Ведомый / Follower: 7.

7.

Camrad_RIP 07.04.25 в 12:21

* * *

Camrad_RIP 07.04.25 в 12:21

A new message from Eugene found Igor just having breakfast and finalising preparations for another ritual. This time, he wanted to try to superimpose the second over the first, to create another fragile Vessel inside his spiral. The calculations had already been completed, themselves giving him a one on the scale of understanding, the room and the reagents symbolising the concepts he needed had already been prepared. And then there was that beeping, interrupting great reflections and equally great intentions. Electromag had only sent a link to the news, but that news was very exciting. The city had been declared something between CTO regime and Martial Law, soldiers, guards, and all other individuals were being deployed, and the outskirts of the city were not being evacuated by force yet, but were being asked to stay with relatives in warm places. No relatives? Then find some, damn it, what are you like little kids!

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 12:53

Next came his personal opinion, expressed in a short message, which he deleted a minute after reading:

Camrad_RIP 07.04.25 в 12:28

Lightbulb_Zh: at night in industrial zone was fucked up. a natural massacre. the military shot dogs. they fucking shot. fifty corpses in the morgue only whole, no one counted the dogs. we sit quietly, I advise you to go outside only to the store. there will be checks, there will be questions, tacitly gave the command to pull all the suspicious and shoot without prejudice be healthy.

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 18:30

Lightbulb_Zh: stupid autocorrection

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 18:30

Igor heeded the warning and didn't go out, preferring to just go about his planned business. The Internet was failing, the mobile phone connection was also failing, and the heating was malfunctioning. The radiators were barely warm. If not for his improved physical condition, he might have fallen ill, but he was more interested in getting the last unit on the Step scale. Schools weren't working, shops were mostly on pause, and phones of all sorts of services were ringing off the calls. To his aunt and her husband's credit, they didn't leave quietly. They offered him to leave with them too, and even agreed to stop by the driveway and help him with his things. Well, if the stuff weren't too much, there wasn't much room as it was. Some part of Igor almost wanted to agree, to get the hell out of here and forget all this nastiness like a nightmare.

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 12:57

Part of him listened to the timer counting down the seconds, and part of him realized there was nowhere to run. What he would run away from would simply follow those who ran away. And he had refused, excused himself with his institute, studies, job, lied about his prospects, and they had believed him. Or pretended to believe, because his closest relative still needed the young man as much as a businessman needs a sudden visit from the tax office. He thanked her for doing her duty as the one who had replaced his parents, but he didn't want to embarrass her any more. However, he didn't turn down the opportunity to visit her later, for who knew, he might have to get out of here. If the level of the location grows even more and becomes unbearable for him.

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 18:39

The next ritual was the one that lay on top of the first and cost him a nosebleed. This time, Igor wasn't stimulating the regenerative properties of the fragile Vessel, no. Once he used the second disposable battery, the body's reaction and speed would increase, as well as the resistance of the ligaments, but to a lesser extent. By the way, he had to use hot spices for these concepts - pepper, mustard, a half-empty tube of chili ketchup, and stuff like that. Well, yeah, if you get that kind of crap under your tail, you run really fast. After the second fragile Vessel had been added to his spiral, Igor allowed himself to rest a little, admiring the ritual's understanding scale, which he had spent most of his time on.

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 18:41

Light Touch of Primordial Powers: Grant Fragile Chalice and Bodily Power: 52/100

Camrad_RIP 07.04.25 в 12:31

He wanted to finish with the Protective Charm, bringing it up to a hundred, but the young man paused deliberately, wanting to bring all three Tablets up to about the same level, to pull out the lagging one before rushing to a hundred. It was not an intuitive understanding but rather a part of his instincts, which he realized much more clearly because of his gifts. The foundation must be strong, for you can't build an infinite tower without a foundation, can you? Another argument in favor of this approach was the fact that the last boundary of the amulet scale had not been taken even by an active fight with a hungry babe. So this last unit was really important, maybe even more important than the others. Igor felt he could cross it even now. Even before the fight with the babe.

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 18:44

He could, but he didn't overstep it. He tried not only to strengthen and expand his understanding of the Tablet but to deepen it as well, soberly expecting to get a more powerful evolution-enhancement due to these efforts and expectations. But he had brought his Combat Shine up to the same level, thanks to the art of sausage throwing, as well as a few exercises in releasing power from the Vessel that had been cast with shine. He had deliberately weakened the damage to the material world as much as possible, and also activated a white-hot explosion in the locked bathroom, so that not a single ray of light had left the apartment, not a single tile had been damaged, only the fly that had come from nowhere had been annihilated. In the end, it was pleasant to look at the scales of understanding of his two spirit Tablets, very pleasant, and even more pleasant to realize the possibility of completing their understanding to the maximum at any moment:

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 19:01

Minor Protective Charm: 99/100

Camrad_RIP 07.04.25 в 12:37

Minor Combat Radiance: 99/100

Camrad_RIP 07.04.25 в 12:36

Several times, acquaintances and buddies who had mostly left town and were asking about his well-being tried to call his cell phone. To be honest, Igor was even surprised at how many people cared about him. There were text messages and calls from social services, urging him to either leave on his own or use the services of special evacuation centers, which helped those who had nowhere else to go. Igor ignored these text messages and continued to develop the ritual action, spending four full days on it, having managed to isolate several separate, not even Tablets, but semi-magical techniques. The same closing circle that kept the magic within its bounds was the one the guy had drawn on the bathroom walls in several copies to train the flash of whiteness there.

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 19:03

His lazy thoughts about life, death, and everything else were interrupted by the phone ringing, and from a familiar number. It was Yurasik, one of Igor's classmates. The guy was quite sincerely surprised, because he had only fragmentary communication with this individual and did not deepen it. A call in the middle of the night, to put it mildly, caused surprise and slight suspicion. But he picked up the phone, simply because why not? Even if some creature would talk through the phone, he was protected by three protections, and before picking up the phone, he cast the shine again, just for the sake of it.

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 13:12

"Listening," he answers, making his voice sleepy, purely to shame the person on the other end of the line, or, well, to shame the creature pretending to be human. "Attentively... yes."

Camrad_RIP 07.04.25 в 12:43

"Igoryan, sorry it's the middle of the night, but I can't get through to anyone, everyone hangs up or just tells me to go." There's no usual cheerfulness in the friend's tone, no cheerfulness at all, only anxiety and not particularly hidden fear. "I'm at Irka's apartment now, we're kind of dating... Anyway, I don't know how to say this, but... can you pick us both up from here? There's no taxi coming, none, and the police said to wait until the morning, fuck. Bitches! Here. In short. Just, if you can help with anything, if you know someone with a car... any money, just... I can't stay in this apartment. Irka can't either."

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 05:41

Even though the words and statements of his fellow student were, to put it mildly, similar to some madman's ravings, Igor took what he said surprisingly seriously. And he quite seriously considered the option of simply hanging up and letting them sort it out themselves. Yes, he realized that this could be a death sentence for Yuri and his sweetheart, but they had never been particularly good acquaintances or friends, and Irka was just plain annoying Igor with her bitchy nature. Scratching the back of his head, he was forced to admit that he was not that hardened yet... and he also needed the last unit of the Step scale, if he did not want to ruin his reserves of Marks of Valor, not letting the full scale go empty. It was time to take a step forward, he had already lingered at level zero, damn it. The first of the Steps was waiting for him and could not wait.

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 05:47

"I have a friend, I'll ask him now. I'll call back in half an hour." That's all he answered, deciding that if Evgeny sent him away, then that was fate, since he wouldn't be able to get to the opposite end of the city on foot in any reasonable amount of time anyway, the most he could do was advise how to behave in the event of a threat from the Other Side, which, given the probably bugged communications, was quite a risk.

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 05:51

"Thank you, bro, thank you! Any money, I'll pay in cash right away, let them at least deliver us somewhere!" Yuri was clearly barely holding himself together, and it felt like he was about to burst into tears, but he didn't feel like laughing. Igor knew very well what the Other Side was. "Thank you..."

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 05:52

When he hung up the phone, he immediately dialled Eugen, thinking for a moment whether he was ready to break his anonymity. Probably, he was ready. Only because he did not believe too much in this anonymity, and Zhenya showed himself as a reliable person, at least in battle. It was necessary to establish a more trustworthy connection, otherwise there was a risk of being left alone. Then only to go to the authorities to surrender, for pumping alone is clearly not for him. There were exactly six ringing tones before Zhenya's cheerful, though not particularly happy, voice answered his call with a brief ‘Yes, I'm listening’. It took less than two minutes to retell the problem in the most streamlined form, saying that something bad was obviously going on there. Zhenya was silent during this time; only the sound of water running from the tap could be heard in the background.

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 13:17

"Tell me honestly, Hedgehog," the interlocutor asks heartfeltly. "How much do you give a shit about them?"

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 06:12

"Above average," Igor replies, not trying to sound better than he is.

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 06:13

"Okay. I won't go there alone either, sorry, it's a bit scary." Especially without Igor's protection, which was not said, but implied. "Will you give me moral support? And if so, where can I pick you up from?"

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 19:04

Igor gave an address two alleys away from his house, to which Zhenya only tsked irritably, calculating the necessary detour, but he didn't show his attitude in any other way. He only asked not to keep him waiting, because he had something to show a random patrol, and another weather storm had driven them into warm closed rooms, but it would be better not to risk it. Igor agreed, having already managed to get dressed and having finished the conversation, immediately called Yura back. In response to his words, he was really hysterical, begging him to hurry up, and Igor started asking for information, just in case.

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 19:14

"Anyway, let's cut the bullshit, Yur." He says, already leaving the entrance, shining his flashlight. "I already realize you've got some bullshit in there. Just imagine that I've seen some shit in the last month and a half too, so I don't think you're crazy and stoned. Tell me what the fuck is going on. And should I take my grandfather's flamethrower?"

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 19:15

A moment of silence is followed by heavy breathing and the sound of frantic steps, the creaking of furniture and a woman’s scream, which obviously belongs to Irina.

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 06:13

"Well, you asked me to be direct. I'm not crazy. I guess. I don't know. Anyway, here it is. It's a fucking painting, you know, like that shit you hang on the wall for show." My classmate's brevity and rhetorical skill are more infuriating than trying to move through snowdrifts sometimes up to my waist. "There was a picture of some man-pirate-captain-fucking-knows-who. And it, uh.... it fucking changed. And it's fucking walking. It's out of the frame, and it's walking! Fuck! It's following us. You blink, and it's closer, up the wall, on the floor, on the ceiling! It's sneaking. It's sneaking up on us. I tried to hit it with a hammer and it almost broke my arm! I'm not crazy, really! And it won't let us near the door!"

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 19:17

In this way, trying to calm his comrade's hysterics and cursing the weather, he reached the appointed point and even managed not to kill himself on the way on some unnoticed obstacle under the snow. Zhenya's car pulled up after about three minutes of waiting, and he clearly noted the almost open face of the “Hedgehog”. Having fought off Yura and asked him to hold on a little longer, Igor silently shook his companion's hand and recounted aloud all that he had heard from Yura.

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 19:20

"There could be a breach nearby." The electromancer states the obvious and asks an even more obvious question. "Do we close it? Or is it better not to risk it with just the two of us? I've lost contact with Vas-Vas, he drank or lost his cell phone. Or maybe he's cooled off. The cops, of course, are total bitches. They've sentenced your acquaintances. Though given the massacre in the industrial zone, they have no personnel at all, including a considerable part of their superiors, and the soldiers they've brought in haven't gotten used to the local specifics yet."

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 19:22

According to the data available to Zhenya, the shit in the industrial zone is so dense that the spirit and stench of the Other Side can be felt even just staying there, like a solid field. The number of mutants and other crap should from such shit grow by leaps and bounds and not long before the moment when all that is hidden so far in basements and dens, will spill out onto the still busy streets of the downtown and sleeping areas. Pumping in such conditions has become almost unrealistic, even Zhenya spends most of his time at home, learning to control his Tablet, not hunting. He doesn't take any risks alone, either, and there's simply no way to properly secure himself. At this rate, he said, he would soon be left to lie down under the authorities, but he didn't want to end up on a lab bench or in some kind of mutant prison.

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 19:24

This shit isn't all over the world, just in some places, and that's why the picture of the "team of superheroes" being created by the authorities seems very unlikely to him. They'll probably bring people here, try to find ways to gain superpowers exclusively for "their own", and at best keep the unlucky "illegally initiated" on a short leash. Well, until the timer in Igor and Zhenya's heads counts down the last seconds, and what was promised to them happens. Or doesn't happen. And you can't tell right away which outcome will be worse for the players.

Camrad_RIP 20.04.25 в 05:53

Yuri didn't pick up the phone, which made Igor suspect either the worst or his death. The worst would be an ambush by security forces at the "rescue" site, if anything. But, fortunately for everyone, it turned out that he had simply dropped the phone. Having picked the lock with a screwdriver and a white glow in one movement, Zhenya burst into the apartment as a messenger of vengeance. The creature resembled a drawing, but it was strange, like a mix of Giger and Picasso. Its features were recognizable as a humanoid dressed in something pirate-like, only with a bunch of extra limbs. Not just extra, but also blocking the passage to the door, which is important. And he beat this creature to death with a long cleaver, and it was clearly not a fake one. If only he knew where he got such magnificence. From the blow, the creature smoked a little, and part of it spread out into a lump of smoking and shimmering gasoline film of ink. He deals the second blow to the no longer resisting scum, which is trying to crawl away, cutting through the wall and finally killing this shit.

Camrad_RIP 20.04.25 в 05:56

"Yura, get your ass up, pick up Ira, and let's get out of here, because the evil comic is dead after all," Igor shouts, sucking in a strong stream of rainbow fog, sharing it with Zhenya and feeling how that small edge that remained before the breakthrough of the line gives in, feeling that he can now try to take a step onto a new Step. "If you're still alive, of course."

Camrad_RIP 20.04.25 в 05:57

"Alive, fucking alive!" A crying voice full of impossible relief comes from the far room, and a moment later, the disheveled bangs and tear-stained face of an unfortunate student stick out from there. "Is it really dead?"

Camrad_RIP 20.04.25 в 05:58

"Come on, fucking hurry up, I don't want to stand here for long," Zhenya grumbles, looking at the empty frame, which used to contain the painting. He looks at it and understands that this same frame is the hole, just some kind of wrong, strange, disguised, and completely man-made, and not something that arose naturally. "And where did this painting come from anyway?"

Camrad_RIP 20.04.25 в 06:14

"Irka b-bought it at a flea market, almost for free, the artist was giving it away..." Well, it immediately became clear to Igor that this artist was from the same cohort as the sculptor, to hell with them all, creative individuals. "Painting is usually e-expensive."

Camrad_RIP 20.04.25 в 06:15

"It almost cost you even more," Evgeny concludes gloomily, straightening the scarf pulled over his face and putting the cleaver into an obviously handmade sheath. "What are you standing there for? Did I not express myself clearly? Well, let's run!"

Camrad_RIP 20.04.25 в 06:16

And they did it. Both Ira and Yuri gathered almost in an army-standard manner, gradually recovering from the horror, shaking from the cold and chill of the Other Side, which they unconsciously felt. Igor even wrinkled his face, sensing, sensing how this crap reeked from them. From Yura, it's weaker, but the apathetic and only silently shuddering and shedding tears Irka was really bad. This shit could cause them to develop mutations or mental shifts, it would be a shame to save both of them only to get two maniac creatures. In response to a logical question, Zhenya, who had casually destroyed the half-breakthrough in the form of a picture frame, only nodded and offered a very sensible plan.

Camrad_RIP 20.04.25 в 07:35

Ten minutes later, already in the car, Igor forced both of the rescued to drink a sip of whiskey, washing it down with a tablet of some homeopathic shit found in the car's first aid kit, and then, when they were covered with heat from the alcohol, he activated the glow on both of them in a very tricky configuration. No super-damage boost or white flashes, only maximum resistance to the negative effects of the Other Side. The high level of skill and knowledge of the chosen Tablet allowed him to perform such a manipulation with the Tablet. And the victims attributed the strange sensations and sudden vigor to the sedative and alcohol, without even realizing that the pill contained only sugar.

Camrad_RIP 20.04.25 в 06:19

Having dropped the sweet couple off near the house of Ira's parents, who were not in the city anyway, they said goodbye, accepted some financial gratitude. Not particularly luxurious, but for two not very rich students, it was really generous, and then they parted like ships at sea. Igor sincerely hoped that the couple would not chat too much, and if they did, then they did not see anything terrible or unrealistic. Yuri himself tried to harm the creature and even inflicted some kind of wound on it, from which ink flowed, and Zhenya hit harder, more suddenly, and not with a kitchen hammer, but with a combat cleaver. That's all. The question is how exactly they opened the lock on the apartment, but before leaving, Igor squeezed it out of the door with fingers reinforced with whiteness and will throw away the mechanism on the way home.

Camrad_RIP 20.04.25 в 06:26

"Come on, let me take you to the point... Hedgehog." Zhenya narrows his eyes slyly because he heard his classmates calling him by name. "Or should I call you Igor?"

Camrad_RIP 20.04.25 в 07:23

"Yes, you can, Zhenya... if you are Zhenya, of course." He answered as if he had planned this conversation from the very beginning. "Now that conspiracy is going to hell."

Camrad_RIP 20.04.25 в 07:24

They talked the whole way back and a little more, agreed on further joint actions, and Zhenya also warned the boy that very soon the city would be treated seriously. And rumor has it that it will be an international enterprise, for the places of other “weather anomalies” are also being studied. Hardly anyone would dare to share such secret information so quickly, but now it's clear to the hedgehog - ha-ha - that the secret of obtaining magic belongs to more than one country. France, Britain, the US, Norway, China, India, Brazil - their militaries are already quietly based in other points of contact between reality and the Other Side. But there, the populated points are smaller in size and population. That's why it is logistically easier to surround, isolate, and control them. And with their city, that simply will not happen, even though the evacuation is clearly being prepared with all the available forces, without distracting from the largest-scale sawing of money since the World Cup.

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 19:34

And yes, Zhenya's name was exactly Zhenya, he even offered to show his passport, but Igor did not demand such personal details.

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 19:28

The guy made his way home along a partially trodden and not completely snowed-in path, feeling how even his strengthened body was sweating, making its way through the snowdrifts. And this even though he had set the protection to push through the snow. It was just that this mode was eating up the charm resource too quickly, causing actual damage across the entire area of ​​the protected body. He had to activate the snowmobile mode only on the largest snowdrifts, and not keep it active all the time.

Camrad_RIP 20.04.25 в 06:30

Perhaps that was why he had missed the moment in which he had been attacked, noticing the blurred shadow only at the very last moment. Well, and also the proximity of the entrance, which he literally saw with his eyes and lost vigilance in a step from such deceptive safety. The shadow swept out from the car, buried to the roof with snow. It swept out so swiftly that he felt the cold abomination of the Other Side already at direct contact, as if the creature were hiding, hiding its essence from his senses. The huge figure, wrapped in a pile of dirty rags, covered Igor with itself, as if trying to absorb, twist, and bury him in itself.

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 19:36

It was the same freak that Borislav Gennadyevich had mutilated. The one who had tried to put a mark on the young man and failed to overcome the protection. But somehow, Igor had overlooked a simple truth: nothing and no one had prevented the freak from simply waiting for his offender in this very courtyard. And the creature must have realized who had baffled the kitty into a real bending machine! Igor felt that the stench of dirty rags, which involuntarily reminded him of Vas-Vas, was clogging his breath, that they were trying to close his nostrils, block his throat, squeeze out his eyes, and pierce his ears. And he panicked, releasing the power invested in the glow in an instant, simply tearing the creature off him and tossing it aside. The flash of whiteness, surprisingly, was almost invisible; the impact of his fist hitting the wall would be stronger. The creature's attack was doing something, not just restraining, but also as if it was shoving Igor somewhere not here. It was as if a story about an evil uncle who stole children into a bottomless sack had suddenly come to life.

Camrad_RIP 19.04.25 в 19:28

And blood, for the black liquid from the scum, in whose actual mouth a combat grenade had exploded, gushed in all directions like a vigorous rain.

Camrad_RIP 20.04.25 в 06:27