time it is accurate enough to be expressed instead of an hour-long lecture on the practice of witchcraft methods of charms.

The essence of the work of any influence on the mind still depends on the root for the caster control of the flow of force, its speed and intensity, as well as on the volition, on what part of the aspects of the spiritual world of spheres to use. For example, let's take the most banal charm to remove heat, lowering the temperature. In the basis, in addition to slowing down the accumulation of heat and accelerating the recovery of the body, will be the aspect of fire, the very heat, hotness, if you want. Yes, there is a strong involvement of the aspects of health, recovery, integrity of the body and so on, but if to make a strictly specific anti-temperature charm, it is more convenient to work with the subtle world through the same shade of spheres, from which the fire spirits come. So, we take this charm against heat, throw aside the combat variants of its application, such as instantaneous boiling of the victim or even sizzling, when the victim begins to burn without any fireballs. Fireball, by the way, can also be cast by simply looping the movement of flaming energy from the depths of the spheres in the shell of immobility and directing it along the line-movement towards the target. And no magic weaves, which usually act as a framework of magical effect, only direct control of flows, nothing more.

Anyway, about the spell against fever. If its basis is changed, refined and supplemented, the fever can, on the contrary, be induced. If you add specifications, then this fever will be of an exclusively erotic nature, will turn into carnal desire. If you refine the impact, hide it in the natural flows of force inside the body and aura, placing it in that part of the spirit, which is responsible for the head, disguised and merged with the energy, then a simple scanning will not notice such a trick. It will be necessary at least to arrange an intensive aura scanning to remove the actual curse. If you build into the spell a gradual increase and acceleration, it will be possible in a couple of months to reduce even the most frigid nun in full nymphomania. Or not in months, but, say, a couple of years, so that without suspicion. If you add a couple of small knots-interceptions of the spiritual flow in the parts of the spiritual body responsible for face recognition, it is easy to set this lust and desire for a specific purpose, especially if there is blood or body parts of both the victim and the one to whom you bind her.

And so on. The scheme is approximately the same with all other influences. Where shamans invoke a more complex spirit or combine the effects of many, even if the effect is multicomponent and gradual, witchcraft is the practice of layering and increasing. Something simple and primitive is taken, all sorts of whistles and farts are added to this simple thing, until you get instead of the plot of a village illiterate herbalist a higher and supercomplex witchcraft, which is almost impossible to scan or notice, and even more difficult to remove, especially until it does not take root. Thus, the spell for cooling the glacier in the cellar to keep meat longer, for fifty iterations will turn into a complex compound impact, which will freeze out the will and turn the victim-target into a submissive puppet, but only on command and only when the command will give someone recognisable to the cursed victim as giving the command. The simplest curse of forgetfulness, which takes away the memory at the level of a strong hangover and ‘what happened yesterday?’, after a lot of layering will become a complete rewriting of the personality and replacement of memories.

There was a curse among Stepan's new knowledge that worked on an area, applied to a house, a village or even a town, literally embedding the caster in the memory of those around him. They will gradually recognise the creator of the curse-persuasion or the one on whom this compulsion is tied, remember where and how they saw him almost from early childhood. And gradually there will be less and less distinction in the heads of different personalities between the versions of how they know the person they have implanted, more and more change in memory, from just a casual acquaintance, to a good friend, favourite, lord and generally burgomaster of this city. Similarly, one can erase oneself or someone else from the memory of some group living on earth. You can make a society hate or love someone. It is possible to change the memory and destinies of a beggar and a rich merchant so they will not notice that they have changed places. Very insidious gradual influence, rough clumsiness and some slowness, noticeability in the early stages, which is compensated by the work of hosts of specialised spirits, which will support the caster in the most delicate moments.

A lot of separate, let's say, methods of assembling and layering knots, which will allow you to create a spell or suggestion for your needs. Even more ready-made solutions, including even very advanced ones. Charm, which acts as the stronger, the greater the dislike and even hatred of the target to the recipient. A curse of gradual degradation of thinking, forgetting faces, names and events, capable of breaking through even a very serious defence, because it is woven and tied to an anchor of earth particles brought from the graves of the victim's ancestors. A subjugating type of combat effect, crude and noticeable, but capable of forcing the victim to kill each other or defend a recent enemy. The curse of the lustful ghost of the ghost of a lustful harlot, the imprint of which will be embedded in the target, gradually transferring to the target the moral turpitude and unscrupulousness of the impression. Just a square blessing, which must be prepared for quite a long time, exhausting as long, but imposed immediately on the region, increasing libido, fertility, the level of happiness and obedience of the population. Ideal for suppressing peasant revolts. Let them do peace, not war. However, for complete suppression it is recommended to put something to increase crop and milk yields because a hungry stomach outweighs satisfied loins.

The combination of the spirits summoned by the shaman and the witchcraft he used really showed itself perfectly, especially not in direct and dangerous combat, where everything changes too quickly, but in gradual work, without haste and hurry. One thing overlapped the other, supported the strengths and smoothed out the weaknesses. The territory fuels the spirits, the flows of forces pour additional and filtered energy into them and their totems, and the spirits do not let the scheme fall apart, do not let it acquire unplanned properties, do not allow the blessing to grow into a curse. Battle spirits crush the target, and hold it back while the slowly applied witchcraft gains strength, weakening and restraining it. Powerful closed fields, the foundation of witchcraft, which is one continuous closed field, broken into hundreds of smaller and even smaller ones, create defences, highlight the invisible and those who wish to enter the abode, the spirits easily spot those who try to take advantage of the weak flows, inevitable for witchcraft lack of the ability to rapidly reconfigure the fields, if you do not put the necessary modes of adjustment in advance.

And what a fierce symbiosis it turned out to be with methods of elimination or brainwashing at the expense of methods of agent work! Witchcraft for gradual and imperceptible attunement to some goal was ideal, a normal warlock is generally contraindicated even more than shamans, but if it is necessary to hit from afar, and on a known target, and with time for preparation.... It was hard to think of what exactly would be beyond the power of such a mix, especially if you use envolts, the method of patchwork control of the territory through totems, a lot of remote jumpers and full-fledged transformation of humans into dolls with quasi-totem functions. No, the urine did not hit the shaman in the head, he knew his limits perfectly well and realised that his omnipotence was completely imaginary, existing only until he was noticed and searched for, deprived of the possibility to work for the purpose. But until then, he could well expect to eliminate or curse or instil something into a full-fledged magister, and in such a way that the latter would not even notice anything, up to his own death. Stepan felt awkward before Magister Miller, because he used him as a constant example of whether it was possible to hurt, pierce, bewitch, curse, curse, kill, poison or turn him inside out with this or that preparation. Not that he seriously intended to do that, no, but one had to take someone as a reference for a spherical master in a fucking vacuum, right?
T.N. the urine did not hit the shaman in the head

The Shaman class took a lot from witchcraft, including this suggestive-attraction crap. First of all, the range of control of spirits. Not only by increasing the effect of remote control. You can, for example, draw spirits to the marked by some curse or blessing of an individual, on a bag of cultivated earth or a statue, which on the other side of the world to send with a trade caravan, you can use to guide or support the source, a lot of things you can. And you could put a spell already in the summoned essence, order the spirit to drag the spell to the target, let it touch the aura, or pour a drop of liquid witchcraft into a glass, or settle by the invisible dictate of will on the sheets, or sprout together with the flowers in the garden, or, or, or.... If anything embarrassed the Shaman, it was only the orientation of his tricks towards all sorts of vulgarities in the first place. Most of his witchcraft tricks were either charms and suggestion, or were too low-level tricks due to the low base of two of the three root skills, or came from synergy with other status strings. The root scills only developed third rank, whereas the Autogoddess' gifts took him to a specialised fourth.

In a pure base he, as a warlock, was such a pure suggestor, brainbreaker and love mage, so distilled that it would be impossible to prove that he wanted to pump differently. The brainfucker's build was assembled for a beginner, but at the same time not so much an adept as a master by local standards, it was very high quality and strong. If someone looked at his Status, especially if he removed the prefixes ‘GIFT’ from it, he would immediately realise that he met a real man of high culture! This thought came upon Stepan with a kind of dreary inevitability. He, consumed by the knowledge that kept coming and kept coming, wrapped his arms around the cool body of the completely motionless Sylvia, pressing himself against her as hard as he could, and sank into a mixture of sleep and trance, finally switching off from reality.

* * *

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

Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/86785/581528

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP