Готовый перевод Настучать в бубен / Hit the tambourine: Глава 4.4

The transition to martial law is, in fact, not something completely unbelievable or as dramatic as it is portrayed in the movies—not in the least. It’s simply that, at some point, people begin to live their ordinary lives at a slightly different pace. Shopping trips are either canceled or taken less frequently, servants are accompanied by armed guards, and some perishable foods have disappeared from the menu. Correspondence with business partners and trusted associates takes place through more secure channels, straining the resources of expensive amulets; letters are now encrypted, and the expense line for payments to militants is rising alarmingly. Moreover, the armed men and women of the security detail are now supplemented by contract mercenaries from the guild—mercenaries with a good reputation and no ties to the Steppe, so they won’t be poached.

It was a strange state of war. De jure, only the de Lomer Trading House was at war, even though de facto it was aided by a number of allies, debtors, comrades, “allies,” and “comrades.” The latter did more “help” than actually assist, but even so, they hardly dared to openly play into the enemy’s hands. At the same time, Morgrave itself, like a number of other cities where the House had branches, went about its business as usual. To the extent that the life of an ordinary citizen can ever be peaceful in a world of brutal, dark fantasy.

This created a strange contrast, one that was unfamiliar to Stepan, who had never actually witnessed a “Trade war.” It was nothing like a local “Noble war.” And certainly not like a Global war, one that affects everyone. Singha, for example, was very impressed by the visit of those fucking islanders on their fucking flagship precisely because they didn’t play by the old, complicated rules of limited conflicts, but simply and unpretentiously came to kill and plunder everyone, indiscriminately. In short, she hasn’t liked islanders ever since—which, come to think of it, is basically racism and islandophobia! Not all island sailors are cruel, greedy, and dishonorable pirates! I mean, those particular ones were exactly like that, but not because they’re islanders!

All joking aside, the overall work schedule for all de Lomer employees in the city—and especially at the estate—has changed significantly. To be fair, right here in Morgrave, after the first assassination attempt, the situation remained calm, and there were no new attacks—if you don’t count minor incidents. But in the bigger picture, there were such incidents: missing caravans and “allies” who switch sides. There were attacks on specific individuals working for the Trading House or under its authority. The hardest blow was struck during the very first two days, when the other side hadn’t yet realized that Akshtar, to put it bluntly, had screwed up.

In defense of the green—which, judging by images from the Urvag and Furval archives, is actually more of a gray with the faintest hint of faded green—the battle-hardened veteran, some of those who attacked de Lomer’s assets were assured that the ++Silent Drum would unleash his ultimate move. His signature attack had actually wiped out entire clans in the past; it seems the Trading Houses took a hit as well, though to a somewhat lesser extent, since blood ties aren’t always a requirement there. It’s another matter entirely that they struck at the bridge between the Confederation and the Steppe—at the Urvaga family and his wife and daughter. Take them out, and there’s a good chance de Lomer would be kicked out of the steppe market for steel, horses, and wool.

Most of those who had decided to quietly grab something for themselves—whether among Sulsham Bey’s allies or enemies on the Steppe, among the loyalists of the Maega dynasty or their opponents, or among Urvag’s business partners or rival merchants—very quickly backed out of the scheme. As soon as they realized Urvag had survived and was standing on very solid ground, Maega and her daughter were unharmed—and, on the contrary, very angry and active—they suddenly and sharply remembered that they needed to get along. Strange complaints, refusals to pay for goods already received, attempts to unilaterally renegotiate deals, or to seize assets or goods—most of these skirmishes did not spill a single drop of blood.

Or they spilled, but the blood of small fry, and not of anyone important... for the most part.

And once they realized classic “it didn’t work out” had happened, they all scrambled to write letters claiming they’d been misled, misunderstood, or that one of their local henchmen had gone too far. In particularly dire cases, they attached images of the severed heads of these goats. Scapegoats, of course. One particularly outstanding steppe warlord, whose views fluctuated wildly in line with the party line, even went so far as to stage a small cargo portal via a shamanic ritual, literally handing over the head of the “culprit.”

So de Lomer responded to some of these letters or amulet calls, accepted apologies and “apologies,” and pretended to believe what was said. In some cases, they actually did believe them when it was clear that someone had been dragged into the shit against their will or even without their knowledge. However, the level of trust in such individuals became even lower than in those who had betrayed or deliberately sought to “catch sheep from a stray flock” (almost a perfect parallel to the proverb about a fish in a murky pond). At least those aren’t fools.

To some of these letters, de Lomer didn’t respond at all and pretended they never received them. In cases where blood had been shed, or where it would be more advantageous to punish those who had brought it upon themselves “in a fair and honorable way” than to accept an apology along with a settlement and let the matter drop. After all, someone had to serve as an example of why one shouldn’t mess with de Lomer. Stepan had no intention of taking part in these actions. There are no innocents there—otherwise he would have intervened as an ally—but there are also no blatantly guilty parties either; otherwise, he would have participated himself. His work will begin when Akshtar himself and his clique are targeted. That’s when he’ll really let loose.

Meanwhile, Stae’s work had all but come to a standstill. The young Lady Singha hardly ever left the estate; she avoided get-togethers with her friends, citing her busy schedule, her health, and Furval’s decree regarding the trade war. She devoted herself to calls, preparing for them, self-study, or working alongside her mother. As a result, most of her retinue found themselves out of work. Stae, however, was an exception. For Stae was also somewhat gifted and assisted the young lady with a number of preparatory rituals—or even with the preparations for those rituals. They didn’t even consider letting him near the White Yurt, but he simply had to be with the young lady constantly or at least frequently. In the process, he inevitably picked up great wisdom from her (in the words of others, or unspoken opinions, this sounded without sarcasm, by the way).

To sum up so far: at this point, it wasn’t just the “insiders” or “lesser insiders”—like Maître Lavis, for example—who should have started to guess what role Stae was being groomed for. Even the absolute small fry could start to figure it out. What am I saying! Even Stae himself—no matter how slow-witted he might be—should have begun to suspect that such a favorable attitude toward him wasn’t without reason and wasn’t just because of his grandmother’s letter of recommendation. The slow-witted, half-baked spellcaster himself would have gladly avoided such an “honor,” but he and Singha really had to work together, sometimes even alone (or by clouding the perception of those accompanying them so they wouldn’t notice Stae’s excessive competence in matters of magic).

In the end, Maega played the card of “concern” for poor Stae, who had nearly died from a magical allergic reaction triggered by an incorrect dosage of a love potion. The one who was most frightened, by the way, was that very same beautiful shrew who had decided to “tease” her unloved relative in a “friendly” way. There was a long-standing feud between the bride brought from the Steppes and one of the women who had been considered a potential bride for Urvag. According to him, one of the significant reasons he had become so attached to Maega was precisely the prospect of marrying this remarkable woman with a very kind and easygoing nature.

But it’s one thing when this friend-relative makes a promising young man fall in love with her, her daughter, and her niece, thus thwarting Maega’s plans. It’s quite another when she nearly sends the groom who was so hard to find for Singha to his grave. And right on cue, too—almost simultaneously with Akshtar’s attack. The poor (no), completely innocent (no!), and utterly harmless (NO!!!) beauty was the first to bring in a relic of the Keeper of Oaths that she’d rented from somewhere, assuring Maega—and especially Urvag—that she hadn’t planned anything like that and was apologizing in every possible way. Including financially, and—even better—in non-financial ways as well.

That’s how Maega “took care” of the young bull—shielding him from threats and keeping him as close as possible to Singha, all while maintaining at least some semblance of propriety. She didn’t even try to hide the fact that her daughter was “teaching this boy a thing or two,” which explained why they could sometimes be left alone or under minimal supervision. Ideally, they would have brought Lavis into the loop as well, but Urvag couldn’t trust him that much. He would have to demand a stronger oath. And not just any oath—one that the man hadn’t signed, even though he was Urvag’s close associate and had earned Maega’s trust. For now, it was easier to keep Lavis in the dark; fortunately, he’d bought into the story about looking for a husband and hadn’t yet seen anything suspicious or out of line with the story.

For Stae, this resulted in even more people wanting to befriend him, a slew of envious glances, a slight easing of the strictness from Master Lavis and other superiors, as well as a great deal of interest from representatives of the House and their entourages. Three attempts to get him to open up using relaxing alchemy—which he “didn’t notice”—but he “let slip” that Singha had also captured his heart, without actually saying a word about it. He blushed, stumbled over his words, said some ambiguous nonsense, and then very earnestly explained that he hadn’t meant it that way. Classic—you could just take that and make a comedy out of it. He and Singha really did laugh out loud at several scenes that Stepan had overdone in the recording.

The few attempts at poisoning were much more entertaining. Only one could have been considered lethal—and even that was a slapdash job. Urvag was even genuinely pleased that he’d been able, with a clear conscience, to kick that aging relative—who was already gradually slipping into dementia—out of his House. The second attempt involved slipping him a magical equivalent of a concentrated erectile dysfunction potion, which would have prevented him from ever getting an erection again for the rest of his life and reduced his fertility by a couple of orders of magnitude. That incident also avoided a public scandal; they paid a fine and made an example of the perpetrator. Given all the local moral standards and the general tension in the situation, they punished him with the utmost severity.

The Earthling personally intervened, asking that the young man not be executed (not executed outright, but simply punished through the terms of the courtier’s employment contract, which would strip away half his aura)—a young man who didn’t even fully understand why he was being used— while Urvag agreed, since he managed to turn the situation around so that, for him, the very framing of the question—when a scapegoat was thrown at him—was simply insulting. He even managed to push through an additional service, although given their close relationship, he could have forgiven himself for it; still, they managed without formal contracts, just like family. Forgiving oneself so often isn’t exactly good for one’s health or the family atmosphere, but this service won’t be guaranteed either.

The guy who slipped the potion into the drink was simply kicked out because, after they’d thrown him under the bus, it would have been unwise to take him back into the inner circle. What if he had the nerve to hold a grudge? No way—they just stripped him bare through that same employment contract and kicked him out in disgrace, effectively giving him a “wolf ticket.” He didn’t know anything truly secret; otherwise, they would have definitely killed him. He wasn’t a close enough confidant; he was more of a mere errand boy with some potential. Stepan later slipped into his shabby knapsack a pouch of silver with a couple of gold pieces at the bottom, an amulet of false identity, and a letter with a sincere wish for him to get the hell out of Mograve and never come back.

The latest poisoning attempt turned out to be downright comically absurd—a contact potion with a laxative effect, extremely potent and fast-acting, applied to surfaces inside the restroom. The very one used by Singha’s entourage, since it’s located in their section of the mansion’s wing. Moreover, this potion is highly selective—it affects only men by binding to male hormones, and it also requires the presence of a gift, since aural energy serves as fuel for the potion’s composition. What’s more, some skilled alchemist has further refined the potion’s selectivity so that it works on a practitioner of wild magic with aura characteristics roughly matching those of Ste. It’s not yet a perfect custom fit, but it’s close.

Rounding out the picture was the potion’s hormone-triggering nature, which caused not only diarrhea but also a sudden fit of terror—enough to make him literally shit himself out of sheer terror and run out of the bathroom covered in shit, dropping it along the way. The blow wasn’t fatal, but it was hurtful and deeply insulting to Ste. And it was ridiculously expensive, too—what a rip-off! Thirty gold coins—enough to pay a good mercenary squad for a couple of decades or a single major skirmish! But not just any mage could concoct such a concoction—it was custom-made, and Maega even recognized the signature style of one of the city’s alchemy masters. He could very well have demanded a favor in return, rather than money.

Stepan was genuinely baffled. This attack had been planned as a full-fledged assassination attempt, yet it was anything but an actual assassination attempt. It turned out to be the work of one of Furval’s distant relatives—and, moreover, a trusted member of his personal entourage. The man turned bright red and spoke exclusively in profanities—“the boy,” or rather, the sturdy twenty-six-year-old wasn’t exactly head over heels in love with Singh, but he was seriously taken with her. At one point, he had even hoped that his boss would push for a way to strengthen the ties between the two branches of their House, but it didn’t work out.

He was a seasoned pro and an experienced agent, so he didn’t make a scene or actually try to win over his childhood crush against all reason. Besides, he knew about the peculiarities of inheritance in the Maega family, so he quickly realized it just wasn’t meant to be and all that. But just having to look at that little little shit—an upstart who’d literally come out of nowhere, a rootless little piece of shit with barely any gift (even the romantic Riorik has a gift; he’s a strong apprentice or even a weak adept)—who would soon be hugging and loving his Singha… that was more than he could bear. He didn’t dare and didn’t want to harm his own House, and he understood rationally that Stae certainly wasn’t to blame in this matter. But he couldn’t do anything either. So things turned out the way they did.

From the unspoken hints, it became clear that this Agent Forty-Seven in Furval’s entourage served as his personal hitman. In fact, the main evidence of Riorik’s guilt was the absence of any proof of his involvement, given the flawless execution of the poisoning itself. And then there was the fact that the guy had suddenly decided to go on a drinking binge and was now being urgently sobered up by a couple of comrades, who were trying to cover up his unsteady state. It was very funny to hear this dialogue from behind Furval—who was practically on fire with rage—as he became painfully polite and arctic-calm for the duration of the conversation, all while watching the events unfold in the room where those three were sitting.

Actually, if this guy—who’s usually as calm as not even a boa constrictor, but rather the serpentarium housing those boas, as depicted in a stone statue—hadn’t let his emotions get the better of him, he certainly wouldn’t have gotten involved in this kind of nonsense. Or he would have covered his tracks much better than he did. It ended with a stern reprimand, sincere apologies (he was ashamed of his ugly nervous breakdown, not of what he’d actually done), a not-very-sincere forgiveness, and a saved sample of the poisonous laxative—which wouldn’t have affected Stepan anyway, even if he hadn’t noticed that junk before entering the restroom, thanks to his high Sensitivity and a pair of scent-detecting receptors in his nasal cartilages. The aura was wrong, and on top of that, it was too strong: the mixture simply couldn’t have worked on someone so gifted and powerful; otherwise, Singha would have been at risk as well, even if that risk were negligible due to, well, her being female.

“By Gaia's tits and those of all her priestesses, why is this happening to me, huh?” Furval asked—not quite the heavens, not quite his brother, and not quite Maega, who was glaring angrily at him. “Why is it that even seemingly reliable and trusted subordinates keep pulling off something... well, like this?!”

What a nightmare. How is anyone supposed to live with such huge problems?! It’s not that Stepan didn’t acknowledge that everyone faces difficulties in life—and that “even the rich cry”—but right now, he had no time to put himself in someone else’s shoes. Someone had screwed him over—almost literally. And now he had to figure out exactly what to do about it, because Furval—of all people, having already twice gently hinted that he was ready to swear under oath that he had nothing to do with this disgraceful incident—was now extremely on edge because Stepan had ignored those hints. Stepan, on the other hand, had simply fallen into a kind of melancholic gloom, and, as always happens in such cases, his face had turned as hard as a brick—which was exactly why Furgal was so on edge.

"Pann, say something." Singha is actually smiling because everything’s going well for her. She just completed a small quest from the System. She’s constantly leveling up through active shamanism, and on top of that, she’s teamed up with Stepan—and the whole situation genuinely amuses her. “My uncle’s getting nervous. You look… not good. Like you want to kill someone. I already know you don’t. But my uncle doesn't.”

Stepan looked at the girl with such gloomy skepticism in his eyes, but he nevertheless acknowledged that she was right and emerged from the melancholy that had come over him for some unknown reason. He looked at Urvag, who was smirking under his mustache; at Maega, who was carefully maintaining her meditative calm; and at Singha, who was relaxed and seemed completely unperturbed. He also looked at Furval, who was on the verge of breaking a sweat; with his meager talent—not even enough to qualify as a student—he was successfully controlling his morning energy and outward displays of emotion.

“If he'd pulled that kind of crap on the real Stae, would you have killed him?” Sure, there were probably good reasons to kill a homegrown jerk, but definitely not for trying to give someone horrible diarrhea. “Or would you have punished him some other way?”

“I wouldn’t kill him,” the chubby man replied cautiously, clearly not entirely convinced that Stepan was showing mercy rather than leading him toward the most logical conclusion. “He’s a useful guy, reliable. Family, again, not close blood, but not distant either. I’d offer Maega a good ransom for his life—a ‘kalyam-dakhan,’ as they say in the Steppe. And Rory himself, of course, would remember for the rest of his life why he shouldn’t drink too much. He might even quit drinking altogether.”

Well, let’s say he wouldn’t pay a kalym-dakhan—a ransom for a life taken as punishment for a dishonorable act—for Stae, who isn’t even an official fiancé yet. But he’s not lying; he would have tried to ransom his specialist’s life and health from Maega, and she, of course, would have given him a hard time, but she would have accepted the ransom. And Urvag would surely have helped out, taking the blow himself, and then weathering the inevitable storm—a hurricane, a typhoon, a tornado, and every other kind of prevailing wind.

“So be it,” he said. He looked at Furval with that trademark drowsy gaze—one-thousandth of a percent like the one Rodislav Gastoldovich Yanin had—forcing the head of the trading house to draw on all his experience to keep from flinching or stepping back. “Just keep your people, well, in check. I’m not a confrontational person. Especially when I myself give people a reason to dislike the mask I’m forced to wear. But if this romantic character of yours tries to repeat his scheme—to close the gestalt, so to speak—then I’ll… be disappointed.”

It’s best not to stray too far into the wilderness of universal forgiveness. While Urvag has a rough idea of Stepan’s way of thinking, Furval is still new to their circle, and the shaman didn’t want to give anyone a reason to think they could walk all over him. Although, from their perspective, his mindset and notions of what’s acceptable surely still seem like utter madness. The broad-shouldered, top-tier merchant is currently having roughly the same thoughts as Urvag and Maega did when Stepan was being hired as a steward at their estate. That same lack of understanding, mild shock, and cautious desire to convey the idea that this is somehow wrong and simply not done—that it’s offensive and terribly indecent for a mage of his caliber.

Furval just has a much better poker face than Maega, that's all.

But these are just fleeting problems, especially since the matter of the head of the de Lomer household joining their alliance has practically been settled. He already knows far too much, so he has no objection to taking the same oaths as Urvag, under the same terms of the alliance with Stepan. At this point, it was Stepan himself who understood Singha’s unspoken thoughts: It’s too early to agree, because otherwise it will look suspicious. For the sake of propriety, at least, he needs to haggle a bit. And besides, according to local etiquette, it would simply be rude to “push Urvag aside” in favor of his brother.

Oh, those local morals, parochial customs, and that cultural shitness that's universal all over the world!

He can't wait to get down to business and make that final push—otherwise, he is in such a mood that he feels like killing someone.

* * *

The Steppe is calm and quiet at night; only the wind rustles the grass, and a barely perceptible air elemental chases some magical counterpart to feather grass around the area. The thunderstorm has only just died down, but the air is already almost dry; the Steppe has absorbed all the moisture, every last bit of it. The silence isn’t quite absolute—small creatures rustle in the grass, crickets chirp, and far, far off, right on the horizon, the lights of a fairly large encampment are visible. If you look more closely, you’ll see that those lights are joined by a series of shimmering fields and nets, forming a rather effective magical defense around the camp. And a whole circle of spirits, arranged in two parallel yet cooperating groups, forms a defense that’s actually quite good.

However, that protection is over there, near the encampment, not here in the middle of the steppe, where not even patrols venture due to the distance from any dangerous or protected areas. The only out-of-place element here seems to be a gray—almost colorless—arrow stuck in the grass. It’s the most ordinary kind—at least half of every self-respecting warrior’s quiver is filled with arrows like this—without enchantments, without decorations, and without any features that would draw attention. Were it not for this strange colorlessness in magical perception, it would be completely unremarkable.

This arrow appeared here about three days ago, unnoticed by the patrols—also at night. A lone steppe wanderer—well-equipped and highly skilled at concealing himself, both on his own and with the help of the amulets given to him—left this arrow here. He fired it, by the way, from a distance of nearly three leaps—seven kilometers, according to the alien system of weights and measures. A tremendous distance, but the steppe traveler’s bow was remarkably good, and no particular accuracy was required. Shooting at such a distance is possible in theory and in practice. Still, as for hitting the target—if anyone can manage it, it would be only a couple or three elven masters, and even then, the arrow would have to be one of those specially sharpened for long-range shots. Well, maybe five or six such masters. If you really looked hard, you might find one or two among the steppe dwellers, but they’re mostly found in the legends and tales of the time of the Chief of Chiefs, not among the living.

Either the elves don't like competitors, or they simply diligently eliminated all the comrades of the Chief of Chiefs who were dangerous to them - history is silent about this, just as the elves are silent.

The arrow won’t tell anyone anything either. It simply lies there and exists. To ordinary and magical eyes, this arrow is just an arrow—no enchantments or anomalies, except for its color scheme. In spiritual perception, it’s almost the same, though only a very attentive spirit summoner would realize that this arrow, in some strange way, exerts pressure on the Higher Spheres. It is as if the spheres themselves are constantly shifting, even if only slightly—shifting, moving, transforming, and seemingly breathing—while this arrow remains absolutely unbreakable and unchanged in every moment of time. But to notice this, one would have to find this arrow and then bring it to that very attentive shaman, for he would not go out on patrols or ride on horseback through the heat and rain.

And even the patrols—without the shamans—didn't come around here.

The spiritual world twitched slightly, becoming veiled by a haze, ripples, and a veil—visible for just a brief moment. Then, about ten minutes later, there was another faint surge of power, and a spirit—not yet manifested in reality—appeared in the world of the Spheres. A large, mighty, fully-formed elder, hidden deep within the layers of those Spheres, resembling a terrifying carnivorous jellyfish—a Portuguese man-of-war that had mutated under the Chernobyl rains and the salts of St. Petersburg. And it was this jellyfish that extended the very tip of its body closer to the surface—a single small, slender tentacle, thinner than a spider’s web.

Then the second, the third, the tenth—each of these tentacles was not only a venomous stinger but also a sensory organ; each scanned reality and everything in its vicinity for anything dangerous, hostile, or aggressive, each examining it within its own unique spectrum. Deep within the Spheres, she was supported by several packs of scouts led by powerful spirits, who kept watch for a possible “ambush from below”—when there is nothing in the physical world, but deep within the Spheres, a penetration brigade lies in wait, sleeping yet observing the process of uninvited guests breaking through. According to Maega, aside from Akshtar himself, at most three or four of his people would be capable of employing such a tactic; even among shamans, it is a rarely used and highly risky maneuver that requires one’s own retinue of spirits and special properties of the spiritual body.

And the intelligence unit led by de Lomer and Sulsham Bey kept all these individuals under surveillance; none of them, it seemed, could possibly be here. However, far from objecting to Stepan’s paranoia and overcaution, she did everything in her power to help him, sharing both his paranoia and his desire to keep them all safe. So the packs of seekers—one resembling a hybrid of fish and moths, and the other completely shapeless, occasionally merging into a single entity to form a quasi-elder spirit with extremely unpleasant aspects—are searching; the ominous jellyfish is searching; a very dark call, which, however, has been satisfied with three white lambs and a white bull.

Naturally white, not altered by chimerology or a biomancer’s interference with the embryo—which is important. Equally important is the fact that Maega wiped the eyes right out of the sockets of that smartass who tried to sell a modified bull to an experienced shaman, as if with sandpaper. She even showed mercy, by the way—her colleagues at the trade mission (not a noble house, but a conglomerate of several families aspiring to nobility) later strangled the blind man themselves and gleefully divided his estate, using that very estate to pay the fines. All joking aside—this incident can be considered the scam of the year—or at least the season—in the category of “what a fucking moron”!

Even a classical mage couldn’t be deceived in this way; an experienced ritualist would almost certainly have noticed signs of interference. But a shaman? One for whom the very essence of her gift lies in detecting such deviations in the spiritual reflection of future offerings? And one so experienced, at that? And then, when she was caught red-handed and given the chance to save face, she even tried to combine her own meager gift with the priceless Lortan relic amulet to make him believe her? A senior shaman protected by a shield? That’s a joke, not an attempt at fraud. Although, to be fair, if it weren’t for the new knowledge from the system—which, incidentally, also “brought the old knowledge up to the proper standards”—there might have been a chance of pulling one over on that jerk.

Relics of a god as unpleasant yet useful as the Deceiver are very treacherous things, and this is literally a scam—and a rather substantial one at that. The resonance with the Relic turned out to be nearly perfect. If the Relic had been more powerful, or if Maega hadn’t been so paranoid from her regular interactions with Stepan, it might have worked. They would have dug him up from under the ground and killed him anyway, but it could have worked—it really could have. Maega didn’t even try to stop Stepan from quickly checking this moron’s head—such suicidal self-confidence could have been someone’s attempt to lure the guy into a trap. You know, to shift his focus a bit, dull his caution, stoke his greed, and take away his fear.

Yeah.

He’s just a complete idiot who thinks he’ll get lucky every time. He’s long had a reputation as a shady character—even by the standards of hucksters—but he usually chose when and to whom to show that shady side. This guy deserves the Darkest Darwin Award.

Meanwhile, the spirits have finished their inspection without finding anything dangerous, and now new entities are appearing around the arrow. Tailored for containment and camouflage. The sphere of stability, aspects of locks, seals, and lines: they are literally lines—two-dimensional and drawn directly onto the grass and earth—creating a camouflage and a barrier out of nothing. Then a flash, its power striking the inner walls of the closed circuit, and a moment later the flash turned into a window. It was the very same portal they had used before, searching for an intermediary in Stepan’s failed abduction.

All three shamans pass through the passage swiftly yet cautiously, neither rushing nor lingering—there is no nervousness, nor any kind of eager anticipation. They view what is happening as simply a job—a difficult one, even (somewhat) dangerous, but nothing more. The camp in the distance is still unaware of the evil fate looming over it in the form of these three figures; there, people who are calm and confident about the future sleep peacefully—or perhaps do not sleep at all. Their safety will be ensured; Stepan will see to it, and so will his partners.

The portal—which, for a couple of moments, had linked the two parts of the spheres’ worlds together, forcing them to exist at a single, indistinct point that does not exist in this dimension—quietly closes, as if a gigantic eye were slowly blinking. The background remains very uniform, but now, if you look closely, you can still make out that something is amiss—they are summoning their retinues, calling them to battle, and it’s simply impossible to maintain absolute silence. However, even if you notice them right now, it won’t change much—it will complicate the task and make a “perfect run” impossible; even though this isn’t a quest, that’s all it is, and nothing more.

But no one noticed them. No one was disturbed. The spirits of others continued to keep watch, unhurriedly performing their duties as they guarded the camp. Three shamans, standing beyond the very concept of the camp’s boundaries and surrounded by their retinues—among whom senior spirits flickered (three with Maegф and Stepan, and one, an old acquaintance, near Singha)—were preparing their strike. Another retinue—a reserve force not yet fully summoned, whose battle and fury have been paid for in advance but not yet called upon—awaits in the depths of the Realms. There are five more senior spirits there, but they already belong to Stepan and Singha: three and two—gifts from the system in her case, one gift and two personal contracts in his.

As a last resort, he had meta-skills to replenish his reserve, and Singha had a similar token with a quarter of a hundred charges—a reward for saving his beloved little brother. That reward also included three tokens, each one more vulgar than the last; she relayed the details about them to him with considerable embarrassment, since they didn’t appear in the group’s interface. She was most embarrassed because there was one of those tokens she really, really wanted to use, but she didn’t dare ask for it directly—not after the whole situation had already been hanging by a thread. Stepan didn’t comment, if only because he didn’t know himself—whether he would have told her to fuck off or gone along with her request after all. That token was a far greater humiliation for her than for him, but he would have taken a hit too.

Thoughts of the Automilf tokens and the strange boundaries of trust between him and Singha did not interfere with their preparations, and very soon they had split into two groups. Mother and daughter soared into the heavens, while spirits—primarily from the aerial realms—whirled around them in a vortex visible only in the world of the spheres. However, little by little, this vortex began to manifest in the real world. It manifested as a wind rising slowly but inexorably, threatening to turn into a shrinking tornado. Stepan, meanwhile, remained on the ground, morphing his ethereal body into yet another jellyfish, making full use of the abilities of his “masterful practice of spiritual manipulation,” completely losing his humanoid form and merging with the surrounding spaces of the Spheres.

All of this is so that a potential enemy, surveying the area in the morning, would find plenty of evidence of the mother and daughter’s work, but no sign of a third person. Although he plans to take an active part in the impending rampage, he’ll prefer to leave all the glory of battle to Maega and Singha. They’re certainly doing their best; the night sky is rapidly turning black, and the moonlight, barely breaking through the thick clouds, is fading as the clouds become not just thick, but a completely impenetrable blanket. Neither the stars nor the sky are visible anymore; only the distant lights of the campfires can be made out, where they haven’t yet realized how bad things are—but they will soon. They’re no fools; they know what’s happening right now and who their patron, teacher, or overlord has clashed with.

This encampment served as a base for a particularly vicious clan that obtained their sustenance not only with spears but also with lassos—and more often with the latter. To put it in human terms—they’re not just robbers and raiders, though they don’t shy away from that either—but first and foremost, they’re kidnappers and, to some extent, slave traders. That said, they hardly ever buy their “merchandise” any more often than they take it by force. An old—even ancient—orc, who seemed to have experienced every nuance of graveyard and bone spirits, constantly needed the most essential material for his difficult craft.

New.

Fresh.

Alive.

It’s not hard to conclude that maintaining a large number of slave-trading gangs on a permanent basis would be economically unfeasible, even though he maintains them anyway. He does maintain them, but the real power lies with his personal slave traders, who also bring in income, connections, and reputation for their master and patron. They’re not just traffickers in human beings—they’re outright black. And not because one of their squad mages is a sturdy, curvaceous Black woman—an adept of curses and puppet magic—who fled to the Steppe all the way from the jungle, where her mania for draining the life and health of everyone indiscriminately nearly drove her to her grave. Though it did, in fact, drive many others there.

They’re the ones people turn to when they need not just, say, five victims, but one who’s a repentant sinner, a second who’s a priest-turned-bandit, a third who’s technically a virgin but in reality a hardened whore, and the fourth and fifth who are Black twins with albinism. They knew how to find them, knew how to quietly and discreetly steal goods where it was simply impossible to buy or seize them. Not just muggers—no, among them are at least three groups of specialists similar to those who came for Stepan-Stae, only they specialize not in a broad range of services, but specifically in kidnappings. Sometimes for ransom, sometimes to collect the ransom and still hand the victim over to the client—following in the footsteps of their mentor and overlord, they took great liberties in breaking promises to anyone who wasn’t “one of their own.” And they were also very loose in determining who exactly was “one of their own.”

The Mute Tambourine shared quite generously his experience of how to cope with the repercussions of a broken promise—or how to shift the blame onto some unlucky soul—tormented on the altar. Not entirely, lest they forget their own vows, but he did share. And this old man certainly knows how to get what he wants. It’s no wonder he has—and strives to maintain—a reputation as perhaps the most vengeful son of a bitch in the entire Steppe. Probably one of the reasons for such diligence is that others often decide to forgive his debts as well, since he behaves the same way—especially those who serve him.

The wind howls in a thoroughly unnatural way; in its wails one can hear the ominous growl of a wolf pack, the cackling of storm spirits, and the cry of a falcon diving toward its prey. And there is also an angry voice—a woman’s voice—but one that speaks in gusts of a malicious and biting wind, a steppe gale from which there is no escape. Down there, in the middle of the fortified encampment, they recognize this voice; they recognize the characteristic image of the spiritual realm, the equally characteristic spirits, and the attack they are launching. They recognize it and begin to counter it—after all, they have experience; they simply must.

The encampment is shielded by a classic magical barrier created by portable artifacts driven into the ground along the perimeter and within, forming a closed loop. Some of the tents have their own protective barriers. Grave dust and bone shards burst upward, temporarily taking the form of the elder spirit, which until now had been slumbering peacefully within the totem-altar. Both squads of patrol spirits also materialize for battle, and they are gradually joined by a third, awakening spirit, as large as the two already awake. Several howling necrotic spectres join the general chorus of spirits, and from an inconspicuous crypt emerge undead warriors, clad in plate armor and adorned with ribbon amulets bearing embroidered magical symbols over their armor.

The shaman who rules here, along with his disciples—by virtue of being one of the few who survived Akshtar’s own training—is noticeably weaker than Maega, even with his four male disciples and two female disciples. In terms of the strength of his aura and spiritual power, he is only slightly more powerful than Singha—not the Singha of today, but the version she was before meeting Stepan. But he is firmly entrenched in his stronghold, literally at its very center, and therefore expects to hold his ground even on his own, without the help of allies or resorting to his last-resort resources. That is precisely why neither Maega, nor Sulsha-bey, nor a host of other ill-wishers have been able to subdue him so far. He has fortified himself considerably. Moreover, he was exceptionally skilled at keeping his totem altar active even while on the move. That said, he is even more cautious when traveling. Almost always, his body is carried in wagons and vigilantly guarded by loyal bodyguards and disciples, while Kulym the mighty Khao-Seran follows his tribe and detachment in the spirit world.

Yes, they would have been more vulnerable on the march, but it would have been much harder to catch them; however, at a campsite—especially a long-term one—knowing it wouldn’t be easy to break them with a surprise attack, they allowed themselves to let their guard down. The battle seems almost evenly matched. The gusts of wind carry both physical damage and a magical charge, causing the classic shield to flicker and the dust wall to buckle. Storm lightning strikes every now and then, piercing through the defenses. Here—an undead creature is incinerated; there—a spirit is knocked out; there—another one, a powerful one at that; and yonder—a raider running around aimlessly is finally taken down.

The battle seems evenly matched. If Maega and Singha were here now—before they obtained the Tablet of the Soul, even if only for a moment—it would indeed be an even match. The blows from the bone spirits—which appear in the spheres as horses fashioned from darkness and graveyards, as ghostly bone hounds, as tortured human silhouettes in iron chains, or simply as shapeless clouds or concepts entirely unimaginable to an unprepared mind—also deal damage. The shaman’s retinue gradually suffers losses; they knock out one spirit or another, but they still press on, press on, press on, generously feeding the spirits with their strength, generously channeling that strength into commands and calls, gaining the upper hand through the coordination and concentration of the entire retinue’s efforts on the target.

The opponent lacks focus; that’s true. But he has a seemingly limitless supply of strength, drawn from totems and disciples. He holds his own, and that’s probably why he’s angrily berating the dishonorable steppe woman for clearly having bolstered herself with some kind of sacrificial ritual. Because she and her daughter somehow have far too much power. They should have already exhausted their reserves, switched to direct control by their entourage, and fulfilled the terms of the prepaid deal. But no! They’re still pushing forward and have no intention of stopping! This isn’t fucking fair—he’s the one here who can strengthen himself through bloody rituals or cunningly circumvent the natural limitations of his gift, rising above it all! And this dishonorable Kurlam-Shamarshah slaughters the innocent on the altar just to sneakily siphon off a crumb of power—how can her Sky-Father and Earth-Mother even tolerate her?!

Maega responds just as Singha does. They counter with a pre-planned ultimate move: the sky itself comes crashing down on the encampment, which had taken cover behind its defenses. Almost black with the force and rage channeled into it, the pillar of air struck with such force that the classic barrier—a relic honestly purchased but later dishonestly stolen (the seller was slaughtered right there along with his entourage, immediately after payment)—burst along its entire perimeter. No less than a third of the artifacts remaining from that transaction were rendered useless, and part of the tents collapsed inward under the weight of the air, which had turned to stone.

You can hear shouts—mostly from men, but there are women and children as well. This isn’t a full-fledged tribal encampment, but rather a sutut-saray, a camp set up for a military campaign. Many families quite consciously prefer to keep their loved ones away from the dangerous trade of raiders and slave-catchers, yet they are held close to their patron against their will, so that he may more easily punish or show mercy—try arguing with him. But some were taken along, some were brought into the business, and some simply didn’t want to send their lovers back home—for who would they fuck next, each other? Or female captives, decreasing their price. And daily life was sustained by far more than just the slaves, who were also affected.

The main blow was struck right at the heart of the encampment, at the most lavish tent belonging to the most venerable Kulyum. That’s what really spooked him—and not just a little. Now he was getting nervous, clearly realizing that the wind witch had gone all in, and so he, too, stopped holding back his trump cards. A drawn-out cry, smelling of a damp grave, dried-up bones, and caked blood, faded into the distance. There was no way to intercept it without revealing their position prematurely. And there was no need to, either. Maega literally wanted that cry for help to be sent out—it was a matter of pride, honor, a demonstrative gesture, and all of that combined. True, now it was crucial to finish what she had set out to do before anyone could answer the call.

Then, in the noticeably thinned cloud of dust surrounding the center of the encampment, a crimson spark flashed, as if someone had poured a portion of fresh blood into that dust—the blood of a gifted one, one capable of communicating with the dust and thus serving as the perfect bridge. A disciple, not a gifted slave or a captive. Slaves and merchandise are also being dragged toward the tent with the altar; they’re rushing to make it in time, rushing to seize the initiative. In this encampment, there are no fewer than two and a half hundred children of the Steppe; no fewer than seven dozen of them are outstanding warriors, and another fifty are simply warriors. And the rest are good as well, though they’re more useful during a raid on some village that’s been careless enough to settle near the Steppe.

Of course, no one counted the slaves. In such a crowd, there were those who dragged, those who bound, and those who placed things on the altar. A nightmarish blow, paid for with the blood of a disciple—or perhaps even two—surges upward, and along with it, the spirit bursts forth from the altar. Resembling a massive bone, the colossal spine of a giant—visible only through spiritual perception, appearing to the uninitiated eye as a spear of the purest darkness, black even against the backdrop of the night’s gloom—it hurtled toward the center of the storm. Around the bony spine, two ribbons of blood-red life spiraled—the severed life, the devoured gift—flying and burning as they turned to ash.

The mighty elder spirit, the trump card of the venerable Kulym, was practically helpless, capable of existing only within a totem, devouring the lives and deaths of those who paid him. This spirit could exist fully only and exclusively at the moment of sacrifice by a disciple bound to his teacher by a blood oath. And only while the blood spilled from a lost life still burned—for a few brief heartbeats—could this spirit strike. A blow that even Maege would now find extremely difficult to withstand, especially after her own super-attack, which had forced her to give it her all. Perhaps not just difficult, but simply fatal.

Maega does not defend herself. On the contrary, she pulls her entourage out of the path of the now unstoppable doom, as if consciously sacrificing herself for her daughter’s sake. The Spirit-Spine, embodying a part of the whole, will take a new vertebra into its power, then vanish, having killed its only living, physical target. And the mother, who has overestimated her own strength, sacrifices herself for her daughter, who, too, will not have time to escape the retinue that has rushed after the Spirit-Spine. The third pack, the largest, has finally awakened and lunged forward to finish her off. This is exactly how Kulim sees the situation; it is sickening for the earthling to hear his repulsive, triumphant cry—silent, yet resonating only in the Spheres.

He feels sick because that sound-notsound is repulsive, not because of the pain of losing his ally. This ally opens a carved wooden box in her hands. It is immaterial, utterly ethereal, yet even in the spiritual realms it looks just as real as it does in its physical form. The gift from the System—awarded to Singha for creating a portal between two cities—is used by her mother, who opens a bottomless maw. And the mighty, deadly spirit, firmly bound to the totem, is simply sucked into the box, like a hamster into a vacuum cleaner. A quarter of a heartbeat later, the severed connection between the totem and a very specific elder spirit—one incapable of independent existence—snaps, and the Giant’s Spine is shattered once and for all.

It would be reborn later, in the depths of the Spheres, but as something different—no longer bound by a contract with Akshtar, the Mute Tambourin, who had later passed this totem on to his disciple as a last-resort argument. And he passed it on temporarily, not as a gift. In short, the emotions of the shaman, who had grown so attached to such a gift, were worthy of being enshrined in the golden treasury of iconic images—or even the diamond one. And they could be enshrined right in his chest, yes.

The horde of death spirits, surging forward, tries to tear Maega—who is still defenseless—to pieces, but they don’t get the chance. Her daughter intervenes. Most likely, after this night, Singha will finally be officially recognized as a Khao-searan—that is, a full-fledged senior shaman—albeit one weaker than her mother, a Khao-seahar. Consider it recognition of her mastery, as a magical title, even if it doesn’t come from the System with its perfectionism. It’s not that Singha was upset by this, but she didn’t feel any particular joy at such a revelation either. The important thing here is to later present all of this as the result of amplifying rituals, generations of selective breeding, and a breakthrough in understanding the spirit world following the adventures she experienced underground and in the jungle.

Everyone is expected to believe and accept the story at face value. It’s one thing if a sudden display of power comes from yesterday’s farmer or some mysterious weirdo who appeared out of nowhere—in that case, it’s easy to suspect the Tablet of the Soul, given all the hype surrounding it. It’s an entirely different matter, however, when a child of many generations of selective breeding shows a sudden surge in power—especially in an area where such surges are not at all uncommon. Her blood had reached the required density; the spirits recognized the girl, blessing her in return and thereby expanding her aura. It’s rare, difficult, and arduous—one always has to pay for those blessings later (unless generations upon generations of female shamans have already paid for them)—but it does happen.

Perhaps that was exactly what Kulym was thinking when his retinue clashed with the shamanesses’ retinue, led this time solely by the daughter. When the daughter managed to withstand that blow, and then seize the initiative and begin to press the attack in return. The first heartbeats—when the shaman still hoped not to regain what was lost, but at least to take revenge, if not to kill even one, then to wound, to tear apart the spiritual body with packs of spirits, and to leave ragged wounds there—were missed. Then Maega, smiling a happy and terrifying smile, transmitting it into spiritual images, opened the box once more.

This time, a cloud of dust—that very same elder spirit that formed the foundation of the altar—was sucked inward. This was no longer a mere setback, but nearly a crushing defeat in the shamanic duel. But both shamanesses were also exhausted. The asshole, suddenly remembering caution, summoned the remnants of his retinue and called upon new spirits—reserves he had been saving for a long defense. In an instant, all the flesh-bound undead burst into flames and burned to ashes in a green blaze; only the red-hot and rusted pieces of their lousy armor—which was far too heavy for the living—fell to the ground.

At that very moment, the mixture of dust and ash—the remains of corpses that had both rotted and burned simultaneously—enveloped the venerable Kulym’s tent in an additional and very reliable shield. There you have it: classic necromancy, classic witchcraft, and a good dose of shamanism—classic as well. And so, the jerk, holed up in a tight defensive position, began to weather the new blows of the subsiding storm. The retinue of shamans hadn’t exhausted their powers, but they were tired—and so were the others. They had already dealt irreparable damage to the bastard, who would have to spend years and decades restoring what he’d lost, if he could ever manage to pay off his cruel and merciless mentor.

He’ll have to behave a lot more modestly from now on, because he no longer possesses the power that once allowed him to kill and plunder, kidnap and slaughter, betray and laugh it off. Some of his connections will certainly fall away, and others will renegotiate the terms of their cooperation—there’s no doubt about that—and he’ll have to choose his targets for raids much more carefully, for he might end up getting beaten up in places where he used to be the one kicking back at those who resisted. The damage, of course, is colossal, but the night is still young; barely half an hour has passed since the battle began. And he certainly shouldn’t have sent most of his strike force to “finish off Maega.”

No, no, he’s not an idiot. He left a cover team behind—one consisting mainly of trackers—but that team was searching for the mother and daughter’s scents, for an inaudible breeze or an elusive, suffocating noose around their necks. Stepan, in his jellyfish form, crept closer completely unnoticed; his vast retinue was also hidden—it contained almost no pure strike spirits, but it had plenty of those who were best at killing with a surprise attack. He had every chance of slipping past this defense even without that ill-advised dash forward. But thanks to that dash, his spirits breached the perimeter without any trouble at all. It was so easy that the shaman involuntarily paused, searching for a clever trap—everything had gone too smoothly; it was downright suspicious!

But no, he didn’t find any traps, except for their own.

The closest thing that could be considered that very trap was the bridge gradually being built between two sections of the steppe. Across this bridge—and through the bond between apprentice and Mentor, sealed with blood—flowed power, flowed will, flowed the blood of the slaves being brought forth, of the cargo struggling in despair, and little by little, a door took shape. Not for Akshtar himself, of course, but he could have sent in a landing force of assault spirits if he’d given his student another hour or so. Well, forty minutes. That’s when Stepan changed his mind because of the death of yet another student, who had nourished the bridge with his life and his gift. Even thirty, or perhaps as few as twenty. That’s what he thought when, next, one of the female students died—the half-sister of the first to be killed.

They really don’t hold back on the students here. They treat them like disposable items! No, he knew full well that Kulyim was really only teaching his eldest son and his lover—his so-called “camp wife,” so to speak. But still, that kind of consumerist and pragmatic attitude toward those who were close to him—those he taught, mentored, and spent so much time with as part of the same group—was incredibly frustrating, and it also made him angry—extremely, extremely, extremely angry. And the shaman didn’t hold back his anger; he gave in to it with joy and eagerness.

At first, everyone who possessed the sensitivity of a gifted individual felt as if a dandelion had brushed against their face. This was the work of a powerful spirit with a rare specialization: the realms of Air, Plants, and Attention, all at once. This spirit was a large Phantom Dandelion, which instantly released hundreds of its parachute-like seeds—seeds that were part of it. And its mark—which is far more important. A mark that is extremely easy for any spirits of the air realms to distinguish, simultaneously reducing the target’s resistance to their effects and slightly increasing the aggressiveness of spirits from the relevant realm toward the marked one. Spirits such as, for example, the one who, at Stepan’s command, struck next.

The Earthling didn’t have any particular preferences regarding which element or sphere to attack, but since he was here incognito, he tried to adapt to his comrades’ tactics and calls. However, he did so in a way that avoided following their playbook entirely—that way, the enemy's preparation would be more effective. This senior spirit had been summoned with Singha’s help—though she had assisted more during the initial preparatory stages and in selecting the retinue of spirits to accompany the ritual, as well as in arranging the totemic structures. The Earthling performed the summoning himself, on his own, simply because at that moment Singha was up to her ears in her own projects.

The Spirit locks onto the dandelions, selectively targeting only those it has been instructed to. Not a single slave, not a single random prisoner or noncombatant—only warriors with blood on their hands. And yet it didn’t touch a single powerful, gifted individual—only those with meager gifts, talented warriors, mere fighters, even if equipped with exceptional amulets, often imbued with spirits. It even caught Kulym’s last apprentice as he ran to check why the fighters weren’t hauling in the fresh meat. And the fresh meat was fighting back with all its might—several captives who were still strong and hadn’t been worn down took advantage of the situation, slashed the distracted overseer, strangled the second one with a rope, and then began to fight for their lives.

They didn’t have long to live. The apprentice had already pointed his finger—with that long nail on it—at the rebellious and unbroken ones, and then it was too late to subdue and break them. The Spirit didn’t try to attack Kulym’s tent, even though there was some chance of catching him off guard—but only a very small one. Such an attack was, after all, the kind Maega regularly used, just not in battle, but for targeted eliminations. And not on a massive scale, not across wide areas. After today, many will have to seriously reevaluate just how dangerous the arsenal of a steppe milf is—may the Auto-Goddess bless poor Urvag, who somehow manages to live in perfect harmony with her.

The air and wind around the marked targets simply freeze, becoming inert and motionless; air ceases to be drawn into the lungs upon inhalation. Even the air already in the lungs stops being absorbed by the alveoli, as if the particles of that air had coalesced into an indivisible mass from which not a single drop can be separated. Ordinary fighters with lousy amulets fall instantly, and within half a minute, even those with amulets hold out only a little longer. Basic protection slightly diluted the effect inside the body, and the resistance of the aura made an even greater difference. Kulym’s son even tried to cast a spell to directly infuse his body with magic and the spirit of the universe contained in the necklace, but he simply couldn’t keep up. He lacked both knowledge and skill.

Alas, even though Dandelion had marked nearly all the raiders at the encampment, even the senior—and only—spirit could not handle them all. Its power is too specific to become so widespread. It requires fine-tuning and absolute control over the surrounding world. He could have nearly doubled—or even tripled—the number of victims if he had struck indiscriminately, literally across large areas. In the mode of operation that Stepan specified for his summons, exactly fifty-six enemies were taken down. Not the strongest ones—or rather, not only the strongest ones. The Earthling struck those who could threaten the captives, those who dragged or slaughtered them, those responsible for delivering the meat, as well as those in key command positions.

This might seem like an irresponsible, overly lenient, and wimpy decision, but Stepan could afford to keep his hands clean while maintaining his moral high ground. In the sense that he hadn’t just prepared this attack. It’s just that he had originally planned this particular one to pull the noncombatants who were still alive out of harm’s way. The second attack is simpler. It’s just three separate swarms of air spirits, lashing out with fists of wind, whips of wind, arrows of icy air, and lightning bolts of various calibers. Two strong spirits and eleven small ones each, a lucky thirteen times three, plus about three dozen spirits outside the kagal on top of that—purely as extras, on a one-time contract. There shouldn’t be any random victims marked as dandelions, unless the captives and slaves themselves deliberately and persistently attack these spirits.

Even now, even after all this chaos, the enemies weren’t in any hurry to give up without a fight. They were still putting up a resistance, though it wasn’t particularly organized or especially valiant—more like the desperation of the doomed. That dark-skinned, big-assed woman with bare tits and ass—who’d been snatched right from her latest lover by the attack and hadn’t even had time to get dressed—wasn’t about to go down without a fight. There’s no fucking way to save the lover—his aura’s key points are completely shattered, his prana has been drained, and his brain has fried from an overload of pleasure. Come to think of it, this lady’s vampire-like behavior is way more pronounced than Sylvia’s.

On her belt—her only piece of clothing besides her boots—a second doll is already falling apart and shrinking, while the Dandelion label is gradually bleeding onto the third. And she’s pretty good at devouring spirits, too. She sucks them into this huge doll with a cartoonishly enormous mouth, as if it were a very, very, very, very budget version of Singha’s box. It even sucked one of the powerful spirits into this doll, devouring it completely; though the doll’s mouth did close afterward, and the threads sewed the doll’s mouth shut on their own. This one had to be killed separately. Stepan, with a mixture of strange pleasure, used a spirit on it—one of the kind that bestowed autoerotic knowledge in the poor isekai’s main specialty, which he disliked. The spell itself wasn’t dangerous under normal circumstances; it simply returned an orgasm to the target with the same intensity as that experienced by the target’s partner.

Arched like a bow and foaming at the mouth, the little eggplant lady couldn’t stop the spirits that were killing her, simply because at that moment she was quite literally an eggplant—a vegetable, that is. A vegetable still receiving the same unending stream of pleasure with which she had subdued her victim so he wouldn’t resist. And so, as she squirted and drooled, she was torn to pieces until the remaining dolls were overwhelmed.

A death far too pleasant for this person, but Stepan is kind—very kind—and so he brings goodness into the world, dispensing justice. He has enough goodness for everyone tonight; hurry up, you bitches, and take some with you! The next attack was one of those prepared in advance, based on a senior spirit summoned beforehand—a spirit with domains not only of Air but also of Boundlessness, standing on the threshold of the realm of Peace.

There were other summoning options with similar abilities, but this one turned out to be, first of all, quite “Aerial,” and second, let’s say, more budget-friendly. Right now, Stepan is hovering in spirit form near the camp—even closer than Maega and Singha, who are still lazily looming overhead, filling the entire sky around them. While they are up in the heavens, he lies close to the ground like morning fog, concealing a whole conglomeration of spirits and his own spells, brought along in the immaterial form of totems and spell components. It is within one of these ghostly totemic structures that this summons hides for the time being, awaiting with some impatience the moment when that time will come.

If he hadn’t been given one very specific task today, that spirit would have attacked the shaman himself. It couldn’t have helped but attack, seeking revenge for the breach of contract. Well, the most budget-friendly option—the low cost of the summoning, or rather, the spirit’s modest demands—was offset by other factors. Maega was ready to swear to Stepan that there would be a task for the spirit, but the earthling had nevertheless prepared in advance a team to counteract this spirit, as well as a totem trap for it and a lightning-rod doll that would absorb the negative spiritual mark—a property the spirit would have placed on him in the event of a treacherous “betrayal.”

Given the chaos that was going on at the camp—and, consequently, in the energy field around it—Stepan could have snuck inside on his own without much risk, but he chose not to. Who knows what that piece of shit has stashed away in the altar for that very, very last moment when you want to die even a second later than that freak in the creepy mask. Stepan doesn’t take any chances and activates the totem about half a kilometer from the tent. In fact, he almost—but just almost—manifested his ghostly silhouette in reality. But just almost. Forget it—if they notice a strange fluctuation and come crashing in with everything they’ve got, it’ll hurt him. A shaman outside his body, but manifested in reality like an ordinary spirit, is, well, very vulnerable.

The ethereal totem falls onto a carpet of grass ravaged by the storm winds, touching it with a very tangible ebony log covered in an intricate pattern and a pile of charms made from all sorts of bones. Mostly bird bones, but not exclusively—there are animal bones as well, even one from a walrus. The totem exists for less than a moment, dissolving into a strange whitish mist and a barely perceptible breeze that smells of grass and the sea. It smells of freedom—that serene and boundless freedom that no living creature can comprehend.

This breeze lasts less than a fraction of a moment, giving way to a draft seething with rage—a prick like a needle, as if a compass needle crossed with a winged rocket, its tip resembling a falcon’s beak, heading straight for the tent of the venerable Kulym. A moment, then another, and then—audible even in the real world—a cry full of despair, a veritable wail, echoing in all directions throughout both the spiritual and the real worlds. And who wouldn’t scream here if a single needle-like prick had naturally pierced the foundation of the altar, setting free those spirits and ghosts of the dead—the tortured, the slaughtered, the mauled—who had been languishing, tormented, and withering away inside, all for the sake of the tiny droplets of strength that were gradually being drained from them.

This is the weakness of combining Necromancy and Shamanism. Or rather, one of the vulnerabilities of such a school. Classic low-level undead are mindless and harbor no greater hatred toward their creator than they do toward any other living creature. If you lose control over them, you can fight them off, hide from them, or simply regain control. But spirit-undead—especially those created from victims tortured in a savage ritual, imbued with the power of a desecrated altar, and, to make matters worse, created after losing most of your protective retinue, while the remnants of that retinue are trying to salvage the situation outside the tent?

Oy-vey, how awkward it turned out.

The tent of the venerable Kulym literally soars upward on the wings of a powerful gust of refreshing breeze—a sea breeze (no doubt the treacherous Maega took advantage of the sea’s proximity when she performed that shitty kamla—that’s for sure!)—which carries freedom. But now that they are free—having temporarily gained the density and strength of spirits ranging from weak to strong—they bring not freedom, but retribution. Here, there’s no need to worry about choosing targets. Those entities thirsting for revenge and having received a command from a spirit will kill those who tormented and tortured them. Yes, mistakes do happen; some of the captives, for example, are also steppe dwellers and therefore ghosts—reborn as quasi-spirits of the airy sphere—and they, too, would be killed.

But there’s still the mark of the dandelions, shielding the captives and punishing the true culprits. There were no mishaps, apart from a couple of instances—and in those cases, the shaman was able to focus enough to personally exert his will or command the spirits under his control to drive away the hostile spirits. With that, the rout can be considered complete. The system is already signaling directly that it’s time to catch our breath a little and collect our rewards. It was, after all, a full-fledged military operation and the destruction of what amounts to a mini-army of the enemy—and a very fierce one at that. All with just three people! Maega, over there, is also in a shock, though she’s trying not to let it spill into her mental images as much as her daughter does.

The communication channel collapsed, and part of the combat entourage, along with five space spirits with aerial aspects specifically assigned to this task, set about further destabilizing and destroying the channel to prevent the old man from sending something bad. Another twenty minutes were spent finishing off the remaining stragglers, some of whom were clearly trying to surrender. Maega didn’t want to take any prisoners, but she sensed Stepan’s unspoken emotion and, as he wished, left these captives to be judged by those who were already in the cages.

"May you and your children live for three hundred years, Khao-seahar, sarat-lamara-alash!" The man with already graying hair, hunched over like a bent nail, was not just a prisoner, but a particularly “honored” one; some truly mind-blowing adventures awaited him, and he himself belonged to a clan that wasn’t exactly allied with them, but wasn’t an enemy either—just acquaintances who also lived under Sulsham-bey. "My word will not be… ahem… forgotten… My son and I, ahem-ahem, are immensely grateful to you… Maega… daughter of Maedr… ahem."

The beaten man could speak only with great difficulty, and his young son lay in a coma while Singha patched him up enough so that he “wouldn’t die of sepsis within the next week.” He spoke, once again, on behalf of all the captives who had outlived their tormentors—as the most distinguished among them—but the others also stood with their heads bowed; only a few warriors dared to add a few words of their own. It is customary that only the eldest of the captives speaks to the one who has rescued them from captivity, as if taking on the collective debt and then, at his discretion, dividing it among everyone. But without stepping out of line—again, otherwise it would be a disgrace and a violation of tradition. Of course, these traditions are constantly broken, and people later explain why “this is different,” but only in moderation, and certainly not when they might be questioned about the violation.

The ethereal Maega, composed of hundreds upon hundreds of swirling air currents, seemed even more real than the huddle of frightened living cargo—just as Singh, standing behind her, looked exactly the same, only not quite as vivid—and they were, to put it mildly, not inclined to treat traditional customs freely. Stepan, meanwhile, was hiding deep within the spheres—not even nearby, but off to the side—controlling the reserve packs of spirits that had never actually taken part in the battle, keeping an eye on the situation just in case.

“Their horses are your horses,” Maega declares, with obvious regret, showing generosity solely because these exceptional steppe horses—including a couple dozen truly elite stallions and broodmares—cannot be taken to Morgrave. That archer-agent, who delivered the beacon arrow here, took more than a week to arrive, traveling part of the way through the Morgrave city portal and part through the shamans’ gates of the spirits. “Their food is your food. Their steel is your steel. Sulagmat-tadyr, son of Ablyda-tadyr, son of Molsha-tadyr. His warriors are already galloping this way. They’ll come from the south. Go out to meet them. They’ll help you escape these foreign steppes. They’ll lead you home and give you shelter.”

The negotiations actually went very quickly; no one bothered to argue with Maega. No one would expect her to accompany them in her spiritual form, leaving her physical body unattended. But they will remember, they will know, and they will pass the story down by word of mouth—about how a mother and daughter, enraged by a treacherous blow that nearly destroyed their son and brother, husband and brother-in-law, came here together, and afterward, not a single one of the servants or disciples of her enemy, Akshtar the Mute Tambourin, remained.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more telling gesture than this one, showing that the old man had been wrong to issue his cursing ultimatum. One of the largest and finest bands of raiders and slave-hunters in the entire Steppe ceased to exist overnight. And along with it went the shaman, who—at the height of his power, and with Akhtar’s additional support—could be considered not just a master of magic, but nearly two. Well, one and a half. And it all happened in less than an hour! Without a siege, a long duel, or the help of ordinary warriors loyal to Maega or her allies. Those warriors would just ride in once everything was settled, help count the spoils, and perhaps even snatch up something that had been left behind.

There’s plenty to live off here, and the former captives can at least remain alive and free. Not all of them get along with Sulagmat-Tadyr’s people, and the only guarantee of their safety is Maega’s word. Although he is a headstrong steppe aristocrat, upon seeing the scene of the massacre, he will surely decide to be understanding toward the requests of that crazy shamaness—who left for her fuckr in the stone city and is therefore not such a big shot that her words should be taken and carried out immediately. That’s the feeling Stepan has, yes.

And yet, having dealt this blow, they have in fact only just begun to accelerate.

Akshtar the Mute Tambourin would be hearing plenty of unpleasant news in the near future. The fact that even the three of them, even with all their might, wouldn't be able to confront him at his place of power (and it wasn't a given that they could do so on neutral territory) didn't mean the structure built around the ancient orc wouldn't have weak points. Sore spots, into each of which the three of them would happily prick a needle. Each of them, with all their generosity.

And then, to be sure, they will repeat this procedure several times.

Until you get tired of it.

* * *

According to the cover story, Stae is now prostrate again, but not poisoned by someone unknown (of course, no one officially confessed to the improper use of love alchemy), but simply exhausted from assisting the young lady Singha with her shamanic affairs. He helped with every little thing, the poor fool, but he was so motivated by it that he wore himself out, unwilling to admit that he was already tired. Ironically, the young lady is also now prostrate, recovering from some shamanic deeds along with her mother. Even the lowest people in the estate now understand that the older and younger ladies performed their magic not for show or whim, but to strike a counterattack against the enemy, the very same one who attacked at the family dinner party.

For hours now, Maega has been receiving a steady stream of "calls" through amulets, images from spirit messengers, and even simple letters, whether written on paper or on sheepskins or horse skins. She receives, responds, and in every way maintains her reputation as a stern and deadly shaman, mercilessly exacting revenge on those who have encroached on the lives of her children and love. In other words, she is playing the role of herself.

Many were, to put it mildly, impressed by the events that had transpired. This was especially true after questioning those who had witnessed them in every way possible. A couple of gifted ones were eventually found among the surviving captives. They had seen and felt more, even while shackled and wearing suppressive collars—these important items the late Kulym had purchased from the Kuordemar slavers; he hadn't made them himself, and he didn't know how. His collars quickly drained the lives of their captives or drove them mad. It's unclear which option is worse. In short, the gifted ones were there; they saw a lot, and they mostly stuttered when they recounted what they saw.

Maega's Dynasty had accomplished similar and even more drastic feats before, but not so quickly, not so abruptly, and not with so small a force, damn it! The shamaness, however, remained pointedly silent, accepting verbal and material thanks from those whose sons and fathers, brothers and sisters, mothers and daughters she had rescued from captivity. And an even greater number from those whose losses she had fully avenged. The woman was in her element, and in the Steppe, her own mother had successfully reaped the dividends her daughter could not reap due to her location.

Singha’s grandmother and mother—who were both a little on edge as they talked about it—had a very difficult conversation. Which boiled down to are you, daughter of mine, crazy to take such a risk? Especially putting our granddaughter at risk—that’s completely unacceptable, you fucking mare! Maega countered by saying that she’d accomplished the task at hand, managed to calculate the risks, and caught the enemy with his pants down. She insisted that her husband’s intelligence had helped—it had managed to uncover something about the weak spot in the ritual altar of the late and venerable Kulym; may the eternal swamp, both icy and acidic, serve as his funeral bed.

In short, she painstakingly transformed the feat the eldest woman of their clan—who knew perfectly well what her daughter and granddaughter were capable of, and what they were no longer capable of—considered practically impossible into something very complex, quite risky, but still achievable. It seemed to have gone well. It seemed the matter had been settled. Yes, Maega has no intention of stopping, but the next moves she and her daughter make (without Stepan, yeah) won’t be on such a grand scale or pose as much danger to her and Singha. And what about the ones to come? Let’s just say Maega won’t be putting her name on those. Who knows how many people took advantage of the opportunity to strike at the orc who’d slipped up? Half the Steppe is against him, and you couldn’t even count all the enemies he has beyond the Steppe’s borders.

Truth and lies in varying proportions, beautiful promises and meaningful hints formed the picture Urvag and Maega wanted. The reality, as always, differed greatly from the official versions circulated in rumors, even if there was a grain of truth in them.

Meanwhile, Stae and Singha were, both officially and in reality, wallowing in a sticky semi-delirium, processing the results of the successful battle. Singha received a great deal, having, according to the System, performed a full-fledged Deed in this battle. Stepan also received his share of the system’s approval, albeit not quite as lavish—more meager, much more meager. It was merely an Act, though he had done no less than the two shamans. Perhaps it was because he had already leveled up quite high, or perhaps his attitude toward the work played a role—for the steppe girl, this spiritual raid had become a literal matter of honor; she hated both Akshtar and his entire clique as few others in this world had ever been hated.

And the battle against his henchmen—defending her mother—became yet another trial for her, one she couldn’t afford to fail. So it turned out that Stepan, who had done far more to ensure the mission’s success—dealing the bulk of the damage and eliminating the venerable Kulyum, driving hellish nails into his coffin—received significantly less than Singha. It wasn’t that he was jealous—though he was a little—but rather that this theory did a good job of explaining several patterns he’d noticed in leveling up. Food for thought for the future, when he’d be able to gather empirical data and test the theory in practice. For now, it’s just another theory—an ant’s attempt to understand the workings of a nuclear reactor, string theory, and quantum physics all at once.

Winning the battle without a physical body not only exhausted Stepan and marked him with that Act, but also added a few lines to his status—just like that—simply through training and self-development. Since he had begun receiving the lines while in a relatively normal state—even after returning to his body—he had enough sense to activate them one by one. He activated the simplest of the lines first, adding yet another useful property—a mark—to those already at his disposal.

Received: "Mark of Free Speech and Serenity"; increased affinity with the spheres of freedom and serenity; increased likelihood of acquiring knowledge and properties of the branches of support and purification.

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

Not the most remarkable of marks, and it’s in the lowest tier, too. Purely elemental versions of such marks are actually far more useful, simply because spirits of this kind are easier to summon and there are more of them. But his work with the spirits of air wasn’t enough to take the “Breath and Wind” mark to a new level; however, that summons of the liberating and vengeful elder spirit did have an effect. In fact, this seemed to be one of this creature’s traits—it could very easily leave a mark of this sort on the shaman’s spiritual body. Stepan was neither impressed nor unimpressed by this—there is some benefit, but it isn’t particularly significant; his entire spirit is already adorned with spiritual marks and traits, just like the skin of a seasoned convict covered in tattoos.

Some specific summoning techniques have been simplified somewhat; a slightly broader range of spirits will be more willing to cooperate with the player; and the list of contracts available for earning points has expanded slightly. If there was one thing that was truly interesting and useful, it was the mechanics for working with those entities that specialize in removing all kinds of locking and prohibitive effects. This includes not only the ability to slowly break contract chains, but also, for example, destroying undead, striking demons (give me two—no, make that three!), or rather, striking their clusters of captured souls. Tricks similar to the one he demonstrated in the finale are, again, quite impressive, and in the current conflict, they could very well prove decisive.

Stepan noted several possible calls—even if it’s that higher spirit, which might be on the level of another supreme one, it always strikes the one who summoned it as well. The ritual formula for a call that Stepan now possesses simply puts a stop to conflicts. It’s a high-level mental-suggestive effect—none of those present can bring themselves to strike a blow, neither the shaman nor his interlocutors. For negotiations between several parties who deeply dislike one another, performing such a summoning is the most ideal course of action. The parties probably won’t even object to such a precaution if they learn about its nature and limitations—provided they don’t think they’re being brazenly deceived for malicious purposes.

He also had to note a few more summons of a similar, but clearly “auto-MILF” subtype, simply because they were extremely similar to the one that had caught his interest. It’s just that now the victim became indifferent and offered no resistance if, say, you started groping her, bending her over, or having sex with her in any other way—the main thing is not to show even the slightest intention of causing harm, or the spirit will strike you right back. A method for, if necessary, having sex with even a female or male magister—if the spell is directed at a woman, of course—is certainly very useful and worth studying, but Stepan will probably find something else to occupy himself with. Perhaps not as useful or necessary, but more relevant.

Received: "methods for waging large-scale magical battles"; increased affinity with the spheres of war and conflict; increased likelihood of acquiring knowledge and properties of the combat and command branches.

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

He is very familiar with this knowledge. It has long been listed among the possible options. Part of this knowledge was incorporated into the already well-developed “elite combat caller mastery,” emerging as a separate area of knowledge in the form of a secondary specialization. A combat caller is highly skilled at fighting both alone and in a group. This knowledge provides an understanding of how armies and large units fight. In fact, at some point, the mages of this world begin to fight much more often as part of an army rather than face-to-face in duels. In fact, a powerful mage is highly likely to have an army at their disposal. If not their own, then one hired for a fee or belonging to allies.

A Magister of Combat Magic who personally engages in one-on-one combat against opponents of equal rank—this is not nonsense. Such specialists do exist, but they make up only a small fraction of the already scarce group of high-ranking mages. On average, mages begin to carefully avoid direct combat as early as the Master rank, having started their retraining as early as the Confident Adept rank. All those who did not become bretters or, say, specialists in dungeon raids—where even masters sometimes have to go head-to-head with all sorts of vermin, intelligent and otherwise—choose the path of long-range and ultra-long-range combat.

Roughly the same as what Maega demonstrated the other night: long, powerful spells; cover from her loyal retinue; and constant pressure from a variety of attacks, dealing damage to the enemy’s surroundings, property, and subjects. The fact that shamans can field a retinue of their spirits instead of an army doesn’t change the concept itself, especially since getting by without such a massive mobilization can be far more expensive than hiring or even building a full-fledged army from scratch. Moreover, the rout demonstrated by Maega and Singha, with Stepan’s support—a highly risky undertaking—was not only costly: it was all too easy to get bogged down, caught in the thick of it, or fail to retreat in time.

That is precisely why Maega had never done anything like this before, and even when she did launch a lightning-fast assault involving entry into the spiritual body, it was either under the cover of a real army—whether de Lomer’s mercenaries or Sulsham Bey’s cavalry—or against a target far less dangerous than the encampment of the venerable Kulym. This new knowledge made it possible to identify a great many bottlenecks where things could have gone terribly wrong, or where things should have been done differently altogether. Mistakes, oversights, unnecessary risks—from the perspective of systemic knowledge, a battle involving gifted individuals with their own retinues was viewed as analogous to a game of chess. Except that the pieces all move at once, don’t always move as ordered, often do the exact opposite of what they’re told, and a row of pawns might even quietly kill their own officer for a new pair of boots, while the officers themselves will sell out the king to the enemy queen.

All in all, controlled chaos—both repulsive and delightful. From the perspective of a combat caller, the summoning shaman was a rather amusing hybrid between the classical approach and the individualistic one. Similar tactics and approaches are also characteristic of Necromancers, Chimerologists, and Bestiologists, as well as certain subtypes of Druids, Golem-makers… and Puppeteers, too. Such specializations allow one to avoid relying on mercenaries, sworn servants, apprentices, vassals, and suzerains, and instead to create an army oneself, while also sustaining it oneself. It’s expensive, complicated, comes with caveats, and is limited to a certain extent—but it’s possible.

The result was a hybrid tactic and strategy of war, in which such a specialist had a sort of army within an army—a separate detachment linked to the shaman. Battles fought as part of a foreign army—as an ally or an unreliable temporary partner—with the threat of a stab in the back and the intention to stab them in the back yourself (hello to synergies with the espionage branch), attempts on commanders’ lives, and the prevention of such attempts—especially if you’re the commander yourself. Tactics for attack, defense, siege and assault, retreat, and counterattack. This isn’t quite the strategic level yet—where kingdoms literally wage war against other kingdoms, or, more likely, a Kingdom against a Confederation—but it’s already a very deep tactical level, corresponding to large-scale battles that will influence the overall strategy.

You can also acquire knowledge of “methods for waging global magical battles,” but for now, only at the beginner level. From there, you can either continue developing magically to improve this knowledge, or branch off in a different direction—shifting from purely magical knowledge to a secondary one—and become not only a shaman but also a strategist. From there, you can branch out into government or at least an administrative branch, but for now, it’s too costly. Besides, what good would an administrative or even governmental path do him if he lacks the power to rule or govern? You need to start studying all of this at least at a solid masgiter’s level by the system’s standards.

Then there’s at least some chance of proving this simple fact: it’s much easier and more advantageous to cooperate with Stepan than to kill him or try to capture him. But by that point, he’ll need to have some real power behind him—not just a handful of people. The House de Lomer is a perfect fit here, but it’s best not to rely on them alone. They won’t be able to maintain such an alliance, even if the entire House is involved, not just Urvag and his family. The rest of the House will most likely prefer to squeeze as much benefit out of him as possible first, and then sell him lock, stock, and barrel to whoever pays the most and poses the least risk of cheating them.

And no, it wasn’t even Stepan who came up with it, although he did arrive at that conclusion. Both Urvag and Furval had told him the same thing, just in different words. Both of them wanted to take full advantage of their alliance with the bearer of the Tablet of the Soul—especially one who could also bestow the power of that Tablet upon their allies—without holding back. They wanted it badly, but they both understood that if poor Stae’s secret were publicly revealed—they’d be screwed. They’d either have to fight the whole world—with a predictable outcome—or betray him, or do everything in their power to persuade Stepan to compromise and choose the faction they’d have to consciously side with.

And then pay very close attention to the fine print. To the credit of both brothers, they didn’t beat their chests while boasting of their unshakable honor; they acknowledged that, in such a situation, the only thing that would prevent all the de Lomers from trying to disown Stepan or abandon him would be the oath of the head’s brother and the head’s own, less stringent, oath of non-interference. This is, in fact, a mindset common throughout the world—a deal and an unbreakable oath allow the Trading House to hold its ground where, in any other situation, discord and instability would have ensued. That said, one cannot deny the existence of a banal, eternal commitment to one’s word and to one’s ally; there have been plenty of examples of this throughout history.

Well, there are far fewer of those who served as true examples, let's say.

Having finished with the knowledge he’d acquired on his own, the Earthling moved on to the reward for his “act,” which, though simple compared to those other deeds, was still pleasant. For some reason, the moment he thought of “simple,” it seemed as if someone were choking him by the neck with strong female hands, cursing loudly and menacingly in the steppe dialect. But no, it was just his imagination—he was, after all, lying there like a vegetable in a sealed underground shelter, far away from any trouble.

A significant act has been accomplished!

For the battle of three against many and the victory over the enemy at the point of its power, for the scale of the battle that became a battle, for the power of the means used, for the courage and mercy shown, a corresponding reward is due!

Received: Increase a random Mark by one point; one random property of the blessing subtype; one random token.

Additional reward from Liarat si Merrinal, Lady of Gifts and Giver of Gifts, loyal servant of Innelas Innelay: one random minor knowledge of advanced or elite type; one random token.

This time, he didn’t gain any knowledge. He’s noticed that, as his levels rise, it gradually becomes harder to acquire full-fledged knowledge—as if there were a soft cap, or rather, a temporarily increased drop rate for such knowledge that gradually decreases as the number of knowledge entries in his status grows. But the shaman wasn’t dissatisfied. To be honest, he would have buried that lovely, cozy, homey camp of kind and generous people of the steppe—true, proud warriors, honest and noble—and sprinkled it with salt even for free, even if they’d asked him to pay extra.

The property mark turned out to be “the recognition of free speech and serene calm,” improving upon the mark he had come up with on his own. A wave of refreshing coolness and calm swept through his body—both physical and ethereal—at once, as if he’d downed a hundred-liter barrel of mint tea intravenously, but without any unpleasant sensations. Again, it’s not a useless thing, but he wouldn’t spend a talent point on it on his own… though he might consider spending one on the third level, where the increase in effectiveness is much greater.

New summons, new calls, new methods of dialogue—but nothing truly substantial that requires diving into a trance and spending half a day absorbing information. He simply figured out how to use his existing knowledge more rationally and effectively thanks to this very label. He could try summoning a number of decent entities—low-strong and even senior ones, albeit at the lower end of the rank spectrum. Now the summoning will go much faster, be simpler, and cost fewer resources—especially since his resources are running critically low; he didn’t hesitate to make use of the supplies Maega offered, but he still purchased most of the reagents himself.

She even honestly offered him a couple of very special feathers from a super-bird, one that was literally steeped in Еhunder. Stepan didn’t take them—and not because Maega was practically choking with eagerness to use up that supply. A reagent like that—worthy of being the super-lot of the week—is best saved for something truly powerful, and they would have managed the goal they’d set for themselves anyway. In fact, they did manage it!

The token turned out to be simple but appealing. ++“Gift of an ordinary positive aura property”—ten charges, and these properties were indeed ordinary, like the ones he had received during his first weeks in the new world, rather than super-elite gifts from the System. For example, the lowest level of a certain type of spirit would fall into this category. That said, to be honest, even a single mark like this is a path for an ordinary shaman apprentice toward becoming a promising adept—a reason to build their entire development around this property. But yeah, compared to the spoiled Stepan and the equally spoiled Singha—this crap would truly be crap.

The blessing he received was called the “bless by light touch of the serpent,” granting him considerable resistance to venoms—thanks to his existing attributes and other properties that were by no means ordinary—as well as the ability to better perceive thermal signatures and enhance a range of heat- and fire-based forms of magical vision. It was also noted that this blessing resonated quite well with the one that had so intrigued Maega. In short, without specific camouflage, it would be best for him not to show his face near the Caliphate. Especially considering Yula’s background and some of his plans to try to reclaim the living space she was entitled to by inheritance.

A minor knowledge from his patroness arrived next and turned out not to be just another vulgar appeal—not even entirely vulgar, come to think of it. It was a technique straddling the line between witchcraft and pure shamanism: the status update literally flickered between different sections, sometimes appearing in all of them at once, sometimes flowing from one to another. And yet this dance came to a halt precisely at pure shamanism: “the pure veil of a past presence” was a technique of camouflage that allowed one to slip out of the focus of perception, but that was only the very foundation.

He can hide from view with the simplest diversion—even without this nearly elite minor knowledge. No. The whole point is that, during the active phase of this influence, the shaman completely eliminates or greatly complicates the casting of spells on the target. Search rituals or blood curses, fireballs that home in on an aura, or a targeted love spell cast through a drawn portrait; a demonic attack on the soul via a contractual bond; or an attempt to pierce with a needle an envolet that has suddenly become useless. In short, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s impossible to walk around constantly under this extremely specific protective arcane barrier—since the aura would be depleted and his spirit would start to burst at the seams—Stepan wouldn’t have taken it off.

He practiced this technique for the rest of the evening. He even ordered certain spirits to attack him. A particularly “brilliant” and “clever” idea was to use the combat staffs taken from Urvag’s arsenal—which fired homing ice and fire arrows—while Stepan leaped aside (or rather, his subordinate spirits jerked him out of the way), deflecting the flying projectiles from their targets. The training was, of course, not bad. It helped him grasp a few nuances of how to properly apply the forces channeled into the veil, but his inner safety expert began to cough nervously. He had protected himself, but some of the shelves and totems in the shelter could very well have been hit by the projectiles that had lost their guidance and were flying around chaotically.

The token from Great Milf has once again been shelved due to its limited usefulness and extreme crappiness: “Manual Unlock,” fifty charges; when activated, it binds two individuals of the opposite sex who do not consider each other to be complete freaks in terms of appearance, after which they both experience intense but controllable arousal toward one another, which will gradually intensify. At the same time, neither he nor she will be able to climax until their token partner helps them with their hands—using fingers and hands, so to speak, to “unlock” the locked function. This fact, they obviously understand instinctively.

Both victims receive a slight increase in their aura’s magical attributes—not a full point, unless the attribute was already at zero to begin with—but rather an effect equivalent to a couple of weeks or months of training to develop their aura’s reserve, control, density, the power of their nodes, and so on. For the average person, this will likely boost vitality through Constitution and endurance through Resistance, but nothing more. For bearers of the System, the effect is slightly stronger, granting one random new throwaway-level meta-skill in return.

After giving it a moment’s thought—since poor Stae had the evening free anyway—he went ahead and used a new token on himself. The normal one, of course—one charge out of ten gone, a stinging, burning sensation all over his body, and a new aura property. It was so useless it was practically laughable, honestly! The Autogoddess’s other gifts were orders of magnitude more useful! The whole problem was that “the fading resilience of outgoing aura nodes” was a trait of a classic battle mage. A high-magic wizard!

The technique for acquiring this aura modification through rituals—or even simply years of specialized training—is known in every school of magic or guild, and indeed in every one, even those not strictly magical. The shaman had read a book on the subject from the Malter Library. This ability allowed one to strengthen a number of aura nodes in such a way that it became easier to create extremely dense weaves and unleash them at full power, without fear of damaging one’s own aura—or rather, of throwing it off balance and losing momentum. Well, up to a certain limit.

For an adventurer fighter who supports his squad with fire (or another element—though fire works best) in battle, it’s a pretty useful tool. But for Stepan, in particular, it’s completely useless. At least it doesn’t do any harm—the modification is perfect, at the level of systemic perfectionism, so it doesn’t create an aura imbalance. In theory, he can use a number of the simplest spells, even everyday ones. He studied and examined a great many of them while working as Stae, and even before that, back at the Trabia estate. Basic magical techniques, such as telekinetic probes or the rhombic cone of a primitive impact arrow, are so intuitive that even an idiot could figure them out with his clinically idiotic brain. He just used the weaving shaman technique a couple of times, out of curiosity. It’s not his thing—not at all—the earthling’s entire build is geared toward a completely different path of development.

"Singha, Maega, I have a new token, a normal one, no perversity," he said by way of greeting, climbing through a closet into yet another meeting room. They use all three randomly, just in case. "A random aura property, harmless and useful, but ordinary and yet random. Really random—I got a complete piece of crap. Do you need it?"

Maega blinks in bewilderment, while Singha wearily presses her palms to her face and looks at him with tears in her eyes, literally on the verge of bursting into tears. Or she might just hurl that little bowl of cookies at him—and they’re delicious cookies, too. You’d have to be a very mean person to just hurl those crumbly cookies—the kind that melt in your mouth, covered in expensive cherry icing—like a projectile at a man who’s done nothing to her. Stepan replayed these images several times in his mind, but for some reason, Singha didn’t stop staring at the cookie jar.

"Pann.“You can’t do that. Asking and giving,” she explains, as if to a small child, pointing to herself and her mother. “A gift demands a response. An equal gift. My mother already has it… hard enough. Especially… well, after… after…”

"Got it." He sat down at the table, pulling the cookies closer to him under Singha’s somewhat surprised gaze—since he usually preferred not to eat at someone else’s house—and was also glad that he hadn’t brought up the topic of the as-yet-unmentioned token, “a one-time gift to an ally of an elite system property,” because otherwise she would’ve blown her head.. “So, should I or shouldn’t I? I’m going to pop over to Malter’s place—I’ll give him a gift, too.”

"Then I need it," Singha declared confidently, pausing for a moment when Stepan pointed her finger at her. "Oh. It burns. And gift is good! Khao-laar, their blessing!"

Come on, he doesn't play like that! At least she was given a shamanic modification—another mark, though mostly consisting of spheres of fire, or rather, a “mark of flickering embers and scorching petals.” Her blood was on a first-name basis with all kinds of lightning—though not quite the same way as with the wind—but for that very reason, fire came naturally to her as well; it’s just that these rituals were better suited to the classic task of “guarding the hearth.” And she certainly loved performing calls over a campfire or a brazier filled with coals, and often practiced them.

“I wouldn't dare,” Maega said quietly and briefly, her gaze steady. “Not after... not after. It would be wrong. It would be as if you were rewarding me. For what? For making a mistake? For still feeling regret? For unraveling your lasso? No. I'm not worthy.”

Stepan tilted his head to one side, like a little bird, looking at the woman from a slightly different angle—he wasn’t exactly eager to gift her any further, but this was practically a war zone, and they had another mission coming up soon. Such a refusal was both a display of foolish pride and a revelation that the consciences of the strong and gifted can still be active. Sometimes. After all, he could still sense her carefully concealed thirst for power, her greed, and her willingness to beg and comply. That bittersweet hope that he would start to persuade her—or even force the token to activate—and the self-contempt she felt for having such thoughts.

Some sadistic part of his mind actually got a kick out of this behavior—as if he were waving a piece of kebab in front of a starving person’s face to see if she’d crawl after it with her last ounce of strength, or not? Somehow, that association made him feel disgusted with himself, and, barely managing to keep his face from contorting into a hideous grimace, he decided not to pursue the subject any further.

“Then I’ll go to Dantmark, then back to Morgraму, then work as poor Ste, and in the evening, after leaving the doll in the chambers, I’ll pop into town to run some errands.” As he outlined his plan, he kept pulling cookies out of the basket while also communicating with both of his colleagues through spiritual visions. “Starting tomorrow morning, we’ll begin preparations, then your agent will deliver the marker. And then there will be a spurt. Even two spurts, if everything goes successfully.”

“It won’t happen, Pann.”Maega had also regained her composure, but her face grew even more somber, this time for a new reason, and her daughter’s expression darkened as well; she nodded in agreement. “The suspicions of my heart have proven true. His men have discovered what my mother overlooked. There will be a trap. A trap for me and my daughter. But as for Damdur and Drachdrang’s burial grounds—he won’t be there. He’s already gone, most likely. They took whatever they could. And destroyed what was left. They’ve turned it into a trap for us."

The rest of the morning was spent discussing plans and the extent to which Urvaga de Lomer’s and Siddhana’s—Maedra’s mother and Singha’s grandmother—intelligence networks could be trusted. Stepan ruffled his hair even more, made his face look sleepier and paler, and put a little less spirit into his limbs to give the impression of poor coordination. He had to wipe the smile off his face and make his expression gloomier, or else the local gossips might get the wrong idea, especially given Singha’s beaming face. And she had even blushed slightly, despite her aura control, when she was describing the new tokens to him.

* * *

- Whoa, fuck! I’m doing it now! Right this second! They’re all gonna be blown away, I’m telling you! – Yula was practically jumping with excitement and joy, while Sylvia, in her office, was wiping semen off her breasts—which had spilled out of her corset—and absorbing the new property of “strengthened blood integrity,” sincerely believing that she had literally sucked it out of Pann, just like the far more elite “greatness of ancient blood.” I need to check it out, test the waters. But I’d bet my ass that now I’ll get this task—as written in the Tablet—done by the deadline!"

Stepan is barely holding himself back from banging his head against the wall. If it weren’t for Sylvia helping him blow off some steam, he definitely would have done it. Is he, for fuck’s sake, the unluckiest asshole on this continent? The ability Yula had received wasn’t just right on the border between a common rank and a higher one—it also perfectly complemented her status. She had been leveling up that very ability in order to get a promotion. Or, if she got lucky, to unlock it through a quest or independent training. And even if the ability itself isn’t exactly super-duper, it was exactly what Yula needed to make a leap forward—and now that she has “positional perception of the environment,” she’s ready to charge into battle.

By “battle,” I mean a quest—one that, it seems, wasn’t generated by the standard system, but doesn’t look like it was created by autogoddess scripts either. The task was to combine her two main areas of work and teleport a cursed toad under the clothes of five specific people. The curse was actually a joke, firmly tied to the toads; through her work with them, the girl had learned the “basics of creating living malefic containers”—a curse that simply caused a severe and very unsightly rash on the skin, making the victim look like a toad. Yula knew all five victims personally and therefore took on the task with the boundless enthusiasm of unstoppable youth.

She didn’t wish death upon any of the people listed, but she was ready to drive all five of them crazy and force them to spend money on lifting a very, very persistent curse. Her core skill has already reached an advanced level—also thanks to quests, class-based reductions in stat requirements for specific skills, and even further reductions resulting from her ancestral curse and symbiosis with the bracelets. It wasn’t that she lacked any moral scruples—if she’d been forced to cast non-lethal, non-harmful curses on completely innocent people, especially those from wealthy neighborhoods, she wouldn’t have hesitated—but here, with these specific guys, it was doubly satisfying to carry out a task like this.

"Take care of yourself, don’t overexert yourself, take your potions as prescribed, and don’t drive Sylvia crazy. She’ll soon be telling me about your exploits in the realm of learning for longer than it takes to recount the town’s news." He was strict, but not too strict—thankfully, Yula has a clear sense of what’s allowed and doesn’t cross the line—Stepan advised her. He was trying to set aside at least an hour before bedtime for the girl every couple of days. “Well, carry that alarm amulet with you; if anything happens, break it and fight back—I’ll have to get there fast. The signal is such that it’s very difficult to obscure its location, and it’s almost impossible to hide it completely. The main thing is to send the call in time.”

“I can do that.” She smiled sincerely and genuinely, though it was clear that such a smile was a rare sight on her face. “It's always the same—the first thing they want to do is shut you up. If you're quick enough, you get it.”

After chatting a bit more about the ups and downs of petty crime in a city set in a fantasy non-medieval era, curses and portal magic, as well as just how much of a bunch of bastards those priests and their divine bosses really are, they said a warm goodbye and went their separate ways. Yula, who worked tirelessly, had her quest—which she would now try to speed up without harming herself or overloading her bracelets—while Stepan had a different goal. And it wasn’t to drive a train, like in that meme from back in the days on Earth, but to watch his own hands at work for a bit. Or perhaps not just watch!

- Holy shit! – Focusing his attention on the image projected by the pair of spirits, he jumped up sharply, as if stung in the ass, dashing into the dark portal passageway, returning to Morgrave, and rapidly changing into an inconspicuous outfit without the de Lomer crest, while superimposing a new, unremarkable appearance over it. – Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Why the hell couldn’t you just stay home, you moron and scumbag?!

Thirty heartbeats later, he had already landed in the middle of an alley on the border between the famous Morgrave Slums and the much less famous Morgrave Artisan Quarter of the Brewers’ Settlement. Judging by the sounds coming from the alley—dark and filthy, ideal for trying to shake off any likely pursuers by slipping out through an inconspicuous door in one of the little houses— Alas, the clever humans and unhumans, a half-orc and another quateron of the same race with a predominant amount of human blood, knew the local terrain well and had prepared in advance to intercept the fugitives along the most logical escape route.

Actually, if they hadn’t tried to subdue that short but very wiry and resilient dark-blond-haired boy without causing him too much harm, the fight would have been over by now. It would have ended even sooner, but the young man—though he was, so to speak, the adopted son of the late and not particularly beloved brother—had spent his childhood in the home of a city guard sergeant. He’d worked hard, learning to throw punches, swing a baton, and recognize the habits of all kinds of thugs, so he didn’t go down easily. Still, he defended the girl standing behind him to the very end, which did him great credit. And he defended her sincerely, with all his heart.

And she didn’t run off. Apparently, she fully understood her chances of escaping through unfamiliar back alleys with a sprained ankle. She preferred to hurl rocks and trash over the defender’s head. She threw them with remarkable accuracy. You could sense a steady hand and an equally steadfast, determined character. Only a fiery red mop of hair flashes in the darkness. Yeah, yeah, she wouldn’t have run even if her leg had been fine. That’s a fact—nothing to add or take away—even though she’s actually quite a coward, trying to stay out of trouble where she might get beaten up, well, if she doesn’t have a plan or a way to escape.

The fight is taking place in silence. In these parts, calling for help in the middle of the night isn’t exactly a good idea to begin with, and given the noise-canceling amulet they’re wearing, there’s even less point in shouting. The fight is drawing to a close. The thugs are more interested in taking the opportunity to beat up the guy they’re after, and they’re also looking forward to having a little fun with his companion. Not now, but later, once they’ve brought these fools before the boss—and there, they won’t be taught a lesson with just a few punches; they’ve prepared a whole program for these guys.

"Hey, you, who are you?" The quartet, lazily standing guard and cheering on their comrades, stared just as lazily—though no longer relaxed—at Stepan, who had appeared in the alley, ostentatiously placing one hand on his belt, right on the hilt of a nice-looking knife, while clutching a simple combat amulet in his other hand. “Get the hell out of here—you’ve got no business here. Important people are making business here.”

Stepan smiled a rather unpleasant smile on a face masked by a thick layer of makeup and illusions, barely concealing a sigh of relief. He smirked, then cracked his knuckles and, slowly, smoothly, and deliberately, spoke in a sing-song voice, his smile—far from good-natured—twisting mockingly.

“I am darkness.” Not a great start; after that, such bravado could easily get the speaker into trouble—often with a blade, since there’s no point in being a Chūnibyō—but somehow the mobster didn’t find it funny. “I am gloom. My face is terrifying. I am your nightmare. I am Tygydyk!”
T.N. Tygydyk - This is the sound of a cat running around the room at night.

And with those words, aided by the conglomerate of six minor spirits that had taken up residence in his body, he rushed into battle. Well, “battle” is a stretch—it was more like a beating. Stepan was driven by the moment of fear—even terror—he’d just experienced upon realizing that the blood of these two could have been spilled right here. Empowered by the spirits, protected by both spells and the entities dwelling in Spheres, he could have taken on a dozen guards with his bare hands. Five mobsters were more than enough; within a couple of minutes, they were literally picking up their teeth with broken fingers.

“Come on, you bitches, come on, paddle with your arms—let’s swim out of here!” Encouraging those who were pretending to be unconscious with well-aimed kicks, while reaching out toward the alarm amulet that wasn’t working anyway, Stepan maintained a surprisingly cheerful tone. “Let’s swim, let’s swim breaststroke or freestyle—but let’s swi-i-i-i-m!”

"Are you fucking crazy, you son of a bitch?!” On the verge of tears from pain and humiliation, the slurring ringleader is still trying not to demand respect for his pride, but simply—for fuck’s sake—some understanding of what’s going on. "Where the hell should we swim? We’re on the ground, for fuck’s sake!”

“I said ‘swim,’ or else, you bastards, I’ll make you dive!” They knew what “dive underground” meant, so, howling in pain and cursing, they started scooping up mud and slop with their hands, “swimming” away from the alley that had become a battlefield. “What are you guys still doing here? Don’t you want to get the hell out of here?”

The two people saved by the kind shaman stared at him with eyes full of fear. It’s hard not to be scared when such a nightmare single-handedly beats up five experienced and armed thugs! But he showed no aggression toward them specifically, so they still timidly hoped for the best. Well, he was hoping for the best, but the girl’s nerves gave out, and then her sharp tongue took over—a tongue that is often your worst enemy if it isn’t backed up by strength.

“We'd love to, but you're standing right at the end of a dead end!” She isn't exactly accusing him, but she isn't being modest either.

"Damn it..." Oh, how much sorrow and grief there is in that voice, how eager it is to find a sturdier stick and whip someone’s ass. "Lana, you’re going to drive both of us into the grave someday! If you don’t have any brain, at least be careful—I beg you in the name of Gaya!"

Stepan, however, merely let out a muffled, coughing sound—something right in between a chuckle and an attempt to grunt—as he watched the couple with a certain tenderness. His tenderness didn’t stop him from casting a couple of healing spells from a classic and very expensive amulet (healing amulets, unlike combat ones, are either painfully expensive or more dangerous to one’s health than regularly consuming moderate doses of arsenic), and then tossing the girl a high-quality alchemical healing potion as well.

"You’re in luck—I’m not the type to hold a grudge. And I’m actually a very kind person. Deep down." Judging by the looks on their faces, they didn’t believe him. "And the person who hired me for all this is kind, too. So come on, get some rest, and let’s go—I’ll take you out of town."

At first, genuine surprise flashed across both their faces, followed by equally genuine relief. Although, the young man did grow wary almost immediately. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in people’s kindness, but he didn’t know exactly who might be showing him such kindness by hiring a professional of this caliber. And the nervous Stepan simply couldn’t bring himself to settle for anything less—an alchemical grenade, a blow to the back, a victory by the skin of his teeth, rather than a complete rout of the thugs' quintet.

“Listen, sir, are you sure you haven't confused us with someone else?” He was clearly beginning to figure something out, or so he thought, but he didn't hesitate to ask again just to be sure. “I mean, I don't have any friends that kind of—unless...”

He glanced at the girl, but she just shrugged. She was suffering from severe amnesia after a blow to the head she’d received not too long ago. Even the folk healer couldn’t help her, and she didn’t have the money for a proper healer. Nor did Yadrik, who’d found her that day near the port settlement. He wasn’t destitute, but he wasn’t rich either—that’s a fact. At first, he was drawn in by her tits—well, and he was also hoping to score a reward for saving the girl. She wasn’t just beautiful in the simple, ordinary way of a city girl; she was also clearly well-groomed on her own. Her hands had no calluses—unless you counted those from a quill or stylus—her feet weren’t worn out, and the clothes she wore were quite decent. They wouldn’t let her into the palace dressed like that, but she’d be allowed into the Upper City—though they’d give her a disapproving look. It was sort of like the Sunday-best outfit—say, that of a reading teacher for rich kids—that’s exactly what the young, budding adventurer Yadrik, son of Gdaunt, thought.

Alas, his attempt to quickly figure out where this lady had come from and ask for a reward worthy of his good deed—since he’d been broke for the past few weeks, scraping by on small security or escort jobs—failed. And when her “relatives”—who turned out to be gangsters, clearly having seen this red-haired beauty in some brothel, perhaps even an expensive and respectable one—tried to introduce themselves as her relatives, Yadrik couldn’t hold his tongue or keep his axe on its handle. He’d never liked pimps and other scum, and now they were trying to pull this kind of bullshit on him. It would’ve been one thing if they’d at least tried to pay him, so he wouldn’t suspect anything and would confirm that the girl had been taken in by her relatives.

He would have refused, too. He didn’t find himself in the trash. But he would have refused politely, whereas this all boiled down to an ugly argument, followed by a fight, an attempt to drag the girl away by force, and her index and middle fingers being bitten off—the very fingers someone had tried to shove into her mouth “to suck on.” The fingers belonged to some mid-level pimp, and he held a grudge. He wasn’t influential enough for his wrath to be a death sentence, but they had to lie low. And there, they got to know each other normally; she expressed gratitude for being saved from a terrible fate, and before they knew it, they were sharing a bed. This romance flared up so intensely that when they were found in the heat of the moment, neither of them wanted to leave the other.

“Why didn't you leave town, well, after that incident at the bakery market?” he asks, carefully dabbing at Yadrik's cut eyebrow. “Did I cover for you for nothing back then?”

“So it was you? Those wheels that flew off the carriage?” Lana asked, looking at him suspiciously as she gently felt her leg, the swelling on which was subsiding right before her eyes. “Heh, I told you right away that someone was watching our backs!”

Stepan silently finishes the treatment, helps them get themselves together, and then motions for them to follow him. They followed him, albeit cautiously, constantly assessing the possibility of slipping away into one of the side streets.

“Why haven’t you all run off yet?” he asks in passing, distracting the guard patrol with yet another amulet—one that’s clearly illegal and difficult to obtain—and now both of them are staring at the trinket very intently. “I listened to you back then and realized you had to make it in time. So I went off to take care of my own business. And here you are, still in town and still together.”

“I guess asking you to help us stay together is a lousy idea, huh?” she snorted, looking at the guy with a very sad expression—really, really sad. “You came for me, after all—you were helping me, not him. Yadrik's uncle sent us to the demons, saying that’s where we belong—especially me. None of his acquaintances helped him, but I… I’m like a blank sheet of paper—I don’t understand a damn thing, but, damn it, that’s the whole point. Who am I, anyway? Why can’t I remember a damn thing about myself- just my name—and even that… it’s like… incomplete or something?"

Stepan turns toward them, smiling sadly, and after a few seconds simply stares; Yadrik has already reached for the knife and the hatchet. He looks at that face and those eyes, looking at a completely and utterly natural person—one whom even all the gods together, were they to incarnate here and now, would recognize as an ordinary girl of the human race. Not just a very pretty one, but also one with a surprisingly bold personality, a sharp tongue, and a natural ability to win over those around her.

"So why didn't you run away?" he repeated, continuing on his way and ignoring everyone else's questions.

“Yeah, right, yeah, right, I could go to the devils!” She clapped her hands in excitement, and Stepan nearly stumbled. “I'm just a fool. And he's a fool, too. But I'm the bigger fool. I pushed through the decision and kept convincing him until he agreed.”

“We wanted to go through the Rite of Farewell,” said the guy, looking away slightly and feeling a burning sense of guilt that it was his fault—and not hers, as he believed—that another little nighttime tragedy had nearly happened. “We all understand, though. Neither she nor I are idiots. If we’re going to run, it has to be one at a time; if we run together, they’ll catch us—we’re a very conspicuous couple. I’ve already found a little boat and some hair dye for her. I’ve joined Pollzmermayer’s unit—albeit only as a porter for now—but I’ve already settled in. No, she talked me into it, and I didn’t put up much of a fight."

The Rite of Farewell is a church mystery of the Giver of Life, intended for those lovebirds who realize that separation awaits them. Whether due to unequal social standing, parental pressure, health issues, or other circumstances—when it becomes clear that they are not destined to be together, this rite is performed. It’s quite erotic, by the way, since the classic Gaia ritual of taking the “non-bride” is a mandatory part of the program. What’s important is that if Gaia blesses the separated couple—a farewell betrothal doesn’t always work; it requires sincere mutual feelings and a genuine understanding on both sides that they cannot be together—then they will always feel a connection to one another, sharing in the joys and sorrows of their separation. Let’s add that sometimes they’ll dream about each other, and that until they’re very old, they’ll remember the days they spent together as if it happened just yesterday.

A sad mystery for sad circumstances.

Very few people dare to do it, if they have any brains. Very few are sincere enough to ignite and activate this prayer. Very few will stand their ground when the priestesses of the Life-Giver try to talk the idiots out of it.

"I made arrangements with a junior priestess who agreed to help for a third of the price." Yeah, yeah, this mystery isn’t cheap, and Gaia’s clergy only helps for free in the name of love in exceptional cases. “So we were just waiting for her to have a free moment. So they wouldn’t kick us out the door. Fuck! Don’t be silent—say something, at least… What is this?”

It was a purse filled with money, excellent Confederate marks, silver, of course, but heavy and unfiled. Enough to pay for the services of not just a junior priestess, but three full-fledged priestesses, and perhaps even the senior one might pop in to read a few lines above the altar.

“You have time until morning.” He smirked when he saw the look on their faces. “Negotiate for yourselves. If there are any left over, they’re all yours. And then get out of here as fast as you can; I won’t be covering for you anymore. That’s the limit of my authority.”

“What, did you give away part of your hire?” Yadrik was completely stunned, but then he looked at Stepan—who now looked like a seasoned forty-year-old thug—with unprecedented gratitude, for he knew better than anyone what a hire was and what kind of thug received it. “Thank you, honorable Tygdyk. I can’t promise I’ll pay it back—certainly not in the coming months. But if there’s anything I can do to help, just say the word.”

“And thank you from me, sir,” Lana chimed in, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye and even putting aside her usual self-destructive, snide sarcasm—not out of fear for her life, but out of genuine gratitude. “I… well, I haven’t the faintest idea what’ll happen to me tomorrow, but thank you, too. I realize you can’t say anything—it’s in your contract. But whoever hired you and forbade me from saying anything at all… Tell him he’s a jerk! And thank you."

Stepan could barely contain his amusement at this friendly display of warm feelings, and then could barely stifle a cry of horror when she gave him a sincere hug, without any hint of intimacy or attempts to pull something valuable out of his pocket. She hugged him and then pulled away, wiping away a tear and feeling ashamed that she had allowed herself to get so carried away. For some reason, she was convinced that sincerity in expressing one’s feelings was a sign of weakness—especially in front of a stranger.

"Come on, both of you. It’s worth spending some silver on a good person." He showed heroic restraint and willpower, managing not to burst out laughing like an asshole, and then, catching the girl’s gaze, he anticipated her question. “No, I really can’t say anything. But you’ll remember—I guarantee it. Now come on, hurry up and live while you still have the chance.”

And they headed toward the pure-white Temple of the Giver of Life, visible in the darkness of the night, while the shaman, choking with laughter, crawled—literally sliding down the wall—in a completely different direction, barely making it to the alley before collapsing into a dark corner. And once in his refuge, having shed his disguise and the crumbling dust of his camouflage makeup, he burst into laughter at the full volume of his decibels. And in time with him, the stone and the wind laughed, and the darkness laughed along with the flame. Only the reliability of the fortified defenses surrounding his underground kingdom prevented the storm of energy and spirit from blazing across all of Dantmark and Morgrave at once.

Soon he’ll be back in the fray. Back to helping his allies with the kind of task he’d do for free, back to summoning and performing calls, offering and making sacrifices. There are rituals planned, a couple of very good ideas for expanding his arsenal, and several targets he believes shouldn’t exist in this world. Somewhere deep in the Steppe, a powerful monster sits holed up in his tent—one who would pass for one of his own even in the cauldrons of hell—and the shaman wouldn’t mind standing by his side one day when he goes to kill him; if not Maega, then Singha, who will surely surpass him.

But now his thoughts are clear about the upcoming war against the ancient orc-shaman-necromancer.

Now he is not thinking about spirits and undead, not about undead spirits, which in themselves are much deader than ordinary undead.

Now he thinks about other creatures, creatures that are deadly dangerous and have caused so much harm to this world, and who have also tried unsuccessfully to cause that harm to Stepan.

Demons are very strange creatures. Even if we set aside their habits and the danger they pose, their repulsiveness and otherworldliness—they are simply strange, unlike humans or any other mortal beings. Eternally existing, eternally changing, above all terrified of ceasing to be, instinctively understanding that nothing awaits them after the end—in any form or shape. Or rather, nothing awaits them at all. They adapt and adjust, seeping like water under a stone and honey into the sky, penetrating any mental armor, finding a way into any personality, any hostility or rejection, sprouting the poison of words and intentions even in the hearts of the most righteous.

Above all, they crave more and more souls to fill their own cluster—but not for the sake of power or satiety. Although for those reasons as well. At the core of their desires, at the core of the boundless power of the Vice they have chosen—power over themselves, not just over their victims—lies precisely that very fear. The fear of ceasing to be, of vanishing, of coming to an end once and for all. For above all else, their instincts value not souls as such, but what these souls bestow—a likeness, crippled and pitiful despite all its might, but merely a likeness. A semblance of that greatest gift, which these pitiful and greedy mortals squander so thoughtlessly, trading their golden grapes for petty and mundane desires.

Desires that are not even worth a fraction of the absolute lust that demons feel for the souls of others. It is as if all their clusters, all their attempts to hold onto that which will inevitably burn and crumble under their power, were merely a pitiful, truly laughable—and just as terrifying—attempt to find their own radiance, their own soul. To become even a little like mortals, even by a small percentage... while at the same time drifting farther and farther away from what they desire, higher and higher up the ladder of power—a ladder which, based on the very nature of their kind, is incapable of leading them to what they desire.

An endless race, an eternal struggle, betrayal and deceit—these are regarded as the highest virtues for those deprived of the rights enjoyed by any vagabond and pauper, any townsman and artisan, the gifted and the simple-minded, the king and his personal jester. An endless race and an abyss of contempt, an abyss of hatred for mortals, who give—time and again—to them what the demons desire, but which they cannot fully take or fully comprehend.

What will that creature—that creature with at least three names, which has already strayed so infinitely far from the standard of its desires and aspirations—have to endure when the will of the system descends upon her? When she is forcibly made mortal, against her will and without the right to choose? Truly mortal. This is not suggestion, not an imposed mask, not an impossibly complex modification of the cluster, but a direct alteration of reality. When the impossible—which for a couple of moments of eternity had become just a little bit possible—comes to pass. What did she feel then, when she read the terms of her punishment? What was she so afraid of that, for the first time in all their time together, she was ready to humiliate herself, to beg, to make offers, to threaten—she was ready to do anything so that Stepan would change his mind?

What will she feel when she becomes herself again, when she becomes aware of her thoughts, her feelings, her desires, her mortality? Her sincere and such vivid, such genuine feelings for poor Yadrik, Gdaunt’s son? Feelings that she knew how to evoke, provoke, alter, defile, and desecrate, but could never experience herself? She could never, under any circumstances, simply because it cannot be otherwise, because that is how this universe—boundless and merciless—is made.

It was not for nothing that Stepan had spent so much time reflecting on his knowledge—specifically, on the parts of it devoted to the species of creature he so despised. A creature that was now receiving the blessing of the Life-Giver and, in all likelihood, would indeed receive it in the end. Stepan could not bring himself to kill her. He could not inflict suffering or threaten it in any other way, but he suspected that he would never have been able to make it feel more pain, more humiliation, or more fear. Not before, nor after the conclusion of their mutually binding pact that chained them to one another.

And this realization made him feel good.
* * *

STEPAN'S STATUS AT THE END OF CHAPTER FOUR (modified for ease of understanding):

Name: Stepan

Level: 37

Class: Senior Shaman

Specialization: Spirit Master

Subclass: Enchanter

Characteristics: (free: 2)

Talents (free): 3

Constitution: 3

Sensitivity: 15

Power: 11

Control: 8

Source: 7

Spirit: 18

Resistance: 5

Knowledge asquired (shamanism: foundation): advanced masterful practice of call; advanced masterful practice of utilizing spiritual-witchcraft dialog with the universe; advanced masterful techniques of casting shamanic charms (GIFT); developed techniques of dream inducement and correction (GIFT); advanced developed practice of combat calls; advanced developed methods of fast calls; master practice of spiritual operation; developed basics of spiritual bargaining and contractual agreements with otherworldly entities; advanced practice of remote control of spiritual entities; advanced developed work with totems; developed techniques of building defensive arrays; advanced developed methods of spiritual wandering; developed skills of spiritual conflict outside the physical body; advanced master techniques of suggestive influences on the basis of shamanism (GIFT); developed methods of controlled spiritual indwelling; developed practices of spiritual-cognitive confrontation; basic methods of working with memory on the basis of shamanism; advanced developed practices of harmonization of spiritual-auric conflicts: advanced basic methods of natural personality re-engineering (GIFT); advanced basic of working with household amulet systems; advanced basic methods of tandem simplification of the shamanic ritual; advanced basic practice of working with deep auric-spiritual resonances

Knowledge acquired (shamanism: healing): developed work with healing spirits; master techniques for countering curses; advanced basic techniques for healing aura and spiritual bodies based on wild magic; basic techniques for healing aura and spiritual bodies from damage by planar energies; basic methods of large-scale healing based on wild magic; advanced basic wild magic deep auric healing techniques

Knowledge Acquired (witchcraft): advanced basic techniques of tantric practices; advanced developed techniques of territorial influences; advanced basic techniques of interaction with magical sources; advanced developed techniques of changing energy currents; advanced developed techniques of casting witchcraft charms; advanced developed techniques of suggestive influences based on witchcraft; advanced basics of witchcraft benefices; advanced basics of wild amulet making; the basics of the combined use of complex witchcraft spells

Knowledge Acquired (Envolt): advanced mastery of puppet-envolt magical practice; advanced techniques for achieving sympathetic resonance; advanced basic techniques for modifying an active envolt; advanced basic methods of direct remote puppet control

Knowledge Acquired (skills and tricks): spoken and written: Free Cities, academic Neirat, Island Kingdom; wilderness hermit; mastery of elite martial caller; elementary techniques of teaching magical sciences; skillful methods of agency work; techniques of eliminating protected targets; elite mastery of mental-sensory processing of protected targets; techniques of mental-sensory defense as part of agency training; masterful opposition to demonic influence; methods of conducting large-scale magical battles

Minor Knowledge (contracts with strong spirits): Eater of Diseases; Cheesh'sh'shuya; Jolly Milker; Sneaking Glow; Three Little Pigs; Leaves in Motion; Urkaguarri; Embrace-with-Amber-in-Last-Farewell; Turquoise Left and Aquamarine Right; Guardian of Dreams; Craved Inferno; Ololoshoholomolo-Ou; Once-Blazing; Taylor-Taylor-Taylor; Lkrazar Marakash

Minor Knowledge (contracts with elder spirits): Sleepwalker (GIFT); The Shroud of Touch and the Creator of Decisions (GIFT); Joy of the Waves; Vishpli-Schwalstprachtmatt; Memory Eater; He Who Hides Himself in the Rocks and Opens the Doors; The Smooth of Slipping Evil; The Peace of the Serenity Keeper; Standing with a Dagger at Your Back; Silent White; Thu'Zi'Kh; Millstone Grip; Coming Folly (GIFT); F'Emmbyver (GIFT); Shield-Behind-Shield; Returning to the Original; Sorrowful Rain

Minor Knowledge (contracts with higher spirits): The Spike-Piercing- Here-and-There; Locking Secrets; Little White Goat; He-Who-Merged-With-The-Darkness-of-Stones-Paving-the-Way-And-Opening-Doors; One-in-Two; Wind of Underworld; Value Definer

Minor Knowledge (active shamanism): defense by distortion of the anteroom of the spheres; exile from reality; an invisible sting

Minor Knowledge (witchcraft): curse of the locking of the paths; blessing of union with the subtle world; manifestation of the right of kinship and ashes; oblivion in ecstasy (GIFT); the curse of sincere enmity; embraced by silent wings

Minor Knowledge (envolt): envolt twin energy mantle

Obtained properties (complex): toughness of spirit; resilience of subtle bodies; spiritual shroud of higher auric concealment (GIFT); deep transformation of the spiritual body; a tantric spiritual hearth; patchwork spiritual echo (GIFT); the multiplicity of spiritual awareness; small spiritual and energetic protection; the regeneration of subtle bodies; strengthened auric nodes; stable stability of the source's absorption properties; tendency towards cognitive restoration; smooth and extra-sensory omnipresence of spiritual influence (GIFT); balance of delimitation of spiritual-energetic symbiosis; freedom of distances and wills; filtration membrane of source foundation; blessed little snake touch; outgoing auric node stamina

Obtained properties (Marks of Spheres): the significant mark of spiritual spheres: mark of fallen leaves and black roots; trust of creators of passions and weavers of feelings (GIFT); acceptance of free winds and whispering blows; the mark of quiet pools and deep waters; the trust of the keepers of doors and those who pave the way; a mark of the quietest canopies and hidden secrets; acceptance of free words and serene tranquility

Obtained properties (blessings): blessings of health and long life; heritage in blood and spirit (GIFT); control of heritage in blood and spirit (GIFT)

Obtained properties (active modification): [ was, but not anymore ]

System modifiers: peaceful development IV; issuance of system assignments V; lecherous development IV (GIFT); access to system purchases IV; small system endowment of characteristics; temporal awareness IV; reserve renewal IV; replenishment of life IV; accepting a systemic deal with a patron (Liarat si Merrinal, Lady of Gifts and Giver of Gifts, loyal servant of Innelas Innelay); creation of group II; intensive development III; gift small temporary enhancement of attributes in the name of Liarat si Merrinal, Lady of Gifts and Giver of Gifts, faithful servant of Innelas Innelay (GIFT); a constant inflow of experience II; a regular inflow of system resources IV; a doubled minor corrupting gift in the name of Liarat si Merrinal, Lady of Gifts and Gift-giver, faithful servant of Innelas Innelay; distributed charge improvement for meta-skills I; Partial-selective temporal fixation of the premise with the possibility of preliminary preparation for action I; sweet essence of passion II; replenishment of token charge I; Intimate Privacy II

Completed Deals: -

Available Deals: Cute & Innocent; Sweet Attraction; Big & Soft; Tense and Frozen; The Tenderest Buns; The Coming of NNN; The Choice of the Mistress

Available Feats: City of the Dead; Sinister Web; Queen of Worms; Beast Hunt; Toy of the Deep

Available feats in the name of Liarat si Merrinal, Lady of Gifts and Giver of Gifts, loyal servant of Innelas Innelay: Puppet Queen; Mother and Magdalena; Dark Elven Tango; Life-Loving Asses; Five Hundred Vulgarities

Reward Tokens: Awesome Melons (100); Indifferent Doll (3); Ignored Orgasm (100); minor artifact repair (2); Instant restoration of magic reserve (11); small temporary increase in Constitution attribute (3); Puffy Pies (100); meaningful meta-skill reneval (1); temporary creation of privacy (15); Persistent Feet (10); Smooth Beauty (39); Mighty Melons (88); massive minor warrior blessing (4); Compulsion of Addiction: Hugged and Squeezed (25); standard charge renewal of shaman's contract book (6); Sweetly Passionate Dreams (50); Muscular Beauty (12); temporary increase in Sensitivity (8); Passionate Sensuality (20); Victim of Temptations (5); Here's My Pussy (23); one-time gift to an ally of an elite system property (4); medium complex rank boost to an intangible summoned entity (3); Milky Tits (8); Vulgar Adoption (5); Master Netoraster (1); Pippin Short and Swift (23); Minor Temporary Complex Gift Enhancement (10); Dunya Kulakova (48); Point on the Map (10); Free Use (1); Erotic Elimination: Clinical Masturbation (3); Doll Transformation (10); Temporary Minor Resistance Buff (9); Unlimited Groping (50); Minor Meta-Skill Refresh (17); Summon a Neutral Hard Group System Quest (5); Rushing to the Rescue (5); Anal Pump (3); Fast​​Bender (5); Forgetting the Underwear (10); Grant a Basic Positive Aura Property (6); Manual Unlock (50)

Special: Blessing of Liarat si Merrinal, Lady of Gifts and Giver of Gifts, loyal servant of Innelas Innelay: likely to grant additional talents as you level up; grant specific System quests with increased rewards; Mark of Destinies: Singha, daughter of Maega, and Maega, daughter of Maedra; hidden effects; mutually certified deal with Iurlad Lahgan Akal

SYLVIA MALTER'S STATUS AT THE END OF CHAPTER FOUR (after Stepan helped her level up a bit):

Name: Sylvia Malter

Level: 55

Race: High Vampire (human)

Class: Bloodchanter

Specialty: Bloodwind.

Characteristics: (free: 0;)

Talents (free): 0

Constitution: 11

Sensitivity: 9

Power: 5

Control: 5

Source: 5

Spirit: 7

Resistance: 9

Knowledge absorbed: spoken and written: [reveal]; advanced master control of Scarlet Drop; the advanced master practice of Blood Shaping; master Blood Patronage; mastery techniques of subjugating Blood Resonance; master practice of superimposing delusions; advanced techniques of racial magic; advanced developed techniques of Blood Acceleration; developed techniques of Scarlet Pulse; developed practice of blood magic-based searching effects; master techniques of Scarlet Alchemy; advanced basic ritualistic practice; developed barrier-breaking techniques; advanced developed acoustic mental influence practice; master seduction and deception techniques; scarlet martial arts (Blood Pact); the art of agency and infiltration (Blood Pact); advanced basic mentoring and nurturing techniques; advanced basic personality reshaping techniques; advanced basic methods of complex suggestions based on bloody control; developed basic techniques of multi-threaded bloody manipulation; advanced basic Blood Magic scaling techniques; basic scarlet boost techniques

Minor knowledge: skillful protective Crimson Cloak; double whip of Bloody Submission; skillful Crimson Claws; Implosion of Bloody Resonance; Smooth Covert Imposition of Submission; Resonant, Growing, Suggestive Acoustic Veil

Acquired properties: enhanced saturation of bloody drops; corporeal essence of the supreme bloodsucker; enhanced blood reserve conservation; complex spiritual-energetic modification of the eyes: the supreme gaze of submission; vocal cord modification: enchanting voice; skeletal base modification: strengthening and flexibility; essence modification: Ancient Ichor's Drop; complex spiritual-energetic modification of the organism: compacted three-vector spatial pocket of the hidden type; scarlet shards of feelings and hearts; soft tissue modification: elasticity and sensuality; strengthened blood integrity; the greatness of ancient blood

System modifiers: blood replenishment II; issuance of systemic assignments III; lecherous development III; summon of saturated blood I; constant influx of experience I

Reward Tokens (invisible to group members): Pleasant Suckling (147); summon a vial of exotic blood (71); temporal assimilation booster (6); meaningful creation of a lair of noxious earth with controlled binding (2); Languishing Mouths (50); Nourishing Fountain (10); Great Idea (10); Center of Attention (5); Instant Reserve Recovery (13); the embodiment of a magical grimoire of a suitable specialty (7); More Boobs Less Brains (10); the creation of an ideal alchemical workshop (2)

Special: [empty for now]

THE STATUS OF SINGHA, THE DAUGHTER OF MAEGA, THE DAUGHTER OF MAEDRA AT THE END OF CHAPTER FOUR

Name: Singha, daughter of Maega, daughter of Maedra

Level: 39

Class: Shaman

Specialization: Caller of Wind

Characteristics: (free: 0)

Talents (free): 0

Constitution: 2

Sensitivity: 12

Power: 7

Control: 8

Source: 8

Spirit: 14

Resistance: 2

Knowledge: oral and written language: Free Cities, western steppe dialect; master practice of call; advanced developed practice of spiritual dialog; master work with wind spirits; developed fast calls; developed practice of martial calls; developed skill of spiritual bargaining and contractual agreements with otherworldly entities; developed skills of spiritual conflict outside the physical body; advanced methods of spiritual wandering; advanced basic methods of search and clairvoyant calls; advanced basic work with totems; developed work with altars and shrines; advanced basic work with water spirits; developed methods of calling healing winds; advanced skills of creating strengthening call patterns; advanced methods of building protective amulets on the basis of shamanism; advanced developed work with benevolent spirits; developed techniques for casting shamanic love spells; developed techniques for suggestive influences based on shamanism; advanced basic methods for tandem simplification of the shamanic ceremony; techniques for conducting out-of-body magical battles

Minor knowledge: temporarily closed ancestral contracts with strong spirits: [reveal 32 entries]; temporarily closed ancestral contracts with elder spirits: [reveal 11 entries]; temporarily closed ancestral contracts with higher spirits: [ reveal 2 entries ]; strong spirit contract: [reveal 26 entries]; contract with elder spirits: [reveal 5 entries... Winding Rustle of Grasses; Keeper of the House; Hundred Faithful Hands, Urlabran-Baran, Stojkij Logj]; contract with the supreme spirit: [Bending Master, Petals of the Ghostly Winds]; distant call-orientation to ancestral call base; small spirit strike for conflicts outside the physical body; small spirit cover for conflicts outside the physical body; a brief journey through the world of higher spheres; instilling passion while stripping away power; a fluid, deflective spiritual shield; provoking unstoppable ecstasy

Acquired properties: ancestral heritage of steppe skies and eternal winds; trust of free winds and whispering blows; trust of violent storms and violent gusts; recognition of rushing streams and serene lakes; recognition of hearth warmth and caress of fires; steadfastness of subtle bodies; blessing of passing on ancestral heritage and the gift of the first of daughters; blessing of health and beauty; blessing of home and native walls; mark of keepers of promises and assuring transactions; a small mark of spiritual spheres; a mark of the quietest canopies and hidden secrets; recognition of the creators of passions and the weavers of feelings; a mark of shimmering embers and scorching petals

System modifiers: lecherous development III; access to system purchases III;accelerated group development I

System modifiers (invisible to group members): summon of shamfull orgasm II

Reward Tokens: replenishment of energy reserves (47); brief, temporary boost in Sensitivity (10)

Reward Tokens (invisible to party members): Sweet Feet (21); Polite Remark (25); I Need a Chair (10); Romantic Kiss (99); Object of Fantasy (1); Watch Me Cum (9); Buying Lust (5); Cum on My Face (10); Spicy Pause (100)

Special:

Mark of Destiny (invisible): absolute vulnerability to enchantments and mental suggestion of a lecherous nature on the part of the bearer of the blessing of Liarat si Merrinal, Lady of Gifts and Giver of Gifts, loyal servant of Innelas Innelay;

A Minor Gift of Salvation at the cost of depraved retribution in the name of Liarat si Merrinal, Lady of Gifts and Giver of Gifts, loyal servant of Innelas Innelay (invisible): greatly increases the chances of survival in mortal danger, greatly increases the chances of minimal damage instead of crippling or fatal injuries, greatly increases the chances of falling victim to charms, love magic, mental techniques, and other influences on the mind and senses if they lead to lewd, vulgar, or intimate consequences, guarantees the temporary and negligible duration of being a submissive plaything in a distorted mind, greatly increases the chances of eventually being freed from a passionate captivity.

STATUS OF IURLAD LAHGAN AKAL BITCHY DEMONIC SCUM AT THE END OF CHAPTER FOUR (after she paid for her snare-trap on Stepan the Unreasonable):

Name: Lana, it seems...

Level: [SUBSCRIBER UNAVAILABLE]

Class: [SUBSCRIBER NOT SUBSCRIBER]

Specialization: [SUBSCRIBER UNAVAILABLE]

Subclass: [SUBSCRIBER UNAVAILABLE]

Characteristics: [SUBSCRIBER UNAVAILABLE]

Acquired knowledge:[SUBSCRIBER UNAVAILABLE]

Minor knowledge:[SUBSCRIBER UNAVAILABLE]

Acquired properties: [SUBSCRIBER UNAVAILABLE]

System modifiers: [SUBSCRIBER UNAVAILABLE]

Soul stock: [SUBSCRIBER UNAVAILABLE]

Reward Tokens [SUBSCRIBER UNAVAILABLE]

Special: a mutual certified deal with the Chosen One of Liarat si Merrinal, Lady of Gifts and Giver 0f Gifts, faithful servant of Innelas Innelay;

STATUS OF YULA, descendant of Raistar the Apostate AT THE END OF CHAPTER TWO (after her TERRIBLE UNKNOWN FUCKING SHIT, her respected and beloved, revered older brother mentor, Stepan not Fat, helped her with her development):

Name: Yula, descendant of Raistar the Apostate

Level: 15

Class: Sorceress

Characteristics: (free: 0)

Talents (free): 0

Constitution: 5

Sensitivity: 4

Power: 7

Control: 5

Source: 8

Spirit: 2

Resistance: 5

Acquired knowledge: spoken and written language: Free Cities (GIFT); advanced basic criminal skills; developed basics of managing and controlling internal energies; developed basics of creating magical weaves; advanced basics of working with coordinate positioning; advanced developed skills in working with curses; developed skills of combat maleficism.; advanced basic skills of hidden maleficism; basic principles of creating living malefic containers; methods of undercover work

Minor knowledge: confident control of distances; piercing spatial convolution; brief combat positional shift

Acquired properties: low innate spatial positioning; hereditary Curse of Black Blood [REVEAL EFFECTS]; significant resistance to curses; fractal aura structure; supreme artefact symbiosis: Shackles of Godlessness; slight absorption of curse manifestations (Shackles of Godlessness); slight enhancement of curse base (Shackles of Godlessness); slight absorption of curse effects (Shackles of Godlessness); positional perception of the environment

System Modifiers: Issuing System Assignment III; Intensive Development II; Facilitating Independent Acquisition of Knowledge I

Special: One-time offer to reset levels and choose a base class for further development (USED).

Author's Note:

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MY FIRST COM IS SO GOOD!!! IT KILOBYTES IS SO POWERFUL!!!

Khm.

Yes.

So, ladies, gentlemen, non-binary combat starships, and the rest of the esteemed audience. I finally finished it and am posting it now—hurray!

This chapter turned out to be not only complex—410,000 characters even without the status updates, which added quite a few more—but also downright problematic; I reworked the most frustrating scene several times—starting over from scratch, scrapping it, then scrapping it again—until, on about the fifth try, it finally began to fit the characters’ personalities, even if only vaguely. I think everyone who’s read the chapter already knows which scene I’m talking about.

To be honest, toward the end of that scene, I was tempted to just give up on the whole thing, ending the chapter right when the protagonist walks into Maega’s meeting room, and then taking a break before returning to Hungor. The only thing that stopped me was that I knew full well I’d have to come back to it later, and I didn’t want to—I just wanted to wrap up that part of the text and forget about it. And besides, was I really going to write a chapter with nothing but leveling up, lore, and Stepan’s moral musings? No—some authors can pull that off, and the result isn’t half bad, but I’m hardly one of them.

So.

First, I invite everyone to try to guess the names of the three tokens that Maega received at the end of the last chapter—all three have two-word names, and all three are named in an alliterative, auto-milf style.

Second... second, I’ve already dug out my notes on the darkest, most hentai-esque versions of how things could have played out with Stepan and the women of the de Lomer family. There was also a version where Singha would help him break free by actually turning against her mom, but that was an unlikely scenario, and it could have ended even worse than in the version where Singha didn’t intervene. And yet it slipped through at the very last breath, without even any bonuses—it just slipped through, entirely in keeping with Maega’s character.

Basically, in my opinion, her thought process and decisions are quite well presented, illustrated, and justified in the text, but I’ll go into more detail in a separate post. The crux of the problem is that Maega isn’t the entire Forest all rolled into one; she doesn’t have those resources, she doesn’t have that level of intelligence, and she doesn’t have the First who could warn her. It’s the Forest that can assign a team of elite agents to Cyrill—and then even back them up with another team—and it’s they who monitored Cyrill around the clock, creating a perfect profile of his personality and knowing exactly where to apply pressure, what to look for, and where to focus their attention.

And so, when they found out about the Tokens, they were, of course, freaking out like crazy, but by that point they already knew the Elf Queen’s Hero inside and out—they knew exactly how he would act in any given situation. First’s plan worked, and Cyrill began to consider himself part of the Forest, to regard the elves as his own, and voluntarily renounced his Tokens.

Maega didn’t have that kind of luxury. She simply received a little gift from Automilf, appraised it, realized that such surprises were undeniably a part of the MC’s life as well, and came to understand that his vow did NOT PROTECT him from using the tokens—and then drew the logical and, from her point of view, only correct conclusion. When she hit the protagonist with a trio of “gifts,” she felt not a shred of guilt, only anger and a thirst for revenge. Because she HAD NO DOUBT that the protagonist had already used such tactics against her and her daughter on multiple occasions. She considered her daughter to be completely compromised and, following all the rules of safe behavior with victims of mind control techniques, simply shut her down, deciding to deal with Pann the Betrayer first.

Actually, if the main character had really been using the tokens and behaving like a total jerk, he would have spilled everything during interrogation, and then he’d be in for quite the parade of humiliation—where kissing the feet of the steppe folks would have been just the beginning, yeah. However, in a situation like that, it wouldn’t have occurred to Maega to suspect the protagonist, would it? She got really nervous here, remembering part of what she’d been taught, suspecting that she was experiencing one of the forms of mental manipulation—that very “calming in paranoia.”

She had her suspicions, but she was wrong. The hero, even under interrogation—admitting to absolutely everything—never did anything underhanded to her or her daughter. And this was the crux of the matter. If the fact that Maega decided to “strike while she had the chance” is undeniably logical—simply because, given her mentality as a strong, naturally gifted woman, she was physically incapable of acting otherwise unless she had actually been brainwashed—then she had no reason to back down from there.

Simply because—well, put yourself in her shoes. You betrayed him. You betrayed the one who did nothing but good for you and your family. But at the same time, the one who could have turned you into a sex doll at any moment—and still can. The one who, from your point of view, may be a highly moral, naive idiot, but is by no means all-forgiving. And Maega definitely didn’t want to become the equivalent of that same Malter.

From her perspective, given everything she’d been taught and everything she’d learned on her own, there was ALREADY no turning back. There couldn’t be anymore. Yes, as she had said, there would be no humiliation; she wouldn’t have gone out of her way to mock the little spider caught in her own web, because it wasn’t a spider and hadn’t spun the web. But as the loving husband of Singha and father of Maega’s granddaughter—who obeyed his mother-in-law in everything—he was bound to become. Occasionally veering into all sorts of vulgar moments whenever a particularly sweet quest or token came along. Maega would hardly have been able to restrain herself; she would almost have convinced herself that “this isn’t cheating,” or that “this is worth cheating for—something her beloved husband, without a hint of sarcasm—would never even find out about.”

This was the most critical moment, and at any other time, under any other circumstances, that’s exactly how it would have played out. But right now, after the protagonist had essentially put himself in her hands, saved her son, and had the chance at any moment to protect himself—yet still chose not to resort to underhanded tactics? In short, what remained—not even a conscience, but a sense of right and wrong—finally kicked in for Maega, after which she stepped back, torn by immense moral anguish and sheer horror.

Actually, during their conversation—her fear was through the roof; she even got drunk, almost for the first time in her adult life, drinking until her tongue was slurring, just so it wouldn’t be so terrifying to look Stepan in the eye. In the end, she blew her chance for Tablet in the near future, but she didn’t really want it anyway. Not out of remorse, but out of fear of herself and her own desires. Fear that she wouldn’t be able to resist and would still be tempted by yet another deadly easy path to power.

Perhaps she will still receive that Tablet, perhaps. But certainly not in the coming chapters, no matter how much she wants it, no matter how much she fears that she will get it.

This is how I see this scene.

Otherwise, there were a ton of tricky moments in the text as well—and the most nerve-wracking dice rolls weren’t during the battle at the end of the chapter, but while trying to deal with Ursula. I figured it out and managed to roll two dirty hundreds in a row, but that was thanks to the accumulating roll bonuses—from +5 at the start to +40 by the end of the “investigation” series.

Well, then the elf-lover suffered a classic fuckup. She didn’t even try to roll for morality. She didn’t even consider trying to do the right thing. Not when she had such a surefire way into the mind of the naive idiot who’d saved her. Ursula isn’t Maega, after all. Brinar’s writings fully capture her character; I just expanded on her backstory a little.

He also deliberately drew a parallel with the dialogue between Master and Violetta. The protagonist didn’t lie to her about the fact that they could have allied if she hadn’t struck first. Ironically, if she had held back and remained free—while still possessing her own set of abilities—her chances of getting into the protagonist’s head later on, on her own terms, would have been a couple of orders of magnitude greater. But she rushed into it and made a fool of herself.

To be fair, MC gave her a chance to ease his conscience. Knowing her personality and considering her memory and reactions, he did not doubt she wouldn’t settle for a compromise when she had a chance to take everything right away. He was right.

The most successful crit didn't happen against the shaman, even though the summoned Spirit of Liberation Breeze itself was a 100 on lucky prizes and on top of that, 52, and his hit on Kulym became an autocrit and then another autocrit in a row. A very fortunate combination of aspects for such an opponent.

The most successful hundred, a clean one, and then 94—that's Yula's random property. Yula is incredibly lucky on a meta level; it's amazing. And she got not just an extraordinary property, but one almost two grades higher. That's why the future great malefic was so happy.

I’ll wrap up this comment here (since it’s coming to an end, heh), even though I barely mentioned any dice—the whole thing got swallowed up by psychological ramblings. I’d like to once again thank Brinar for letting me use his world, as well as everyone who, for whatever reason, still reads my ramblings. To everyone this very morning—may Monday not be too rough, and may you have plenty of time for a good night’s sleep.

Well, I go to work; there is a ton of work.

Next up are at least two chapters of Hungor, after which I’ll try to return to the Bells and finally wrap up the trade war arc. There’s going to be significantly more action in the next chapter—if not nonstop action on the level of the “Siren expedition” from Brinar’s parallel story. :)

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

Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/86785/597839

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP