Настучать в бубен / Hit the tambourine: Глава 20-15

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Camrad_RIP 10.04.25 в 15:00

The main healing barracks in the northern part of the city were allocated for those who had suffered from demonic devilry but were unable to secure a personal prayer service even at a huge discount, and were not valuable enough specialists to be given such a service on credit. The building is old, rarely used, but regularly renovated. They don't mess around with epidemics here, and are quite adept at treating them, probably even more effectively than Earthlings are at neutralising Earth pandemics. Not that this is such a high praise, but still, but still. After several rather lengthy dialogues with Sylvia and careful study of the matter, he couldn't even accuse the local authorities of neglecting the demonic threat. They were indeed working, if not out of concern for the victims, then for the desire to keep themselves safe from more trouble.

Camrad_RIP 24.04.25 в 12:08

It was just that the extremely dense infernal field formed by such an uncharacteristic breakthrough played a role here. Usually, even if a breakthrough happens, and demons come out of the Inferno, most of the victims will be enough just to attend a couple of prayer services and then go to the temple every decade for another year, preferably without forgetting to leave donations. In this particular case, the mortals were covered with a too dense veil of perversion, which caused them to suffer serious enough damage that they could not be put back on their feet as massively. And an individual prayer service at the altar... It's not even a matter of finances, although they've been taken care of. It's the altars themselves that can seriously sag from such a load. And it would have been a matter of sincere believers, but most of the victims were those who prayed, to put it mildly, through their teeth. And it was sincere faith that increased the effect of prayers, making the cost of miracles cheaper and relieving the altars of the burden. So, at least part of the shaman's claims to the priests had to be removed, because they did indeed do their work, even though they were not particularly keen on making money from their work. Rather, the money was simply a way to filter out those who needed to be saved from those whose fate should be entrusted to Fortune, at least in part.

Camrad_RIP 24.04.25 в 12:12

It was partially because they had done a lot for the rest. The barracks they were stacked in were certainly not the VIP ward of a private clinic, but they had the thick and pleasant atmosphere of a prayerful place. The temple relics placed on special stands radiated grace, the servants and junior priests wandering between the beds, accompanied by a couple of quite experienced comrades, prayed incessantly, applied compresses with consecrated water, and smoked quite good incense. The water impregnated with godly power and the incense were not cheap by local standards and certainly more expensive than the lives of some of the victims. Healers, too, were wandering among the bunks, also younger, often not at all gifted nurse-brothers, as well as nurses. They poured some kind of potion down the throats of the heaviest, and tied the heavier ones to their beds. Many of them are beginning to go crazy under the influence of filth and lust.

Camrad_RIP 24.04.25 в 12:16

The night was dark and silent, and even the moans and screams of Inferno's victims did not break the silence. For that, they had muffling amulets. The guards standing outside the barracks, supported by the secret guards and a couple of adepts, did not sleep, though it was boring. What kept them awake was apprehension and fear. Demons were feared in this world, no worse than in the Middle Ages, but here it was not superstition. Priests came out now and then, either to get some fresh air or to pull out another body. The bodies of those who couldn't overcome the curse often bore the marks of a mercy strike, and all of them, without exception, were wrapped in shrouds covered with holy symbols, stacked separately from each other, and adepts also powered up a standard barrier line to prevent the bodies from going for a walk.

Camrad_RIP 24.04.25 в 12:20

Stepan, who was watching the case and preparing his exit every time a body was brought through, only the second one before his eyes, and there had been seven or nine of them during the day, depending on how you counted, was in a strange mood. His mind began to play the famous ‘Tear and Tear’, and his thoughts slipped into the fact that with his System, once he had reached the hundred-plus level, he could try to give a certain infernal Mistress a fun adventure in the spirit of Doom Slayer's visit to her house. Even his unwanted partner, who is now probably helplessly frantic in some unknown place, not having the strength to get to him and make him cancel the deal that is binding for her, and she would be happy to help his past bosses to autodafa with special cynicism and cruelty. But everything comes to an end, even his preparations, so it was time to stop wondering and start working on the problem, even if it was not quite his own.

Camrad_RIP 06.05.25 в 11:06

The shaman didn't sit on the roof, but watched through the spirits, using the already summoned elder as a central hub. He was hiding himself, covering the smaller seekers, and looking for ambushes. There were ambushes, but he wasn't even the one being ambushed. Rather, it was just a response team, which was to come to the rescue if the victims began to turn into demon puppets, and then merge into a single mass of flesh, on the basis of which will form a portal-transition. No, this is not an exaggeration, but a standard practice of reinsurance, which arose because many times this trick has been pulled by demons. That's why, by the way, they didn't let the affected bodies lie any closer to each other. That's why they were wrapped in special shrouds. The young man was sure that today was not the day to expect such shit. The main creature had spent so much that it was better to save now, but he approved of the locals' reinsurance. Even though he had to circumvent or neutralise them.

Camrad_RIP 24.04.25 в 12:28

The first thing he did, as soon as he had identified all those who hindered him, was to move from one circle-amplifier to the neighbouring one, starting another call. The darkness of the cave was dispersed only by the barely visible lights of incense sticks, the sickeningly sweet smoke entering his eyes and nose, and literally, becoming for a moment something too alive and tangible. The hum of totems, chest chanting, the glittering of ritual signs carved on the skin. Everything was forming into a single rhythm. To the beat of the rhythm pulsed, as if beating hearts, a few dolls-interceptors, which will have to help the shaman, if he happens to fail the call. He'd done without them before, insuring himself more classically, but the battle with the demons had shown the usefulness of this tactic, so let them be. Like with a magnum of fifty calibre taken for a walk in the park. Better to have it and not need it than to need it but not have it.

Camrad_RIP 24.04.25 в 12:31

Another group of puppets is waiting for its time. They are designed to draw demonic energies into themselves, and they will be used not on him, but on the victims. In another corner, the farthest one, there is a model of a piece of the street, on which the barrack-treatment centre is located. The sand had to be taken from the beach near the city, having diluted it with additives bought through the system. The Envolt is not particularly persistent, not sufficiently ingrained in the world, but even so, it allows a lot. Around it, there is a circle of spirits, both seekers and suppressors, which have an influence on the area and on the area at once. The first tacts of this influence are completely unnoticeable, because the point of application of forces is here, next to the shaman, and not up there. At first, nothing serious, only a little bit blurred not even attention, no, just imperceptibly for all observers their magic vision and just a sense begins to work, as radio operators would say, on a slightly different frequency, just in such a way that Stepan's further actions could not be seen.

Camrad_RIP 13.05.25 в 16:19

Then comes the effect on the world itself, a piece of space, which in the reflection of the spheres begins to acquire the features of a closed lacuna, very strange, hardly worthy of being called such, but the process of morphing is completely invisible to the available sensory charms. And when a new tact begins, when whole groups of rat-like spirits with spheres of space and aspects of transference pick up numerous wood chips, dragging them through the fabric of reality to the right points.... these spirits were not noticed. Under paving stones, in walls, in gutters, on roofs. There, these chips emerge, and then their reflection changes, the witchcraft that transmuted one thing into another disintegrates, and the chips crumble into particles of sand. Another mound of sand, left in the underground shelter, crumples sharply and turns into a little melted, like plasticine, but still recognisable wooden block. It so happened that the horde he had summoned charged for each piece of transferred matter, so if he had made them carry each grain of sand separately, he would have been ruined; it was easier to change the physical image of wood and sand. That's how witches turn people they don't like into frogs, but they can't do that to a person without killing them on the spot. It's a level far above mere skill, even if it's a non-gifted person; it's much easier to cast an illusion and make the victim believe that the illusion worked.

Camrad_RIP 13.05.25 в 16:21

After the sand delivery, the envolt layout is somewhat more complete, and the observers, thanks to the past warps, have not noticed anything strange, nor have they seen the activity of the spirits dragging sand. The young man exhales tiredly, stands up from the call circle, and moves closer to the layout, leaving the “cleaning” to another group of spirits. They will stabilize the edge, extinguish the background fluctuations in the totems themselves, eating the remains of the circle and scraps of energies as payment. They are still garbage collectors, not every garbage they will go to work on, but in such situations, they make life very easy. The Earthman doesn't even look at the result of their activity, quickly piercing each of his fingers on the left hand, dripping a drop of blood from each, immediately absorbed by the sand of the layout.

Camrad_RIP 14.05.25 в 17:56

The strength of the connection, its completeness and the limits of available influences on the territory of the layout grows in a jerk, so sharply that it makes him a little dizzy, but Stepan is ready, he is not even worried, though the trick is risky, he also partially opens, he can be noticed that way too, if you know where to look and what to look for, if you wait. They don't wait for him, they don't know about him, they don't look at him. Sylvia was right. No pro, no matter how experienced he is a hundred times a hundred years, would ever get the idea to wait for him here. And those who are already there are distracted enough by the past tacts, they do not even feel the shadow of his presence here, everything is muffled by the steadily powerful background of divine grace, while otherwise the distorted background and the changed mode of magical vision are enough.

Camrad_RIP 14.05.25 в 17:57

A new beat, now the shaman takes in his hands the bells standing next to the model, reminiscent of those Chinese things that hang at the entrance to a store instead of a doorbell. The subtle chime echoes in his ears with the rustle of radio interference, but that's good. If he had heard a clear and pure melody, it would have been time to sound the alarm. Another senior spirit planted in a material object, summoned to the extreme simple and does not require special payment, other strong called and came much more reluctant. Except that the spirit, a suggestor, working through hearing and sounds, did not categorically make a difference between the targets, trying to influence the shaman who called him in the first place. This is literally part of the nature of the essence, to change this attitude can only be forcibly subduing and literally depriving the spirit of control over himself, but just this is very difficult, not for nothing the essence was senior in right of power and antiquity.

Camrad_RIP 14.05.25 в 17:58

Training with Lemira had helped. It was thanks to that training in suppressing her voice that he'd remembered the summons. In a different situation, it would have been too much of a challenge to spend a lot of concentration on keeping the spirit from screwing with his head. But here he simply used the same method, but with different settings, preventing himself from hearing the key sounds that opened the path to the victim's mind. Inaudible and audible at the same time chime of bells sounds above the layout, the bells themselves are already hanging in the air and ringing without any help from him. And all this non-sound passes over the maquette, using the blood bond as a base and a bridge. The wounds on his fingers have healed without Stepan's help at all; here, in the place of his power, he doesn't even do anything; a bunch of good spells and healing auras supported by spirits ensure his regeneration is as good as that of any other shifter.

Camrad_RIP 14.05.25 в 17:59

The shaman waits, listening to the “radio interference” in his ears, watching the sandman figures wandering around the model, moving, talking, scratching their asses. The summoned entity performs one of Lemira's favorite tricks, the same decrease in concentration and attention, not dangerous and untraceable, because the victims don't fall asleep, don't stare dumbly at one point, don't show any signs of mental processing, no, they just become very inattentive, fixated in their thoughts and not going beyond them. And only when the marks-images from the spirits-observers under cover of the senior, as well as the sand figures on the layout show a satisfactory level of processing, he makes a new move.

Camrad_RIP 14.05.25 в 18:05

Literally. He simply crosses through his passage, finding himself a couple of meters from the wall of the building next to the barracks. Some kind of city warehouse under the Guardians, nothing interesting except for the fortunate location. He steps out from around the corner, completely hidden by the distraction, invisible, weightless, almost intangible, stopping a step away from the door to the infirmary. He is dressed in a heavy traveling cloak, his face covered by a mask, his body slightly distorted in proportions from the spirits planted in it. Shrugging, the gesture coming out very unnatural, as if his body had become too full of bones and joints, he pulls a small ball of clay from his sinus, breaking it in his hands and blowing dust right onto the door. The dust passes through the matter, soaking into it and seemingly ignoring the thick atmosphere of grace, but only seemingly. The spirit, whose thin body was embedded in material clay, soaked in the same grace to the point of being a relic, wasn't just the kind of spirit that could ignore grace, no, it almost fed on it. And the others, who had already been summoned beforehand, also knew how to work with divine miracles, were used to hunting for crumbs of heavenly powers, and now found themselves on the buffet table.

Camrad_RIP 14.05.25 в 18:07

They don't attack, they don't try to devour the grace, as there would be a reaction to that, no, the entities just stay in the atmosphere that is pleasant to them, filling it with themselves, not weakening it, but even strengthening it, but at the same time temporarily and unobtrusively taking it out of control. And the divine relics are still standing, still shining with grace, only now this grace is temporarily controlled not by the priests and not by the relics, but by Stepan, well, through his spirits. Next comes a harder, but still very imperceptible blow of suppressors, which turns off first of all experienced priests, turns them off before they realize the attack and beg for help. Because they would have been given help, and the shaman would have had to abruptly shut down the shop, so he tried to act with a lot of reassurances and complete overkill, but he acted in time and succeeded.

Camrad_RIP 14.05.25 в 18:09

Everyone, everyone is asleep, the medics are resting in their chairs, the priests are leaning against the walls, the novice of Damokar and the priestess of Gaia are leaning against each other with their eyes closed and breathing deeply, the man is drooling in the young lady's cleavage, and the shaman is cautiously slipping through the door. His influence, the pressure through the spirits who have taken control of the grace, has already put the victims to sleep, and they are stirring and moaning in their sleep, but they are asleep, unable to see or hear. The cloak opens again, releasing whole swarms of healing spirits, small and strong, many of them. The shaman doesn't wait for this crowd to stabilize the patients and patch up damaged auras, heading straight for the relics, or rather, the most important one. A statuette of a pregnant and large-breasted woman, naked and even beautiful in the form of a statuette, stands on a special pedestal in the far corner of the infirmary, as if looking at all her children who are suffering from illness.

Camrad_RIP 14.05.25 в 18:10

The mere presence of this elbow-length statuette made pain, anxiety, fear, and despair go away, and the one in front of her gaze felt like being bathed in warm milk and wrapped in the arms of his own mother, and it was in the magical-spiritual aspects that it was so felt. Although the Life Giver aspects were quite in favor of the continuation of the family and pleasant intimate adventures, the essence ... The essence was completely different and yet very qualitatively counteracting exactly infernal lust, replacing its shades with quite normal desire for carnal love, to procreate and multiply. The shaman shook his head, throwing off a slight obsession and carefully, with all reverence, tied around the statuette a few strings of beads, a fifth of necklaces, and placed at her feet a smoking stick, already lit. Then he did the same with two smaller relics, only simpler and with a different set of witchcraft spells.

Camrad_RIP 14.05.25 в 18:11

The second belonged to the Church of the Fertile, and was also a statue, but smaller in size and simpler in terms of grace saturation, more reminiscent of Scythian women than a work of art in the genre of photographic realism. The latter belonged to the Keeper of the Oaths, serving more as a testimony and assurance of how the work of cleansing the auras and souls of the victims had been carried out. The guardian's divine grace had no particular effect on the victims of the corruption, a role given to Gaia so that her Fertility could defeat the more primitive and less profound demonic Lust. Around a small marble ball with completely smooth surfaces that, if not for the background of grace, could have been mistaken for a simple billiard ball, the shaman laid out an amulet circle of a small silver chain and a second one poured with salt. The god had always been famous for his powers of observation, and his grace was too strangely unyielding, especially against the background of the easily intercepted power of the Life-Giver.

Camrad_RIP 14.05.25 в 18:24

When he was done with the disguise, the shaman exhaled, checked the walls again for tracking charms, and then abruptly released the many clawed hands and tentacles of his ghostly body and began to work. The entities planted in him helped to fix the situation with the heaviest lesions, the spirits of simpler spirits treated those who suffered less, but the main work fell on his intangible hand-feet, which he used to remove from the corners of the aura and the spirit the remnants of filth, hiding from the background of divine power. No, it's not intelligent, it's just like physical reactions, where one magnet repels the other. Where there is a place for grace, there is no place for filth, and vice versa, but since filth is less here, and it is much more vulnerable to grace than vice versa, it is ‘pushed’ deeper, and it easily penetrates into the depths and hides its presence.

Camrad_RIP 14.05.25 в 18:26

Suggestor groups treated the minds where the shaman healed the spirit and aura, and the bodies were fine as they were; they were not allowed to mutate or distort, except that the patients lost weight. Here was an aunt who had developed nymphomania with a sadistic bent, when the aura of the demonic Mistress brought out the darkest and most evil that Lust could give her. Even now, under anesthesia, under shamanic and priestly anesthesia, the image of his vaguely remembered mother is doing all sorts of naughty things in his dreams. The little brat, who seemed to be one of those homeless kids who packed drugs for the druids, was tossing and turning in her sleep when her mind was crushed by images of things she didn't understand yet. Stepan didn't think, didn't get distracted, and just saved lives and fates, spending his own reserve and forcing his spirits to work. His namesake would have had a lot to say about “saving the lolies”, but for the shaman, everything was extremely simple and utilitarian. If you can help someone without harming yourself and your plans, help them and get out of here without waiting for thanks.

Camrad_RIP 14.05.25 в 18:29

He paced between the beds, not lingering over individual patients, correcting their conditions piecemeal, only once starting the heart of another street kid, this time a boy of about ten, because his body's motor could not withstand another injection of hormones into the bloodstream. The treatment of psychological consequences of such bombardment of pleasure was completely dumped on suggestors, who carried out, in fact, point brainwashing with induction of amnesia and darkening of memories to overcome addiction in the bud. Any director of a rehab would have sold his soul for such methods, which gave a hundred per cent cure even for dezomorphine addicts at the last stage, but, alas, there was no magic on Earth. He doesn't think so. And so who knows, maybe there was a Harvard somewhere out there, just ordinary people were not told about it?

Camrad_RIP 15.05.25 в 05:56

The shaman was fully immersed in the work. Divine grace, intercepted and enhanced by spirits, provided a perfect anaesthesia for all involved, the sleeping priests occasionally woke up, sleepily blinking their eyes, looking in the opposite direction from the shaman, and then reported that everything was normal, without changes, to fall asleep again a moment later. Stepan was not going to seek recognition of his merits, and so he carefully disguised his actions as a full-fledged divine miracle, took ghostly hands, surrounded by a protective layer of spirit-gloves, particles of Gaia's grace, which there were plenty of, and covered the healed areas with these particles, wiping with them the already very implicit and hidden traces of his own actions. Of course, it was the priests who had a chance to realise that their gods had not arranged heroic cures here..... but it won't come to pass immediately, or even without much notice. The Life-Giver would hardly mind the increased faith in her in Dantmark, not to mention the fact that you'd still have to hear from her priests not the usual ‘thank you, O Greatest’, but ‘friend, was that really your job, with those patients over there, on that date?’. There is a great difference in these approaches. Hardly even the gods have often come across the fact that a crowd of sick and crippled people were healed by someone free of charge and of high quality on their behalf and demanded nothing for it, leaving them with all the glory and faith. It's a bit of a stretch to fit such behaviour into conventional paradigms.

Camrad_RIP 15.05.25 в 05:58

Already finishing the healing of another homeless kid, who had to have a doll placed on his chest, with a drop of boy's blood in it, in order to get out of his body not only the filth, but also the alchemical toxins accumulated from the overdose of soothing alchemy, Stepan heard the sound of a vessel falling, as well as a muffled mate. The young man was so immersed in his work, and the spirits supporting the field of soporific grace and putting the priests and medics to sleep were working so finely honed that he did not even immediately switch to combat mode. With a slight perplexity, he turned his figure round, in an unnatural and crooked movement, thanks to the same sub-settlers in his body, thanks to whom he had more bones in his body than he had been given by nature, and stared straight into the face of a vaguely familiar female brat. The same sharp features, slight thinness, boyish clothes, short but long uncut hair the colour of tar, and the same frightened look of green eyes. For some seconds, they look eye to eye, or rather eye to eye in the gaps of the self-repairing mask, and then the shaman bursts:

Camrad_RIP 15.05.25 в 06:00

"Are you following me?" From surprise he even forgets to make his voice normal, the throat distorted by perfume creates double and triple echoes, and sounds like the creaking of poorly greased door hinges, so that the reaction of the girl, who had already assessed the sleeping priests, and opened her mouth for a full horror of screaming was simply inevitable and from all sides logical. "Silence."

Camrad_RIP 15.05.25 в 06:03

The first thing he did was to deprive her of her voice, then to immobilise her, literally making her forget that she could walk and run, and only by the third spell-conspiracy he forced her to calm down and let her mind become incredibly clear. The girl, who had suddenly calmed down and, thanks to her logical thinking, realised that they would not kill her, at least because they could have killed her long ago, exhaled the air in her chest, and then spoke in a normal and not loud tone, just when the shaman had returned her speech and removed her paralysis.

Camrad_RIP 15.05.25 в 06:04

"How the fuck is that?" She asks a question, and then he asks her a question. "Cho? What the fuck am I following, am I out of love with my life? Who the fuck are you? What are you doing with me? I wasn't like this even under the powder when I inhaled it foolishly. What are you doing? You mean you. Yes. Honourable sir. Here. Why don't you leave my fry alone, eh? You better take Sabz the Iceman, he's a big boar and doesn't keep his hands to himself..."

Camrad_RIP 15.05.25 в 10:51

The shaman, who is rapidly returning to normal, begins to realise that some shit is wrong here, this little thing shouldn't be in his consciousness. Yes, he didn't hang a separate suggestor on her, as well as on other patients, putting them to sleep by the forces of intercepted grace, so there would be no traces afterwards. But how the fuck did she wake up from a sweet dream? She woke up so fucking awake that she didn't give a fuck about this field at all! And even a moment later, he realised what she had said, trying to protect some of the little sorting kids, over whom she was obviously the eldest, by pragmatically feeding the evil chthoni to her old foe.

Camrad_RIP 15.05.25 в 06:05

"Are you fucking nuts, little girl?" He asks in her usual manner and then answers the question himself. "Yeah, you're fucked up. Do you think I have nowhere to get material for sacrifices, only in the building guarded by priests to steal children? I'm treating you retards, and you spit in my face, you punk."

Camrad_RIP 15.05.25 в 10:53

The mosaic that had not been put together in her sleep also came to her, when she realised that the three different shit she had seen in the short time she had been there were one and the same, just under different guises: a pile of hobo rags, which she mistook for a beggar, a nightmarish white goat-man, who for some reason addressed her as if he recognised her, and about which she naturally did not say a word, as she did not want to get into trouble with the priests and secret guards, which saved herself and the shaman some nerves, and this black cloak with a lot of ghostly claws. And the first nightmare she'd had had such limbs, too, just not in the real world, but in the delirium she'd seen while holding his hand. All these thoughts flashed in her head, formed into a stable picture, which was read and transmitted to the shaman by the spirit readers, then she just fell to her knees and faced the floor. She knew very well how magicians, especially strong ones, could express their displeasure, especially to the small scum.

Camrad_RIP 15.05.25 в 06:07

"So, fuck it," Stepan speaks, in a normal voice, though still not quite human, but no longer incontinent, and with a decisive order to the spirits he pulls her to her feet, even before she opens her mouth. "I don't like that sort of thing, so stand there silently and answer if I ask. What the fuck are you doing awake, sickie? And why the fuck are your aura's fucking shreded up again, only slightly weaker than it was before the treatment?"

Camrad_RIP 15.05.25 в 10:54

At the same time with his question, the shaman anaesthetised the poor girl, and added a spirit to the back of her head, which turned off the filter between thinking and speaking, and at the same time completely removed fear as such. The girl blinked perplexedly, and then held the palm of her hand over the back of her head, where it felt like a thin icy needle had been poked, and began to answer, not gibberish, as with a standard ‘talker’, but thoughtfully and deliberately answering.

Camrad_RIP 15.05.25 в 10:56

"I have no idea. It was great at first, I was so happy, but at night I was afraid to sleep, you're such a walking fuck, I almost died and shit myself." She didn't immediately realize what she had said, but she got it pretty quickly, and her eyes bulged funny. "Then it got worse, I started trying to do magic more actively, and I always did it, but it didn't work well and it was really fucked up afterwards. Like, I don't know, crawling through a gap that was too narrow for me, or jumping so far that it didn't seem far, but in fact it was like jumping twice, well, one and a half times. {speaks in heavy slang, is surprised at how disrespectful she is to speak to such a powerful mage.}"

Camrad_RIP 16.05.25 в 06:06

She tried to ask this question several more times, and even suggested that he had “shit in her head”, complaining that her friend, who was a supervisor of street boys all over the city, had once been “fucked by a fly-by-night brainiac”, and asked if he would behave the same way with her afterwards. Then she added that she didn't mind so much, because she would spread her ass for a living, though she was disgusted by it, and he also made her feel scared to the point of trembling and complete absence of any arousal. But for the most part, she was describing how she was getting worse, and she was surprised that it was because she attempted to master the gift of magic. In the sense that she had guessed before, but had not matched all the facts, but here, under his boon, that accelerated brain, it became obvious at once. But the greatest deterioration of her condition, to a level even worse than it was before meeting Stepan, caught up with her here, in the infirmary.

Camrad_RIP 16.05.25 в 06:08

She was so sore that she had to drink painkillers, despite the fact that she hadn't grabbed much infernal filth, but there was some kind of reaction in her aura, and her aura was rubbing her like a grater. In fact, if it wasn't for the applied area boon that strengthened her body and deprived her of pain, she wouldn't have woken up at all. And it was not divine grace guided by spirits that helped her, it was classical shamanism that brought her to her feet, the same small spirits that flew around the infirmary and helped those who were the worst off. The shaman took a closer look at the blackened dots on the thin bodies, which were breaking through to the spirit as well, affecting literally the entire triad of body-aura-spirit and almost the soul. And the more he looked, the more he saw, the less he liked it.

Camrad_RIP 16.05.25 в 06:19

"Did your parents shit on every altar of every temple in the world?" He removes the chattering spirit from her, which makes the girl immediately shut up and turn pale with horror as she realises what she's just said, but he doesn't let her apologise again, or face the floor, or just talk, shoving one of the best dolls he had with him into her hand. "Okay, here you go. Puncture your finger, there's a needle in the lining, drip some blood, and clench it in your fist. I just can't understand what the fuck this is, I couldn't put this shit on myself even if I was shitting myself, and this is just... Anyway, hold the doll and stay here. I'll finish the rest."

Camrad_RIP 15.05.25 в 06:10

For several minutes, there is only silence, heavy breathing, groans of the sleeping, and dry words of occasionally waking observers, who report to the amulets about the condition of the patients. They're so competent, they don't let anything go to chance, and they're watching them as if at any moment these poor people could be molded into one demonic golem of flesh and go to demolish the city tower. He was almost finished, but the last checks would take a long time, as well as covering his tracks.

Camrad_RIP 16.05.25 в 06:21

“Honorable, and this, and why did you, well, us, them, them, well, me, in short, to treat?” It seemed to be physically hard for her to keep silent, and the unknown was more frightening than even the need to distract the scary bogeyman from her nightmares. “What's going to happen to me, huh? What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I dying?”

Camrad_RIP 16.05.25 в 06:22

"I'm helping you because I can, why the fuck not? And don't look at me like that. I have my own interest in it. It's just that I have nothing to take from you anyway, and what I can take, I don't need even for free." He hinted at the thought that flashed in her, that men usually take from girls who can't pay with anything else. "And you, my dear, have a curse. A strong one. Old. Really old and blood-bound. Not the kind fortune-tellers use to scare clients for silver, but a real one. It's funny to me to know who your parents were, what's left in you. They won't waste such a thing on just anyone, so remember, remember everything you know about those who gave birth to you once."

Camrad_RIP 16.05.25 в 06:26

She hesitated, trying to remember something but finding nothing, simply because she knew very, very little. She had grown up practically from childhood on the streets. She was bright, skilful, quick, and ready to tear the world apart with her teeth, so she'd risen in the hierarchy of street kids and become a gofer in one of the city's gangs. Small, but with prospects. The position of a senior behind the little kids from the herb sorters, those who sort drug herbs and pack simple herbs. It's more for growing up. It's the kind of place where they check what a person is good for. Again, you need attention to keep an eye on the little ones, and denomination with the topic, so as not to let the little ones kill themselves by licking their hands after sorting, and a share of ruthlessness, because the packers do not live so long, they get poisoned sooner or later, despite the fabric masks on their faces. Yula, not a name but rather a nickname. But she had no name, disliked her position, and tore her heart out, sometimes to her detriment, in order to save some of the children. She used to hang cloth masks on their faces almost by force, having learnt about this trick from a healer's apprentice. Yula disliked her position, but tried hard to get higher, dragging the brightest of those who grew up with her.

Camrad_RIP 24.04.25 в 11:25

The shaman, reading her through, would not call her a good person. She robbed, stole, and killed, too, and together with other hoods, she could slaughter a straying river swimmer if she couldn't steal a purse quietly, which by the standards of the Earth made her a real hardened criminal. By the standards of this cursed world, she was, if not a saint, there were enough worthy personalities, and he had seen them himself, then just a good one. She was almost a statistical anomaly to the city's underbelly. Largely because she was used to walking around with the idea that she wouldn't live long, suffering all her life from a painful weakness, and only by wit, cunning, and the ability to find mates, managing to make her way up. So he was truly curious to understand what she had been so rewarded with and why? For whose sins?

Camrad_RIP 24.04.25 в 11:29

"No, I don't know." She said after a pause, though Stepan had already enlightened her memory. "My mum was a river wench, and she got pregnant there. I didn't know her myself, she died of fever when I was three years old. An aunt cares for me. She's not a relative, just a friend of my mum's. Then she died too. I didn't know my father, and I didn't know my mother either. I'm going to die, aren't I?"

Camrad_RIP 24.04.25 в 11:51

"We all die at some point." The young man replied grimly, finishing to remove from the last patient a lump of liver, which was moving suspiciously, disintegrating the demonically mutated flesh, and then activating explosive regeneration and fuelling the man with his own life force. "But I'll try to work something out with you. Give me the doll. Yeah. (chuckles) There you go."

Camrad_RIP 24.04.25 в 11:52

The raggy thing with straw as padding was already visibly smouldering. It looked as if it were covered with drops of black tar. It was not the curse itself, but its shadow, its image, its mirror image, only even that, being only an image, was frightening. He didn't touch this stuff with his hands or any parts of his spiritual body, but used a spirit with the ability to telekinesis, instilling it into his index finger. The finger lengthened and grew an extra phalanx, but the doll levitated as he wanted, not falling to the floor. With an act of will, he unlocked the bond between the doll and Yula, and then sizzled the envolt, frowning thoughtfully and deciding whether he needed the problem at all. It was another problem, but where else would he get a chance to work with divine curses of such level and skill, and without having to be blown to smithereens? It was someone else's problem, but it was his own, his leveling.

Camrad_RIP 24.04.25 в 12:03

"Okay, here's what we're gonna do. Now I'm going to block your memory so that in the morning you'll think you just slept through the night." Seeing the indignation flash across her face, mixed with the instinctive fear of losing her will, he shuts her up with another warning gesture. "And don't argue, I know you won't talk, but it's also possible that the people you're going to tell everything to without opening your mouth. The memories will come back when you leave this place. That's when you'll come, as discreetly as possible. Yes, this alley, near the flour mill. I've imprinted the image right in your head. Come and wait. I'll pick you up from there. The curse is in your blood, and your blood is killing you. I've got a friend who knows a lot about blood, so we'll go see her first. Then I'll give you a proper checkup, and then I'll find a treatment."

Camrad_RIP 07.05.25 в 08:16

In her eyes, there is wild hope and suspicion, almost panic, disbelief, and desperate desire to believe, and she realizes that the real villain will do nothing, but still desperately looking for a way out of the deadly trap. She does not believe for a moment that there is a kindly wizard who wants to help her unselfishly. She wants to believe, but she doesn't; she is too scared of life. The shaman realizes she will immediately run away from the city wherever she can see, as long as not into the jaws of an incomprehensible creature. Then she realizes that she is dying anyway, and maybe it's better to go to the creature, at least there is hope there.... but she represses the thought. Because for free - will not help, stranger - will not cover, and she has nothing to pay and no use for.

Camrad_RIP 07.05.25 в 08:18

"Stupid." The shaman summarizes, reading her thoughts, and she understands that her thoughts are being read, her consciousness, accelerated by him, compares the work with memory and reading of thoughts into a single specialty, she has heard about mentalists, though by rumors, but she has heard about them, there were such amateurs among the ragamuffins, who liked to divvy up a stranger for money under the word of honor to return and then to erase his face from memory. "I don't give a shit about you per se. It's your curse. I am interested in such a task to consider, it is interesting to understand what kind of crap and how to fight with such a thing, and then suddenly I deserve something similar to myself. I'm not particularly conflicted, of course. but I'm getting killed like a fucking hexenbiest every now and then by assholes who don't take care of themselves. No, I can give you my word not to harm you and let you go as soon as I'm no longer interested in you, but how can you verify such an oath?"

Camrad_RIP 07.05.25 в 10:16

"I fucking can't." She finishes, looking at him with such hope, and sincerely, and not trying to make him feel bad, that it makes him uncomfortable. "Whatever's gonna happen. I'm all in, it won't get worse. Ahem, are you sure this, forgetting in the head, will not hurt? There was one guy, so he too, once, too much seen and heard, was taken to a magician-brainiac, to take his memory to fuck off. So he couldn't walk for a fortnight and spent another year pissing under himself at night."

Camrad_RIP 15.05.25 в 10:42

The shaman even checked himself, but no, she hadn't read his thoughts, and his spirits hadn't mistakenly broadcast his thoughts into her head; she'd understood his feelings herself, though it wasn't hard. It's hard not to, if he, the master of fucking brain-working, was compared to an illegal understudy, running for the gangsters, who couldn't even perform amnesia properly, damaging the victim's autonomic nervous system! If he had been a normal local magician, he would have torn off her tongue and sewn it back on, maybe even in the place where you tear off a tongue in such cases. Shaking his head, judgmental and even a little tired, he points her back to the empty bunk.

Camrad_RIP 15.05.25 в 06:11