Готовый перевод Ведомый / Follower: 7.

7.

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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!

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

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.

Lightbulb_Zh: stupid autocorrection

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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:

Minor Protective Charm: 99/100

Minor Combat Radiance: 99/100

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.

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.

"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."

"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."

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.

"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.

"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..."

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.

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

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

"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?"

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.

"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?"

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.

"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!"

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.

"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."

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.

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.

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.

"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."

"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?"

"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?"

"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."

"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!"

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.

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.

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.

"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?"

"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."

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Igor casts another shine on himself, starting to kick the lumps of rags with his bare hands and tear them, rip off shreds, torment and break the creature... realizing that there is no flesh under the rags, that this entire monster is lumps of dirty, stinking, rotten rags, soaked in stench and decay. If it weren't for the mental balance increased by the pumping, the guy would have definitely puked, but otherwise it's nothing, otherwise it's normal, but otherwise it's all over much faster. The fight, although calling this rolling in the snow in the style of two yard cats, a fight would be a big exaggeration, was over in less than a minute. And so, Igor, breathing heavily, sucks in the rainbow-colored mist, trying to roll to the side, away from the corpse of the creature, the main part of the rag mass. Somehow, he still manages to reconfigure both the protection and the shine at once, literally pushing away the filth that stained him with the entire surface of his body, and burning out the smell and toxic aura with whiteness. And don't forget to dim the white light, because there are many windows and curious neighbors, not all of whom have yet left for different corners of the vast homeland.

It is the light that attracts his attention, the turquoise light that is very familiar to him personally, which makes Igor go nuts. From the body of the rag creature, the largest piece of it, the initiation ball for the Exalted One, slowly and unhurriedly rises upward. A little different from what he remembers, dimmer and a little smaller in size, although who knows, he didn’t have time to really examine it then, falling face down on the tiles. The young man, lying in the snow and not feeling the cold thanks to the protection, is unforgivably dull-witted, even when he hears the furious hiss of the one who was once almost devoured by this creature, having given it such a fight that it remembered for a long time. Borislav Gennadyevich seemed not to believe that the creature was dead, and Igor realized that the abomination had put a mark not only on the man with the flashlight and the young buffer. It had probably marked the cat, too. And all this time, Borislav Gennadievich desperately played hide and seek and fought for his life!

The emaciated, long-unfed, trembling cat hisses at the dead creature lying as a pile of rags, seemingly triumphing over it, but it doesn’t immediately dawn on Igor, who is not afraid of the cold of the Other Side due to the Spiral of Vessels warming him. What didn’t he immediately understand? This sphere somehow promises everyone protection from the cold and chill of the Inside Out, from the dead cold of its insides. And the cat, the cat really wanted to warm up. Igor still manages to say, even hiss, an angry “Sto ...”, but by the time he says “... p!” the insidious Borislav Gennadyevich has already touched the sphere. It was even curious to watch the initiation from the side, especially the moment when three Vessels formed in the cat’s chest, starting to spin in a full-fledged spiral. He watches the indignant and frightened meowing cat with a look in which sincere tears are visible, and this is not from the stench already removed by the protection.

The opportunity to bestow Elevation on someone he knows, a friend, or even a quasi-friend. A chance to form a group that will cover him. A way to bribe some powerful bastard, buying his freedom or at least a suspended sentence if they do push him and fail to take the trophy by force. And it's just money, because such an awesome chance to gain magic is worth almost any price! And all this was stolen from him by a yard cat. Truly, it was Borislav Gennadyevich who was the real alpha male in this yard, and he, Igor, was just a pathetic extra, shading His magnificence with his insignificance! Sighing tiredly and resignedly, Igor rolled over onto his back, comfortably settling down in a snowdrift between two cars buried up to the roof, looking at the black night sky, where not a single star was visible.

The main thing now is not to doze off like this, otherwise he will fall asleep, and then the protections will fall off one after another... or, what is much more likely, morning will come and he will be found next to the snow-covered body of a creature, which is in no hurry to disappear, diving into the depths of the Other Side. Either the rules of the game are gradually changing, or the concentration of the Other Side abomination in the city is simply increasing, which is why the corpses of the creatures are in no hurry to disappear. He almost forces himself to get up once, twice, three times, ironically realizing that he has become a victim of another "just five more minutes", the only difference being that now he is sleeping not in a comfortable bed, but in a comfortable snowdrift. By the way, if you remove the cold factor, which is reduced to zero by the presence of the protection, then the snowdrift is really comfortable. As if you are lying on a soft cloud, and snowflakes are falling on you from above. He did not try to catch them with his mouth, because he felt in that snow a small, even tiny, but still perceptible share of the Other Side when he tasted it.

About an hour later, when his wristwatch showed three twenty-eight in the morning, he finally decided to get up, but was interrupted by a running engine. In the complete darkness, the hazard lights of a car pulling into the yard, barely audible with a roaring high-quality engine, seem like some spotlights. With some surprise, Igor recognizes this car as a foreign car belonging to his neighbor. What is Elizaveta Albertovna doing in the middle of the night? He even wondered if she was his "colleague", which seemed absurd. She was too, well, normal and unsuspicious, which is why he couldn't imagine her doing something strange and unusual. He could almost convince himself that she was just late at work or drinking with her girlfriends at a corporate party, almost.

And then the door opened, the interior light switched on, and he saw her wobbly figure on her feet, clasping her hand to her side. He saw the woman take a few unsteady steps without closing the car door and fall face-first into the snow just three metres away from him. Close enough for him to see the trio of emptied and almost non-rotating Vessels in her body, barely able to cope with the enormous amount of Other Side that had soaked her. No shit! They didn't do shit enough for him to have to retake the test for the rest of his life! The polyhedron in his pocket fills with ice, hiding him from the severely wounded woman's inner eye. Igor thinks for less than a second, simply because he can't leave one of his mother's few friends, who has always been good to him, to die. And he wouldn't leave anyone else to die in a similar situation, unless you count the creatures of the Other Side and some well-known politicians.

The woman tries to crawl, helping herself with one hand, but barely moves, only scooping more snow into her clothes. Igor, however, acts wisely. He does not suddenly cast a blessing on her and does not jump out like a jack-in-the-box. Because yes, her Vessels are empty, but this does not mean that she is defenseless, and it is even better not to frighten the Exalted One, who is already on the edge, otherwise she may do something. After all, there is infinitely much he does not know about this world and its chthonic Other Side.

"Good evening, Elizaveta Albertovna." He says politely, immediately adding, a little frightened. "Just don't shoot, you'll wake up half the block."

"I... Igor?" The confusion in her tone is such that he can barely contain his giggles, turning on the minimum power of a small flashlight, giving away his position with the light and illuminating his own face. "What are you... doing here?"

"I'm helping you now, but, well, it's easier to show you." And with these words, he muted the connection with the Shroud for a moment, switching off the disguise and letting her see his Vessels, full of strength and power, all five plus two. "I was on my way back from, ahem, pumping, and some bastard came at me. I killed it, but I wanted to lie in the snow; there's no one around. And, hey, let me help you with the Other Side poisoning, okay? Don't be scared, I've got a skill for that."

"O... kay, do it." She just nods, clearly holding on to consciousness with her last strength, and then sighs in surprise and relief as the shine imposed on her begins to burn out the background of the Other Side from her body and even her Vessels, returning them speed of rotation in an endless spiral. "Oh, god. So... so warm..."

Igor doesn't listen to her, who is losing consciousness, only quickly digs out of the snowdrift, steps over the victim, successfully helping her to sit up and then to stand on her feet. But instead of the entranceway, she only points her finger at her car door, asking him to slam it shut. Igor noticed with a slight grin in his eyes that the iron neighbour, even in a semi-dream, severely injured, parked exceptionally correctly, as far as the layer of snow that had piled up on her parking space allowed. And yes, she was wounded, he could see the bloodstains on her clothes, and the way she pressed her hands to her side spoke a lot. With a mat, albeit a mental one, he spat on politeness and simply lifted her into his arms. Yes, the difference in height and, consequently, in weight, hadn't gone anywhere, but he had a thousand units on the Steps scale!

He carried her in his arms all the way to the entrance, hearing only her heavy breathing and the delirious notes with which she asked him not to leave her, not to switch off the fire, not to switch off the fire because she was cold. The warm, comparatively, air of the entrance, however, gave her back enough strength and reason to ask to be dragged not to Igor's, but to her own place. For there was a very high-quality first-aid kit there, to which the young man had nothing to object. He did not have such a useful thing in the household, and pumping, alas. Which, by the way, was a reproach to him, even if his Tablets were a good substitute for any first aid kit. There, he saw an example of what happens if there is no strength in the Vessels, and the background of the Other Side weakens the restoration of the Vessels and the whole body at once. The woman had the keys right in her pocket, the lift was working for the first time in a week, and the lock opened on the second try.

After getting rid of the Other Side infection, Elizaveta quickly recovered enough to give commands, and Igor didn't argue with a person who had a first aid kit the size of a backpack and knew how to use it properly. After ten very tense minutes, the remains of her jacket were lying on the floor, torn by some claws, and Elizaveta, dressed in a winter jogging suit, pulled up her sweater, exposing a very unpleasant, albeit shallow, wound on her side. The two of them were trying to disinfect the wound, clean it of dirt, and bandage it carefully while the woman was lamenting her life and how it had turned out in a masterly and unmathful manner.

"I guess I'll have to ask you for help again. With this wound, I won't recover on my own, and the ambulance is unlikely to come right now." As someone who knew the woman well, Igor could tell that her calmness was contrived, and her tightly compressed lips concealed an abyss of emotions, mostly negative. "I have a few acquaintances. I think I can convince them to stitch and clean the wound without attracting the attention of the authorities. I'm just gonna get some rest, just a couple of hours. Try to make noise and talk, young man, keep me awake. The wound didn't hit my liver, or I wouldn't be standing here, and my intestines are intact, but my peritoneum was punctured, apparently."

"Uh... I have the Tablet." When he saw the look on her face, he instantly realized exactly what she wanted to say, and in what tone of voice. "No, not a healing one, or I would have used it by now. I'm not completely retarded, Elizaveta Albertovna! It's not a spirit tablet, but a bone tablet, if you know what I mean. It's a reinforcing ritual, which I can make secondary to increased regeneration and survivability. When I got a crack or two in my ribs and a bruise all over my back, I was as good as new in three days. But I didn't get punched in the stomach. And I've never used the ritual on anyone but myself."

She knew the specifics of the Bone Tablets, and, though she didn't say so directly, he assumed from her thoughtful silence that Elizabeth had at least one as well. So after literally a moment of thought, she made the decision to take her chances. She really didn't want to go to the doctors, from the looks of it. Or there just wasn't time to wait. Even without the Other Side background poisoning, the Exalted lawyer remained pale to the point of turning blue. The blood loss there is not insignificant; all her clothes are soaked, so a couple of hours of delay is deadly for her. And Igor himself can't drive and won't take her to the hospital, especially in this weather.

"Fruits, fresh, berries and herbs, tea, if available, but herbal." He does not make it up as he goes along. He created a whole file of different secondary effects, choosing now the one that maximizes blood regeneration and restoration. "Red wood, sandalwood, cloves, grapes, raisins. I'll get the paint for the circle from my place, some of the ritual reagents too. I can paint it here, you've got plenty of space. Just, uh."

"Don't hesitate. I'll repay you handsomely for your help. The code for the safe behind the painting is six-eight-four-two. It's cash, take as much as you want, even all of it, and as a deposit. I won't overestimate the terms of our deal, and I value my health." She had obviously misunderstood his confusion, but from the look on his face, he had a very eloquent and indignant look on his face. "Was there something wrong?"

Igor suppressed his emotions with great difficulty, accepting the fact that he was considered a greedy little shit who could save the life of a good acquaintance only for money. Holding back the urge to facepalm, he tries to carefully formulate his opinion. Well, so as not to offend, but also not to waste a lot of time of a very wounded woman.

"I feel bad that you think that about me. I'd have agreed to help you without money, damn." The look on her face gave her the conscience to be surprised, if not embarrassed, by his answer. "It's just the ritual itself. A-a-ah! In short, on myself I spend it undressed, part of the signs I draw on the skin directly, so the efficiency is the highest - forearms, calves, neck, and back would be good, but I will not paint myself like that. Well, I guess you could wear a shirt or something. But make sure it's clean and white, maybe blue, but not dark colors..."

He did blush, but at least his appearance and embarrassment amused her, and she even seemed a little less pale. Having loosened her dry and cracked lips, Elizaveta Albertovna barely audibly exhales her answer, which boils down to the fact that she will somehow endure the need to appear before the doctor in only a negligee, or even in the costume of Eve. But let the doctor still save her life, and not stare at her naked body. Embarrassed and blushing even more, the young man, who remembered the interlocutor from childhood and, what is more shameful, adolescence, sincerely promised to do everything that depends on him. There weren't many people in this world who carried a reminder of Igor's long-forgotten childhood. And he didn't want to reduce the already tiny number any further.

The feverish activity came surprisingly easily. The young man was often confused in difficult circumstances, a flaw that had lost its power in recent weeks, but now he was not alone. Elizabeth managed to keep calm and a sober mind, even barely moving from the loss of blood, at the same time giving very competent hints or instructions. Igor did the technical part of the work, cleaning the space in the middle of the living room, mixing paint for the ritual, and preparing reagents and brushes. He ran back to his apartment in a matter of minutes, his personal ritual kits already assembled and grouped. The patient, meanwhile, had managed to force herself to her feet and change into a fresh shirt, wrapped below the waist in a bath towel. Ideally, the ritual would be performed as it was at home, in a dark and solidly tiled bathroom. Fortunately, at the Tablet's current cognizance, this is already a minor detail, and a good round and reagents will compensate for the minor sag in efficiency.

At first, Igor tried not to look at her nakedness, and then he didn’t try anymore, but completely devoted himself to his task, drawing a pattern right on the floor, watching the paint eat into the expensive parquet floor. Every now and then he was distracted by stirring the second paint, the one for the body, saturating apple slices, mango and avocado with the power of his Vessels, Elizaveta Albertovna’s refrigerator was packed to the brim and by no means cheap products, counting the number of ritual particles for the new recipient on the go. Fear and awkwardness passed, uncertainty passed, a clear understanding came - he would either cope, or he would have to put Elizaveta’s body somewhere. The woman also understood this because she was getting worse, her lips were turning blue, and her skin was turning pale, her breathing was becoming intermittent, and she was having a hard time staying conscious, trying to speak and not be silent, so as not to pass out.

So, from her words, he learned that she had run into creatures that were personally inconvenient for her, which could not be weakened by a preliminary debuff, giving free rein to her partners. He also learned that these partners were most likely no longer alive. They split up at the final stage of the retreat, apparently deciding to play statistics. Like, the enemy would not be able to chase after all of them at once purely physically. Igor does not listen, particularly only nods, but not because he is not interested, but because he is extremely focused on the task. The ritual figure is complete, on its corners, by the way, located very unevenly, bowls with fruits, spices, and a couple of leaves of a house ficus are laid out, and the brush is already drawing figures on the patient's calves. Elizabeth only hisses silently, because the paint she has and her dried blood, taken straight from the ruined clothes, burn her a little, despite the room temperature and the absence of chemically active substances.

He finished only after drawing something similar to squares stacked between the healed woman's shoulder blades, and she sat down inside the circle, barely able to stay in a sitting position. And in general, in consciousness, too. With dull anxiety, Igor evaluates his creation once again, somehow estimates his chances, and decides to try, because there is no other option. The wounded woman will not last until the morning, this is already obvious, as it is obvious that in such a state, she will not be able to get familiar doctors to come to the house with the help of diplomacy and blackmail.

"I'm starting," he says briefly, receiving a weak nod in response, which could have been taken as a simple tremor that had come over her. "Hold your breath."

The first charge of power flows into the ritual, the lines of the figure shine a bright turquoise color, even brighter. Still, Igor tried his best, tried very hard, and was ready to try even better. A moment, another moment, the spices and some of the other offerings flare up and burn with a smokeless flame, filling the air with smells that are both pleasant and too dense. A moment later, the signs on Elizaveta Albertovna's body begin to shine, especially the one on her back, shining through even the fabric of her pajama shirt. The woman raises the last of Igor's souvenir cups to her lips, drinking a drop shining the color of honey. And then, as if overcoming the resistance of the Other Side remaining in the body and the still empty Vessels, the fragile structure of the additional Vessel is finally formed, put together from pieces of a mosaic.

"Wait." Igor exhales briefly, assessing the situation and deciding to, so to speak, repeat his number for an encore. "Wait another minute."

In the second cycle, the glow of the lines changes from turquoise to emerald, the remains of the ritual parts also burn, but now without any fire at all, they seem to crumble into weightless dust, which a second later loses its material state. Thin streams of ghostly dust flow into a glass of good wine filled with wine and honey, and then the woman, at Igor's nod, drinks the amber-colored liquid in one gulp. A second is replaced by a second, then a third, but the color of the lines now changes on the body of the slightly shuddering Elizaveta Albertovna and now, on the fifth second, another fragile Vessel is formed, the second in a row. Only now does he allow himself to exhale tiredly, shift in space, and fall on his back to the floor, feeling completely broken. To spend so many Vessels in a row, it is still not easy. A nasty and quickly passing weakness splashes in the body, and he really wants to sleep, or eat, or something else. Still, he had a very eventful night. Saving two classmates, fighting a bunch of living rags, and then saving the life of his neighbor.

"Activate them, one by one." He hisses in a voice hoarse from overexertion, hoping that the patient is still alive and conscious. "The healing effect will come immediately after the activation and disintegration of the Vessel."

Igor doesn't have time to be scared that she has passed out, because the first Vessel cracked and spilled, and its walls crumbled into golden dust that covered the entire body from the inside. The deep and indescribable relief breathed out by Elizaveta could be considered thunderous in the almost complete silence. Igor somehow immediately calmed down and understood - it worked, it simply could not help but work. With great difficulty, he opened his tired eyes, not intending to fall asleep right on the floor, and in someone else's apartment. Elizaveta Albertovna even stood on shaky legs, clearly feeling noticeably better after activating the Vessel.

"Oh, it really has become better, young man." Her voice sounds as if it's coming from far away, such is the weakness and apathetic melancholy that has washed over him, mixed with satisfaction from a job well done. "This ritual is simply something, and the benefit from the additional charge of strength... It's hard to overestimate. Does this ritual have any side effects, of those you haven't told me about?"

Igor was even a little indignant, despite his fatigue, slurring his words and speaking in an offended tone that he had not hidden any effects from her, certainly not intentionally. He wanted to get up on his feet to answer these words, looking at her face and not at the ceiling, but judging by the sound of the robe being thrown over the body, it was even better that he decided to look at the ceiling. With considerable difficulty, overcoming the resistance of his tired consciousness, he took a sitting position, looking at the woman who sat down in the chair next to him, eating slices of avocado not used in the ritual. Well, yes, it was obvious that accelerated recovery, wound healing, and blood replenishment would whet the appetite. He also needed to make some sandwiches, since ordering pizza would not work in the current conditions.

"Okay, Igor, I see you're very tired. You can't even stand on your feet properly." Again, the flow of his thoughts, seemingly spoken out loud, was interrupted by a remark from an involuntary listener. -"I would help you walk to your apartment, but I walk with great difficulty. I won't invite you to the bedroom, especially since it's not tidied up, but the sofa in the living room is at your disposal. Get some sleep, rest, come to your senses, and in the morning we'll talk normally about how I can thank you for your help."

Igor managed to grumble that he was not helping her out of gratitude, with disobedient lips, he let out a few phrases, but he accepted the offer anyway. Unexpectedly easily, as if no fatigue was pressing down like a multi-ton slab, Igor stood up on legs that did not bend at all. In a few steps, he reached such a soft and wide sofa, falling on it with his whole body and feeling how Elizaveta Albertovna, who had finally found the strength to get up from the chair, carefully covered him with a blanket. This thought seemed surprisingly warm, enveloping him in cozy darkness, and with it, he fell asleep in the sleep of the righteous.

Falls asleep.

Falls asleep.

Falls asleep.

He is asleep, but dreaming a rather strange dream, as if he were not dreaming at all. It was as if he were not sleeping, but lying on a criminally soft and blasphemously comfortable sofa, feeling every centimeter of its surface with his back. His eyes are wide open and looking upward, without seeing or perceiving where they are looking. A strange calmness is combined with a complete lack of sleepiness and confusion in his mind. There is not even fatigue or lethargy. It is as if he is awake, yet as if he is asleep. He sleeps and listens, and then he speaks, in a normal tone, as if he were answering an exam rather than speaking in his sleep - clearly, point by point, with a balance and without pausing to think or formulate. A voice, a woman's voice, a familiar, perfectly recognizable voice, asks him questions, which he answers and cannot help answering, simply because he cannot think about anything but the question itself and the answer to it, because he is asleep and in his sleep he does not think about the causes or consequences of his actions.

Yes, the class, i.e. Lot, is exclusively support-oriented, and all three of its Tablets, which occupy all free Patches, are designed to support the group. Yes, it strengthens itself too, but it only fully reveals itself in conjunction with those who cover it. Development? Over sixty in the bone ritual, and both spirit abilities are already one step away from a hundred. Why such speed? It's because of his gifts, one of which is responsible for accelerating development and making it easier to understand or improve the Tablets. Yes, of course, he would retell the status description right away. Total Gifts? Two, but both are very useful and have helped him a lot, he wouldn't trade them for anything else. How exactly did he develop? It's a long story, he's had quite a few adventures over the weeks, starting with that candy store story....

What? Oh, yes, of course he didn't ask. He didn't give his name, didn't want to pry into other people's private affairs. Well, secret identity under a mask and all that. Maybe it's a regret, because the damn armored hobo is nowhere to be seen, and even to check his condition will not be possible. Eugene's a contact he has. He can at least give it to her now, yes. Here, he unlocked the screen and the messages. Their abilities? Well, he doesn't know the entire status list for sure, but some things are hard not to notice or assume, so what he's noticed he'll list. His defenses against mind-affecting influences? Yes and no. They help, but not so much, more against harsh influences that can cause direct harm. That's for the protection, but the shine passively burns the madness of the Other Side, but does it protect against something subtler? Most likely yes, purely logically, but he hadn't tested it in practice yet.

What? No, of course, he had removed all active skills before the ritual. They would only interfere with the ritual, he left only the shine on the patient to overcome the effects of poisoning by the Other Side, which was very complex. Keeping these effects on himself would be too much of a burden on the ritual, so it would be easier to remove them all and reapply them when he woke up. What's her personal relationship to the patient? It's a long story, but first of all, of course, positively. He grew up with her; she was a friend of his mother and then helped him more than once. On a personal level? Do you like her? Yes... Though a little ashamed, he liked her very much - beautiful, well-groomed, bossy, hard not to admire her. Ashamed to admit it, but yes, it was true, he looked furtively, glanced at her breasts - such forms were just very hard to miss, but he always tried to control himself and not let his gaze go from the face of his interlocutor.

Yes, he fantasized about her, especially as a teenager, after that incident.... What? No, of course not! He hadn't peeped then, he had just walked in by chance, he didn't even know that Elizaveta Albertovna was changing clothes there. It was very embarrassing, especially because he froze then, instead of going out quietly. Well, yes, not without that, he had not had much access to adult content at that time, and it was much later that he saw 3D naked girls. What? What the hell? No, of course not! He wasn't helping her for that reason; he was just helping her because he could and wanted to. Yes, a dream, of course it was a dream, and in a dream you don't get angry, in a dream you sleep, sleep, sleep....

And they talk.

And they listen.

And they forget.

Sleep.

* * *

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Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/87876/586540

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP