Готовый перевод Быть Гладу и Хладу / There will be Hunger and Cold: 21. Ох, кошечки-мертвобожечки, я вообще кто – Вендиго или разносящий подарки Санта?

21. Oh, gods, who am I - Wendigo or Santa with gifts?

* * *

Despite her brash and very impudent character—by both earthly and local standards—Lishka was quite competent within the scope of her family’s profession. Before ending up on the streets, she had spent a very long time traveling with a traveling circus troupe, to whom her biological parents had sold her at the age of three. Then, when the traveling troupe that had become her family caught some kind of plague on the road—something resembling a rapidly spreading, virulent cholera—she became a true orphan. She was only twelve years old at the time. If that same year—even if only toward the end of it—the candy-selling old man hadn’t taken her in and found her, there would have been one more dead body on the streets. Maybe not right away; yes, she would have had time to hit rock bottom before dying, but there would have been one.

Lishka understood all this and was genuinely grateful to the “old fart,” even though for the first couple of years she kept expecting that such kindness must have an ulterior motive—that he’d either try to take advantage of her or sell her off to a brothel, like some “sweet house". But they didn’t sell her or use her differently; on the contrary, he supported and helped her in every way possible. That’s why she warmed up to him, just like all the other anchors at Ryuk’s, and came to believe that he was genuinely doing her a favor simply because he was. But that’s just a funny little story from her life, one that Ilya didn’t even particularly seek out—they just told it to him out of the goodness of their hearts.

When he spoke of professional skills, the Earthling wasn’t referring to the ability to whine masterfully or clown around comically, but rather to very specific dexterity, excellent flexibility, coordination, juggling skills, and tightrope walking. Even after leaving the circus, she continued to train, especially since Ryuk-Ryuek was very much in favor of it and, as if by chance, gave her a couple of very practical pieces of advice. Now she understood that it wasn’t by accident that he had planted the idea in her mind of staying in shape through his grumbling, but even back then, she was very grateful to him. Well, almost. For the fact that Lishka had tried to find work among good folk as a professional card-shuffler—that very dexterity of her fingers and no obvious cheating—her grandfather had flogged her mercilessly.

So even though she was a skinny, lively girl who looked three years younger than her age—a lot like her mother—and sometimes tried to slip a few coins out of someone’s pocket or walk out of a store without paying, she never actually turned to a life of crime, even though she had a certain reputation among the local street kids. In the end, both Ilya and Sturgeon, when they were working out her part of the ritual and the class-lot being awakened in Lishka, converged on the Harlequin almost simultaneously. Neither of them had the slightest doubt that this variation of the standard Jester would be her Lot.

Yes, Harlequin was one of the options, and Lishka even had the sense and memory to memorize her future build and choose exactly what Ilya and Ryuik had told her. But Ilya was the real expert; it was his specialty, and when it came to building builds—especially for the early steps—he could even outdo Sturgeon. The talent set-up the girl ended up with wasn’t exactly standard; it was tailored to the specifics of acquiring the Mechanism’s gift and Ilya’s presence. The Earthling approached his task with total dedication and didn’t cut corners, so if Lishka follows his advice, she’ll grow into a very unpleasant opponent for anyone—agile, nimble, resilient, and capable of all sorts of mischief.

Given the presence of Sturgeon nearby and Ilya’s blessing, which boosted the leveling speed, he gladly accepted the old man’s idea of gathering “bud” builds—ones that don’t bloom right away. For Ryuk, it was an opportunity to make his charges stronger and more resilient; for Ilya, it was yet another guarantee that he wouldn’t be killed right away, before the flowers had bloomed. However, this wasn’t the only guarantee he automatically received, and Sturgeon was forced to accept and approve it. The girl herself might have wanted to gather brighter, more colorful talents that promised a better immediate burst of power for her own share, but no one asked for her opinion.

But they demanded that she develop her gift in the right way, also without asking Lishka’s opinion.

Strike after strike, Ilya advances in the unhurried, straightforward manner of the classical fencing school, the only difference being that instead of a saber or even a full-fledged bastard sword, he holds a relatively thin cane in his hands. He can still break a bone or two with it, and all the anchors he trains have learned this the hard way. Interestingly, they took the grueling training quite normally once it was explained to them that injuries would be healed by magic, but that they needed to learn to survive and kill right now. After all, martyr tricks also need to be trained, practiced, and mastered, so neither Ilya nor Sturgeon skimped on inflicting various types of injuries.

Ilya didn’t make the mistake typical of an army sergeant—the kind that makes recruits hate themselves, whether on Broken or on Earth. Before he started the beatings, he explained in detail and quite clearly the need for a tough approach to save time, and he specifically noted that he wasn’t holding anyone back. Reverse psychology at its finest—having absorbed respect for the mysteries of the Mechanism with their mothers’ milk, all eleven anchors were ready to endure far worse, just so long as Ilya didn’t show them the door. He then had to supplement his words with explanations that there was no need to play it cool if you’d been injured and were actually coughing up blood because a rib had punctured your lung.

In that regard, Lishka was by far the easiest to deal with. She never minced words, never held back her opinions, and that made it a lot easier to instill in her the difficult lessons of life as a gifted person. Well, right now she’s silent, just trying with all her might to conserve her fading breath, and she certainly doesn’t want to get poked painfully with that very cane. Instead, she wants to be the one inflicting pain, which is why she’s dancing like a spinning top, like a kite in a nine-point storm, like a paper boat along the edge of a whirlpool. Her combat style—a skill, and a double one at that—the foundation of her build, was now operating at full power. Ilya didn’t build her talents around a single active ability with five steps—for a Jester, especially a Harlequin, this path isn’t a dead end, but it’s methodologically incorrect.

Harlequin benefits far more from several distinct, weaker but highly versatile tricks than from a single super-ability. After all, she’s not an Occultist or a Warlock—she’s not that type, she doesn’t have that mindset or personality profile. If she were a Gaer or a Jester, then there would be different options. The same “Unfunny Finale” or “Ridiculous Solo”. Those Earthlings who will have a support group to help them grow a little and become not entirely helpless often take these talents.

Lishka isn’t helpless. She’s already quite deadly right from the start, just like Ilya once was, but she truly comes into her own only toward the end of the step. Her two key skills—both with four levels: “Acrobatics of Life” and “Acrobatics of Death”- are a tough combination. It’s not hard to take it, but keeping yourself in sync without at least three specific compensators is a whole different story. Especially if she only has one of the recommended three compensators. But the outcome is already clear: even now, Lishka may not be forcing him to give it his all, but she’s keeping up with him.

She manages to dodge his blows. Twisting and turning like a snake, she manages to counterattack time and again, threatening Ilya with dangerous strikes of her short whip and dagger thrusts. She switches weapons regularly. She easily pulls new ones from her “Magician's Pocket”, three-step ralent, and hurls them at Ilya's face. They don’t exchange a single word, but there’s no need to speak now. They’re busy fighting. The Earthling is noticeably faster, significantly stronger, and incomparably more resilient, so he manages not only to keep Lishka on her toes but also to observe how she moves and behaves in combat.

He manages to correct—harshly, bordering on cruelty—the very mistakes a girl is strictly forbidden to make. The advance, the transition from a feint to a close-range exchange of blows, a bare-handed block of the whip that nearly split her skin open, then a sudden retreat. Knocking the dagger from her fingers, shifting from the economical movements of classical fencing to animalistic ferocity, moving behind her back, knocking out both her supporting legs, grabbing her arm just as Lishka almost manages to push off in a pirouette away from Ilya himself, and then a sharp, cracking snap. And following it, an equally ringing girlish voice.

"Oh, damn, you frozen asshole, why does it hurt so much! “ She was lucky that the skin on her buttock didn’t burst all the way to the bone. "What did I do wrong again, huh?!"

Ilya shook his head, setting aside the cane—which had cracked at the base after all—and thoughtfully observing the flushed and slightly nervous young lady. He had tutored students before, including in combat training, but he had only taught the latter during his university days. Back when his health still allowed it. Ilya knows the basics, knows the theory, and the traits of Twins allow him to present that theory as effectively as possible.

But teaching is not just about imparting knowledge. It also involves the ability to engage in dialogue with students. Push too hard, and they might crack, lose their enthusiasm, and sink into self-loathing—or even come to hate the teacher. Ease up too much, and the students will stop respecting the mentor’s authority. After all, these aren’t his classmates from the London AU; they’re all natives of Broken, and the moral code here is often brutal. Showing weakness, if not dangerous, is certainly harmful—and pedagogically wrong. So the Earthling chooses his words carefully, though without the slightest pity for others’ self-importance.

"It’s exactly the same as it’s been before." She clearly flinched again for a moment when the Wendigo’s icy hunger began to seep through the guise of “Lurking Evil,” which is why she’s acting indignant—to hide her shame at her involuntary fear behind her indignation. “You’re getting too deep into your Lot again, Lishka. I might consider this forgivable in someone else, but I know for sure—you can do better. You were a circus performer yourself; you know and remember what an acrobatic trance is, even if you couldn’t fully master it due to a lack of talent. You already know how to rely on others’ skills that have become your own, on others’ techniques that you’ve adopted… but you still don’t know how to separate your true self from the Mechanism’s gift. Not to drown in memorized patterns, but to gently guide them, to become a conductor rather than a function."

It took a while for this brat to get used to the fact that Svyatik could actually speak not only coherently, but also in a high-brow, complex way—almost like an old man. Then again, she was quite intelligent to begin with; she was just a master at playing dumb. Once she acquired her new abilities, however, understanding what he said became quite easy. Simple, yes, but Ilya still spelled it out for her just in case

"To put it simply, as for the peasant, your Lot, the essence of the Harlequin, a being equally bound to Madness and Blood. And your Acrobatics synergizes strongly with the Lot’s core talents, “Harlequin’s Agility” and “Painted Smile.” Two four-step triks, two three-step core skills, the pocket inventory essential for this build, “Mad Leap” at three steps for mobility, “Mean Taunt” for control, and just three slots for balance talents, even if one of them is at a full five points and not useless on its own in this build. "At home, we call this talent setup the “pill” build. At max level, your balancing talents won’t let you slip into madness; they’ll hold you back reliably and effectively. But. They’ll hold you back later, whereas right now your little head isn’t filled with maniacal laughter just because you’ve gone through the ritual. But you already know that. And you know the answer to your own question too; you just haven’t voiced it yet, haven’t understood it. Come on, think it through."

He deliberately lets her answer for herself, since she’s had this conversation with him many times before. She understands what he means, but doesn’t realize what her mistake has to do with it. Ilya doesn’t spell it out for her, but he guides her toward a thought that is both necessary and truly important to her—a thought she needs to grasp on her own. An idea that will fit perfectly with the skills the class has already mastered, and with a bit of luck might even offer a drop of Essence, because at its core it is a Mystery, albeit a small one.

“Because I am Harlequin.” The fact that Ilya had known from the very beginning that they’d all been taught this back in school, not even in classes, but simply as part of the curriculum, came as a real revelation to her. Ilya felt the pendant hidden beneath his clothes—a small crystal bell on an iron chain—begin to grow hot. “No one else’s jumps, no one else’s jabs and leaps. I’m dancing. I’m pocking. I’m leaping. And I don’t need to control someone else’s. My own! Fuck! But I... Oh! I... got a drop! A second one... And a third!”

“Finally!” No longer hiding his emotions, the Earthling raised his hands toward the sky, hidden beneath the stone vault of the underground complex, feeling another weight lift from his shoulders. Deep down, he had still feared that he would have to help Lishka more directly. Then the effect wouldn’t be as strong; she definitely wouldn’t be able to get any drops, maybe one at most. “That’s right. Find your balance on your own while you still can, while the ritual is protecting you. And then your balancing talents will become not shackles, but another source of support. Well, that is, if you don’t have absolutely terrible luck with the aspects.”

Pill builds—that’s both their strength and their weakness. Set-up of talents that can be stabilized in the later tiers of balancing talents, but which initially require incredible self-control, superhuman willpower, or—more often than not—a good Priest, Martyr, or Sage to help you stay sane in the early years. To find balance by the end of the first step, take the best aspects from both damage talents and balancing talents. And then, once you’re off the pills, a build like this really starts to dominate!

Obviously, without the support of strong, developed communities, a build like this simply isn’t viable, but if cover and “pills” are available, it works out well. The ill-fated buffooness not only has a unique “pill” in the form of the ritual that binds them all together, but also the speed at which she collects drops. A speed that gives her every chance of reaching the “threshold” very, very quickly. And mental fortitude, which will allow her to fully grasp her Lot, and then not waste another two or three cycles just getting used to using it without “pills,” be it “The Righteous One’s Theurgy,” “True Guidance,” or “Taking Away the Bitterness,” all while under the influence of a potent dose of alchemy, pure rituals, and aids for self-control.

"Ha! Ha-ha-ha! I could have figured it out right away! But I wasn’t supposed to. I was supposed to figure it out now, when everything—absolutely everything—had fallen into place.” She looks at him with a surprisingly serious expression, one rarely seen on her perpetually smiling face, which is currently hidden beneath a thick layer of harlequin makeup. “Thanks, Svyatik. Seriously, thanks for everything. I, well, I’m not really good at all this crying and sniffling, but I’m grateful. There. And anyway, when you were silent or grunting like a country bumpkin, you were less of a pain! But I’m ready to put up with you even like that.” In a good way, yeah. And it’s not just me—it’s all of us. Even Wolfie, even though he’s a little jerk. Even Grandpa. It’s just that he’d never admit it."

Ilya couldn’t help but smile at the remark about Sturgeon, but he didn’t try to dissuade the girl. The old man—who was quite possibly watching them out of the corner of his eye—might think that the Earthling was setting one of the Anchors against his adoptive father, against the very foundation of the ritual. But about Wolfie, he agreed with her. The boy with very mature eyes was, of course, just a petty fourteen-year-old brat—cruel, vicious, and mean—but for those he considered his own, he’d bite the throat out of anyone, even himself. Ilya wasn’t a great psychologist, but he knew the theory of working through others’ trauma and managed to become part of the boy’s family. Or pack. Or gang. He didn’t really distinguish between these concepts, though he understood them well—such a miracle had grown up on the streets of Lazy, having found his Lot of Assassin.

"Let's do it again!" She didn’t just ask, she practically demanded it, and then, without waiting for his reaction, she struck him again across the eyes with her raised whip, followed by hurling three throwing needles straight at Ilya’s face as he dodged to the left, to which he merely twisted his torso and closed the distance with a sharp, animalistic leap. "Now! Let’s! Dance! To! My! Muuuuusik."

Ilya can’t hide his satisfied smile; on the face of the Wendigo, who has completely shed his disguise, it surely doesn’t look as good-natured as he’d like it to. Lishka’s movements finally seem to reflect everything he’s been trying so hard to instill in her over these long two and a half weeks. She doesn’t blindly follow her instincts and the reflexes instilled in her by the Mechanism’s gift; instead, she channels that gift, devises tactics, and adapts them on the fly. She doesn’t overthink every move, but she also doesn’t fight mindlessly or recklessly. She’s not perfect, of course—far from it; she has so many weaknesses that she’s practically one big weakness—but this is something that can and must be worked on.

Talent, what else can you say.

Talent in the sense of Earth’s terminology, not the local one. Even trained Earthlings don’t always manage to break ingrained reflexes in such a short time, and then reintegrate them and use them wisely. That’s why many prefer not to learn these techniques at all, especially ones that are so powerful and have so many steps. “Acrobatics of Life” for defense, evasion, active dodging, or even feints and decoys. “Acrobatics of Death” for offensive aspects, honed for critical strikes, bloodletting, and the imposition of cursed mental effects. Ilya himself, of course, harnessed his five-tier talent right away, from the very first seconds, but that’s because he possessed a unique lottery Trait.

However, if he did not possess that Trait, he would be a Sage, not a Wendigo.

They danced for a few more minutes; by the end, Lishka was just having fun, tossing the contents of her pocket at Ilya, and then she even squealed indignantly when he snatched a freshly baked roll sprinkled with powdered sugar and started eating it on the spot. The roll was baked by Tora, the squad’s Alchemist. She baked it without any cooking skills; she doesn’t have an advanced class or a specialized build, she just loves to cook and knows how. Anyway, it’s a delicious roll, and Ilya brazenly stole it from Lishka.

After letting out a battle cry—into which she had also imbued the mental effect “Mean Taunt,” which under normal circumstances causes beasts, ordinary people, and, to a lesser extent, intelligent gifted individuals to attack the Jester or chase after him, ignoring all other stimuli—Lishka continued her attempts to peck at Ilya. He didn’t interfere—his Hide protection was constantly active, and in two layers at that. Here, it was more a matter of being careful not to accidentally activate the talent and bite off the limbs of the hapless apprentice who had struck him.

After finishing the bun and giving a couple more valuable words of advice, Ilya sent a satisfied Lishka off to level up her second talent. With these three drops, she had collected twenty-one drops since establishing a connection with the Mechanism. Second place in the group, by the way. Only one of the Anchors had collected more—and she was a woman, too. Ilya couldn’t help but notice time and again that Sturgeon didn’t just take anyone into his care. Or rather, he helped many, but it was precisely these individuals—simple yet extraordinary, strong, intelligent, and full of untapped potential—who became anchors, the very kind Ryuek so desperately needed.

Torya. Wolfie, who picks up the art of killing literally on the fly. Romchik, who, with minimal help from old Sturgeon, has entered Lazy’s high society. Lishka. Any one of the other eleven chosen Anchors. Ryuek sifted through the dregs of society with a fine sieve, finding there a pearl that no one wanted—lost and desperately craving even a drop of someone’s warmth. They all learn quickly, rapidly mastering new powers, and with each of their successes, Ilya begins to believe more and more strongly that Sturgeon’s venture to return to the circles of power might succeed.

The One-Eyed Grandpa has now been out of reach for eight days. He has locked himself away in a separate ritual complex and has not left it. Ilya strongly suspects that the Sage’s remark about “settling some old debts” will result in the deaths of those who owe him. The fact that Sturgeon is, with a high degree of probability, a “Namer”—a specific build of the Sage capable of naturally killing, maiming, subjugating, or otherwise influencing those whose names he knows—is simply too obvious to dispute. Ilya has seen the structure of the ritual of healing and connection.

Of course, the name alone isn’t enough. You need to fine-tune your approach, understand your opponent’s build, their defense strategy, their available relics, aura stats, and everything else that’s important and necessary. But at their core, both the “Scroll of Slayings” and the “Book of the Doomed” (with 7 steps) require a whole bunch of supporting talents to unleash the full power of these abilities—and they are really tough.

Ryuek didn’t talk much about his plans, but from his seemingly deliberate remarks, it became clear that he was one of the best at eliminating and controlling the wayward aristocracy. Who would dare to rebel and get cocky when the king has such a loyal subject? True, when that subject tried to become a Four instead of a Three, the King decided he didn’t need such a miracle, lest his name be recorded. In short, it all boiled down to what happened. The lonely, abandoned, and crippled Sage, having found healing and anchors for himself, now sits in the ritual hall and performs that very fine-tuning.

To write down a particular name, or maybe even several of them.

Ilya actually flinched when the bell pendant around his neck grew red-hot again, this time actually burning his neck with the iron chain that had absorbed the heat of the dying amulet. Wow! He didn’t just guess right—he actually figured it out, getting a drop, his second one today! Or rather, not having received it yet, because the drop, like the sixteen before it, had settled in that very bell. A rather interesting one-off trinket. The kind of artifact that could be created by the Sages, though this one clearly wasn’t made by Sturgeon. Different build.

This pendant cannot be removed without incurring a most unpleasant curse, one that will consume nine drops of Уssence from any Vessel—be it Rebirth, Ascension, or Eternity. However, as long as you wear it, the little thing absorbs the drops you acquire—twenty-one of them—so that on the twenty-first, it transfers everything earned into the wearer’s Vessel. And then adds six more for free.

It’s the kind of reward that’s practically a harsh punishment—a bit of a downer, to put it mildly. It can take a very, very long time to collect these drops—years and years of lugging around iron and crystal that will burn the flesh like a red-hot wire. But for Ilya, it’s just a few weeks of minor inconveniences and a few free drops. As a bonus, any of his instructions and explanations increase the chances for his students—and anyone simply listening to his wisdom—to gain an extra drop.

As one might easily predict, the effect produced good synergy with “Outstanding Secret Knowledge”, Veil and Mystery, and Aurora and Radiance attributes. As a bonus, the wearer experiences progressive madness if the training mode is activated, as if the students, along with their teacher’s wisdom, were drinking away his sanity and clarity of mind. Ilya, as you might guess, doesn't care about the effect of mental fragmentation, that it’s not even funny. Eighteen drops already; just three more to go, and I’ll be able to break this junk while simultaneously infusing it into some of his own talents.

"Well, looks like that’s it for active work today. Time for a quick nap and moving on to passive work." As if he could really relax and catch his breath in his sleep, with a full-fledged Dreamwalker among his young sturgeons; after all, even sleepyheads need their Essence. "Oh, my goodness, am I even a Wendigo or Santa delivering presents? Never mind, you don’t have to answer; I already know the answer."

Fortunately, the gods remained silent, staying Dead. Sturgeon also did not respond; most likely, he wasn’t even watching the Earthling at that very moment, at most using some form of recording and logging to review later what his charges had been up to in his absence. And the Earthling, yawning deliberately to induce drowsiness, was already falling onto the cot, closing his eyes and forcing himself into a deep, sleep-like meditation, and from there into a full-fledged dream.

* * *

The third and final girl on the anchor crew was none other than Dreamwalker. Sleepy. Literally, her name was Sleepy. A short, snub-nosed, curvaceous, giggly girl with light brown curls and curious blue eyes, she suffered from a rather peculiar form of narcolepsy. It’s not hard to imagine that life was very difficult for her. She was kicked out of her home for “laziness” and “carelessness,” and her marriage fell apart because her husband and his family couldn’t stand a girl who slept twelve hours a day. All that was left was the “sweet house", which is a brothel.

The girl had a rare congenital curse, which manifested in the fact that one of her crippled talents had been automatically assigned to “Sleepy Recovery” during the Rite of the Dead Sacrament (a form of initiation and rite of passage into adulthood, involving the distribution of sub-talents). The sole allocation of this skill made it easier to endure illness, hunger, and other forms of exhaustion simply by getting a good night’s sleep. But she had to sleep a lot and often, yes. Sturgeon suspected that her father was to blame. He wandered around the Ridge a lot and picked up some unregistered junk that resulted in the ruined fate of his first daughter. The other children were normal.

Sweet little Sleepy is now twenty-one years old, which by local standards isn’t just past her prime—she’s downright unsellable, especially considering that she’s no longer a virgin and was forced to abort a child at the age of fifteen. It was at that same age that Sturgeon took notice of her because of her surprisingly vivid imagination, good memory, and artistic flair—thanks to which she landed a job as a decorator. She painted patterns and swirls on gingerbread cookies, hard candies, and honey cakes to make them more appealing to customers. The girl wasn’t stupid. Sturgeon wouldn’t let anyone truly foolish near him. She understood that she’d been given that job out of pity, so she tried to help the harmless old man as best she could—cleaning, laundry, and all that sort of thing were also her responsibility.

For even the slightest hint that she was, so to speak, ready to warm his bed, just don’t send her out into the cold, the old man whipped her so hard that it completely drove such thoughts from her mind. From Sturgeon’s point of view, using an ungifted commoner—and his only mistress at that, essentially an unacknowledged concubine—was such a humiliation that Ilya, to whom Sleepy once recounted this story, could barely contain his laughter. It’s strange that he didn’t kill her back then, disregarding all the kickbacks and injuries.

He didn’t kill her. He even managed to make her gifted. He chose a class for her that was clearly a good fit—both personally and in light of her narcolepsy. She turned out to be an excellent and natural Dreamwalker. Ilya put together her build with particular care, tailoring it specifically to that of a subtle scout, mind-manipulator, and light assassin. First, such a tactical role was genuinely necessary in the newly formed community. Second, a build for a dreamer named Sleepy was as safe as possible for Ilya and, at the same time, leveled up most easily when paired with him. What added a particularly cynical twist to the situation was that her build was literally an exact copy of Mesmericals’s first-step build, taken straight from his personal blog.

Not exactly a “pill” build, but definitely a “bud” one, blooming at the top of the step. Jokes aside, this build is classic precisely because it’s polished to perfection and works great not just for all kinds of perverts with a porn server instead of a brain. Of course, there were certain differences. Sleepy doesn’t have either “Outstanding Secret Knowledge” or “Will to Debauchery” like Mesmericls does, but the build is perfectly fine even without them. That’s what makes it a classic. Of course, we could have done the same thing we did with Lishka—combining talents into a set that would make the most of the temporary mental stability the Anchors gained from relying on Ilya.

But here lies the very same reason why the Earthling rejected the Dreamwalker’s Lot. One must fear not only—and not so much—the blows to the brain, but rather the abduction of the body by the abomination that appeared in a dream. Simply capturing and packing up the Lunatic, while trying not to kill the stolen body, was not enough for his complete happiness. So no, compensators and balancers—straight out of the classic playbook: one talent in five steps, one four and two threes in the root foundation, an auxiliary three for battling dream-born foes, one five-balancer, two three-step balancers, and on top of that, a crafty “violin” in the form of “Weaving Net,” which will come in very handy for development and can be considered a quasi-balancer, and for dessert, a three-step defensive-combat skill for fighting outside of dreams. There you have it—the standard ten-talent build is complete; you can start leveling up.

And she started!

Ilya opens his eyes in the middle of a bustling city; every single passerby is staring at him, and then they rush at the lone Wendigo with knives and clubs, shouting that he’s a monster and has no place here. The Earthling is fully aware that he is asleep and does not feel the panic, confusion, or animalistic urge to flee from the crowd and the chase that Sleepy instills in him. In fact, all he needs to do to shatter the dream is simply want to—nothing more. But he’s still leveling up, so instead of tearing the “Webs of Slumber” apart on himself, he set about destroying the manifestations of the dream. Not fully formed phantoms, not things he’d dreamed up, but literally embodied details of the interior—part of the dream, inseparable and therefore devoid of autonomy and danger.

In any other situation, even such enemies would cause trouble, but a mind sheltered by the influence of the great good does not sleep while in another’s dream; therefore, sleep has no power over it, for it is foreign. People, guards, even knights on homunculus horses who have come rushing from somewhere simply burst from his blows like soap bubbles, while their strikes feel like a feather tickling him. In an instant, the feathery touch was joined by a stroke as stiff as bristles or horsehair from a painter’s brush—delivered by some unassuming and deliberately inconspicuous little man. Now that’s the “Dreaming Acquaintance”—and one that’s been leveled up to the second tier with the “Inversion” aspect, so that the acquaintance can become as unrecognizable and inconspicuous as possible, hiding in someone else’s dream until the very end.

The fully formed phantom burst—not like a soap bubble, but like wet paper—and dissolved into a veil of spiderweb-like threads, though not immediately; it first muttered something about taking, carrying away, and bringing it straight into its mouth. A partially sentient something—a newborn, yet already nearly born—a dream figure, not merely a phantom. A combination with the primordial “Treasury of Dreams,” from which Sleepy drew dreams and poured them into her creation. Cleverly, he didn’t give direct instructions; he only offered hints and outlined what definitely couldn’t be done through prohibitions, and from there, she figured the rest out on her own.

Having finished with the first scene, the Earthling began to wait idly in complete darkness, watching as the fragments of his shattered dream dissolved like sugar cubes: the last houses, walls, and cobblestones. She tries to conceal the moment of the attack, but she fails. She has no power over Ilya’s perception. She cannot distract him or cloud his mind. The moment when she tries to plunge him deeper into a dream, not a personal dream, but a collective one, the dream of the Ridge itself, or a significant part of it. A method used by more advanced practitioners to teleport over very significant distances. They say it’s even possible to dream oneself specifically into the desired Sectors of the Broken, but so far, that’s just theory.

It seems they’ve assembled and are testing a few pure portal “dream” builds, but they’re still a long, long way from success. They need to reach “at least” the fifth step. Relying on Echidna will be somehow easier, cheaper, and clearly faster, provided she doesn’t happen to die by accident. They say there have been assassination attempts, specifically on Earth, although there’s very little information about it, even on the Forum. There’s not much evidence to back it up, but there are theories ad nauseam—and just as many speculations about what happened to him.

Ilya is being pulled into the depths of the boundless Dream, but he is acutely aware of himself in the real world, sleeping on a cot, and can snap the hook that’s snagged him at any moment. In fact, any Gifted person can do this if the Dreamwalker is still weak or hasn’t been built properly, or if the Gifted person is highly leveled or possesses a specific amulet. Those without the essence of a Dreamwalker instinctively know and sense a way to escape from a man-made or spontaneously arising nightmare; one of the Dreamwalker’s main tasks is precisely to prevent this, to deceive those instincts. It’s just that in Ilya’s case, this trait—which is standard for all Gifted—has been elevated to an absolute. He gives Sleeoy a few minutes of subjective time to try, but then snaps out of it, almost waking up—after all, he doesn’t want to find out what would happen if something from his dreams crawled toward the flickering light of his soul.

Full-fledged.

Yes, Sleepy doesn’t have enough strength to actually tear Ilya out of the body. However, pulling off such an extraction is still easier than ensnaring his mind, clouding his perception, and breaking his will. It’s orders of magnitude easier, many orders of magnitude. And if he manages to escape from Sleepy into reality, even after losing contact with his body, then some creature, perhaps not even a first-tier one, that has come to feed on the gifted sleeper might prove too much for the diver and even his partner to handle. Anything can happen in dreams, and it’s better not to test just how powerful it is. Creatures of this type are often quite weak, but they almost always possess extremely unpleasant abilities, operating only on their own turf, where they have the greatest advantage.

Scenes change, new attacks, new phantoms, new scenarios. The Earthling patiently watches the show created for him, patiently destroys the creatures, shakes off the suggestions and layered implants, and refuses to let himself be dragged deeper or lulled to sleep right in his dreams, so as to begin a full cycle of awakenings, just like what happened to Irina with that jerk. A couple of suggestions made him raise an eyebrow, ironically, and from somewhere in the depths of sleep, beyond his reach, came a feeling of a sort of apologetic embarrassment.

No, no—the techniques for Dreamwalker described in the volume *On Passionate and Dominant Dreams, Weaving Will with Passion*, found in this refuge’s very dusty and rather meager library, are quite effective. It’s just that the book was clearly written by a spiritual kindred spirit of Mesmerikls. Well, if only that notorious earthling had at least kept the author around to serve him as a janitor. But Sleepy’s attempt at a love spell and her effort to induce a damp, subjugating dream turned out quite well. Fruitless, like all her other attempts, but not bad.

Sacred slippers of Old Odi, he just hopes it doesn’t turn out that he has unleashed yet another perverted Dreamwalker onto the world and trained him! Not all of them are like that. Even if statistically, this class does tend to attract those who enjoy such perversions! Should he take that book away from the girl? But it’s practically the only decent instructional manual on classwork they have—she even earned two drops for reading it.

He woke up with an unpleasant buzzing in his head. Still, he hadn’t been asleep, but had been fighting the Dreemwalker. It’s just that the battle had turned out a bit staged. That said, she was giving it her all, striking either to kill, or to drive him mad—to the point of chronic bedwetting and bear sickness—or to leave him with soiled pants and a love for Sleepy that completely shut down his critical thinking. It was just that her attacks bounced off Ilya like soap bubbles against a solid-steel cube the size of a skyscraper. Her blows didn’t even make much of a dent in the inner bunker; the caged beast merely bared its teeth lazily at her attempts.

Sleepy, on the other hand, gave it her all—300 percent. It was like fighting in the fiercest battle. You can’t give it your all in a normal training session: you’ll either kill your sparring partner, kill yourself, or wreck the training dummies. Combined with Ilya’s blessing, which had a profound effect on the Anchors, this meant she was taking more and more drops every two or three days. She could spend her downtime between days creating new preparations, summoning phantoms, and ensuring herself against body hijacking. He seriously frightened Sleepy with the problem of sleepwalking. He didn’t hit her; he simply listed, in a bored and dreary tone, everything that could happen to her—as well as to those dear to her—but later.

It helps.

"Eight! I got an eight, up to the sixty-first!" Having come running and nearly smashing her forehead against the stone doorframe—which was practically part of the rock—Sleepy was beaming with joy, for this was, after all, another boost to her talent, and she had already grown to love her class. “So then, um, what do I do? Collect drops? Go straight to ‘Stability of Dream’? And choose either ‘Awareness,’ ‘Transition,’ or...”

Ilya waited patiently and politely for her to let her emotions subside and, while she was at it, recite the algorithm she’d memorized for enhancing her talents and selecting possible aspects. And only then, after offering Sleepy a brief but sincere compliment on her dream-time exploits, did he send her off to collect the drops. Collect, specifically, because her vision of the Mechanism differed from Ilya’s. No altar in the snow—rather, a large and very colorfully decorated bedroom, the sort where even a queen might sleep.

The bedroom is deserted, shrouded in a veil of cobwebs and dust, where even the figures in the portraits, the carvings on the furniture, and the patterns on the walls seem to be asleep. And the droplets—a crimson-gold essence—hover right above the bed, flitting among the children’s rattles suspended above it, like planets moving in their orbits (that was Ilya’s own interpretation of what he’d been told). By enhancing her talents, Sleepy directed the flight of these droplets toward various interior details that reflected the sets of talents and aspects she had chosen. It’s not the most classic version of the image; more often than not, there is a bowl or some other vessel that reflects the very essence of “Vessel” as part of the status sheet.

But it’s not unique, either. Rather, it points to Sleepy’s extraordinary personality—the creative mind of a natural dreamer who might have made a fine Storyteller, had it not been for her inborn curse. A curse that now has practically no power over her. The happiness in her eyes—the happiness of being able to choose for herself when to sleep—was so all-encompassing that it seemed to touch even Sturgeon a little. Well, or maybe he just had a sudden bout of diarrhea, which slightly distorted his facial expression.

Ilya diligently drives away the thought that Mesmericls also has a similar image of the Mechanism, scattered and devoid of a cup.

By the way, for Lishka, this image is depicted in a thoroughly classical manner—with a bowl clutched in the hands of a porcelain statue of a terrifying, heavily made-up circus performer, that is, Harlequin himself. The setting is an abandoned, dark circus dome, empty of people, with only a beam of light streaming through an opening in the ceiling, and scarlet-and-gold sparks illuminating the surroundings as they fall into the bowl. They illuminate dozens of faceless porcelain statues of spectators sitting motionless in their seats. It must be admitted that this is a place no less gloomy than Ilya’s own.

As soon as he sent Sleepy off to improve her stabilizing talent, his neck was once again seared by a red-hot iron thread. The artifact absorbed the nineteenth drop. It’s been a lot today. Somehow, it just so happened that today was the day his hapless students began piecing together the meager scraps of a curriculum that Ilya had tried to cobble together for them from what he could remember. Minimal theory, plenty of practice, and a primary focus on teaching this crowd to use their classes at an acceptable level as quickly as possible. Acceptable by Ilya’s standards, that is—though by local standards, if a gifted commoner isn’t picking his nose with an activated weapon talent or shaving his face with a barrage of fire, that’s already not the worst level.

A quick warm-up, a chance to replenish his slightly depleted reserves, and then back to training—only this time, it’s mental training. It would be more accurate to describe this not so much as training as a review of homework, mixed with having a term paper proofread by a research advisor. Romchik was also a highly capable individual, the oldest among this bunch, having lived through as many as twenty-eight winters of a life that wasn’t exactly easy. And yet, surprisingly, he’d held up quite well; when people met him, they’d guess he was much younger. He was probably the only one among all the Anchors who truly understood who—or even what—Ryuek Sturgeon was. After all, he was a fairly close and trusted aide to a very influential individual, who inadvertently kept the venerable master Romchik informed about a whole host of different topics.

He knew literally just a few words about Sturgeon’s story. He had never delved into the subject—apparently, there had once been such a person, the head of His Holiness’s Special Service for Accounting, Control, and Prohibition. And then he disappeared. The Service was disbanded. Some employees were killed, others were taken into custody, and the rest simply went to work for new masters. But Romchik had plenty of imagination to picture just how dangerous Grandpa Ryuk—a third-step owner—might be. So he still hadn’t quite recovered and couldn’t adjust his attitude toward the old man. The steps Romchik had taken to take extra care of his grandfather—not his biological grandfather, but his only one—seemed especially ridiculous now.

Like, bring in a couple of carts of decent coal for the winter, and do it through the accounting department, as if those carts never existed. Or order the Treasury’s henchmen to break the legs of a couple of particularly shady thugs who were up to no good with the orphans—like that same Sleepy and Tori. And they nearly beat up the old man when he tried to lash out at them in response, threatening to shove candy up their asses, and shove it in so hard they’d taste it in their mouths. And somehow it immediately became clear that those thugs—who, by the way, were textbook examples of tough country guys, the kind Ilya had been pretending to be for a long time—weren’t scared off by threats from the debt collectors.

They just disappeared.

Completely.

All in all, Romchik was sweating profusely. He sweated and remembered every argument he’d had with old Ryuk, every act of disrespect, every crude jab aimed at the “grumpy old fart.” Because, yes, he was the closest and dearest person to him, and as the oldest and wealthiest of the orphans, Romchik tried to look out for the rest of them. But if he thought Ryuk was doing something stupid, he’d say so straight out. And he had, in all seriousness, suggested that the old man give up the candy business and try to get a job with him, Romchik, at the finance department—after all, he was literate and could write quickly. Ilya could imagine Sturgeon's face: you're trying so hard to hide from the whole world, and here this sly little rascal is dragging you straight into the jaws of the local bureaucracy.

“So, I've made the corrections. Take a look and explain why I made them.” Ilya finished reviewing a typical mercenary contract of the “deal-payment-silence-penalty” subtype, with four main conditions serving as its foundation. He returned it to Romchik with the revisions already incorporated. “Your talent build isn’t quite tailored for this, but you need to know the basics.”

Another safety net from Ilya. For him, master contract mages—those skilled in the magic of Oaths—were the only practical means of coercion. Yes, contracts and deals that affect the mind won’t work on Ilya, but more classic and harsh ones—like “the curse of festering bones under certain conditions”—do work on general terms. The Wendigo’s physical and energetic resistance and resilience aren’t limitless, and I didn’t want to get caught in a trap set by such an unpleasant and dangerous class.

Unpleasant not in the fight. In a fight, the Oath Bearer—along with some of the Soulreapers, Executioners, and, again, Shamans and Charmancers—can inflict damage through Oath and Duty. But keeping a Dealer by your side as an “ally” is only slightly safer than having a Dreamwalker in a brain-washing build. It was precisely this kind of specialist—whose deals rely on mental coercion—that Ilya turned Romchik into. Sturgeon didn’t argue—he’d apparently seen enough of Ilya’s mastery of trickery to realize that he wouldn’t be able to deceive the Wendigo and trick him into signing a contract. Or maybe he could, but only in a way that would leave him regretting it later.

Ilya, however, didn’t let his guard down; even when talking to Romchik, he preferred to watch his words very carefully, saying only what was necessary. At the first step, only builds specifically designed for dialogue can “latch onto every word,” but the further you go, the higher the level, and the more developed the talents, the more fun it gets. And the scarier. A high-level contract specialist is capable of turning even a simple apology into your chains and collar. If you say to someone like that, “Sorry, but let me through,” that alone becomes an admission of debt, because you’re asking for something.

Ilya remembered the story of a rather handsome Herald. This is a subclass of the Priest, focused on support and social interaction in the spirit of the Broken. During a conflict with an entire family of natives who were adherents of the magic of the Oath, he lost his head in a particularly gruesome manner. He accidentally apologized to a girl who had slipped into the attackers’ camp under a perception-distorting glamour for bumping into her, and a three-minute conversation ensued. The girl confessed that she was a scout, but was very afraid of getting caught; she hadn’t discovered anything important, and she didn’t dare return empty-handed, or else she’d be in trouble. In the end, the guy first told her everything he knew, and then cut off his own head and gave it to her as an apology. He also thought to himself, ironically, that his comrades would be surprised that he handled the situation so gracefully—and even helped his new acquaintance.

The Earthlings, in alliance with a couple of smaller indigenous family-house-kingdoms, emerged victorious—and quite decisively at that. Contract magic isn’t all-powerful, especially when it comes to direct combat. But people still bring up that screw-up to this day—both in private and on the Forum—to Sally the Standard-Bearer, who lost his first rebirth in thirty Cycles. The scout, by the way, survived and now serves her new masters under a heavy and extremely binding oath, which only adds spice to her relationship with that very same Sally, because they work, so to speak, in the same department.

Romchik finished scribbling something in his notes and began to answer—hesitantly and with a bunch of “maybe”s and “I think”s—but at least he didn’t stumble over his words or try to peek at his cheat sheet. No, this guy definitely wouldn’t have passed Bronislav Valediktovich Yanin’s exam, but still—not bad. He’s smart, lively, and curious; the rest would fall into place if he had the right textbooks and teachers. If he’s not from Earth, then Sturgeon will help him realize his potential. After all, the Dealer is one of the three vocations most dependent on erudition and knowledge of pure ritualism, on par with the Priest and the Sage. It’s no wonder that a universal international proverb among Earthlings preparing for their first dive goes: “Priest, Sage, or Dealer—the youngster will be tormented by studying.”

“You know, Master Svatij, I’ve been wanting to ask you something for a long time, if I may.” Ilya just nodded, even with a hint of curiosity. “Why did you… well, choose the path of being Possessed by Evil? I asked my venerable elder a few questions, and he told me about people like you. And from what he said… you were born to be a Sage or a Dealer—I’ve seen enough gifted people, having moved in those circles. You don’t have to answer, of course; this isn’t an attempt to pry into your personal life, just idle curiosity."

By the way, Romchik is the only one out of all eleven who addresses Sturgeon and Ilya exclusively in the formal, polite style, even altering his name to a more formal form. And it’s not out of any particular respect. He talks to everyone that way, even when he politely asks whether yet another idiot would be so kind as to go shove it up the giant’s ass. The question was one of those that practically begged to be asked, and Sturgeon had actually asked it much earlier, during their very first meeting. That’s why Ilya simply replied that the old man already knew—and knew far too much—so there was no point in lying. But he didn’t tell him absolutely everything either. He settled for the classic line: “It is precisely with this Lot I can maximise the full potential of my strengths and weaknesses.”

Again, another classic among Earthlings is the debate over “Why not the Sage?”—because this is precisely the role that Earthlings, with their erudition and training, most often end up with among the starting options. The answer, too, has remained unchanged for years and decades. A lone Sage risks not surviving long enough to reach the plateau of powerlessness, and even if they do, they won’t become a truly powerful fighter. More accurately, it is possible to make a combat-oriented Sage—Ryuk, for example, fits this description with some caveats. But such a development is simply irrational for a class that isn’t meant to engage directly in combat at all. Even in the Lacunae, those with this calling serve exclusively as support, scouts, and analysts.

It seems ridiculous. Why drag these bookworms along? But only until one of them deciphers the code behind the secret door—after first discovering it—until they help you breeze through a maze where you could easily wipe out three groups stronger than your own, until they improvise a ritual on the fly to extract the axial structure with 200 percent of the calculated efficiency. In short, when properly integrated, the Sage—whether in a community or an indigenous society—is an incredibly useful and always necessary individual. But only when there is a community, when the Broken One’s society has accepted the diver and incorporated him into its hierarchy.

What’s more, a well-coordinated group specializing in clearing the same lacunae needs its own Sage as much as it needs air. One. Well, two, if the lacuna is specific or the group’s composition allows for it. At most—three, though the third one doesn’t even go into the lacunae at all but stays “at base,” playing a Contemplator build, for example. A group consisting entirely of Sages of various types, clearing a lacuna, is theoretically possible, but in practice it will quickly turn into juicy, delicious, prime meat for the creatures inhabiting the lacuna. In short, there won’t be enough spots or quotas for everyone who wants to be a Sage. In this regard, this class is even more advantageous for lone wolves diving in blindly without a community—they have a better chance of keeping their backs safe and warm.

Yes, in a warm cage, but still warm.

Sometimes even convenient.

Sometimes even gilded.

Sometimes even golden.

The theoretical work gradually gave way to practice, and Ilya once again served as both a guinea pig and an invulnerable mannequin, allowing Dealer to apply his talents time and again, and then slowly—even methodically—undoing the effects of those talents. Protective “Treaty of Inviolability” and various variations of the “Memory of the Word,” a key ability for the “Proclaimed Pact” class, reinforced by auxiliary spells. Here, it all ended even faster than it had with Sleepy, because it’s much harder for Dealer to prepare his talents in advance—and it takes longer, too. Romchik’s pure ritual circles, for which a couple of separate rooms in the dungeon had been set aside, require time, reagents, and effort.

As a result, Ilya truly rested more than he worked, but Romchik could have been squeezed out.
And the ink from Sturgeon's reserves, the very same one with which he wrote contracts and with which he drew ritual figures, naturally became embedded in his fingers. Seriously. This crap not only removed the traces of regular ink from his fingers, but also burned his skin to the bone. I had to drag the man to Orsha, the Martyr. This overweight, perpetually sad boy should be dragged away from his training by the ear, and then make sure he didn't train himself.

Another "pill' build, but here comes the eternal misfortune of all Martyrs. It's so tempting: simply cutting and tormenting yourself day after day, without ceasing, receiving more and more drops. It's a bad trend, because the protection of the ++"Linking Thread" will disappear, but the habit and destructive self-confidence will remain. Even without a gift, the boy is still a lover of self-harm and pain, an ideal candidate for his Lot. He hails from the temple orphans, the "whipping boys" who are whipped and burned with iron for the sins of others in temple rituals. He simply fled from his temple of the Purifying by Deed. And not because he was afraid of the pain and blood flowing down his flayed back, but because his senior brother-abbot, not gifted but simply very much a worshipper, laid his greasy gaze on Orsh's ass.

Orsh loved being beaten. Especially by the penitent sisters. Especially by the elder sister, Unyella. But his love for his brothers in faith and the church was purely platonic, unlike his love for his sisters. He had to flee all the way to Lazy, crossing half of the Ridge with a caravan of showmen. That's how, by the way, he met Lishka. The girl kept in touch with colleagues from the late foster family. And it was she who took him to Sturgeon when she realized this weakling would soon die on his own. Anyway, it would be a shame if another case of complete autoflagellation occurred, with a similarly complete loss of consciousness. Waking up and yawning, while chewing something, Orsh greeted Ilya and Romchik, quickly tended to the wound on his fingers, then finished his bun and devoured another while his own fingers healed.

He hadn't completely healed the wounds. His talent, "Shared Torments," wasn't fully developed, but it had taken away all the pain and significantly accelerated his regeneration, so Dealer, yawning even more widely, went into the next room to take a nap. Ilya, however, had no choice but to suppress a hiss and a growl as the twentieth drop of essence was absorbed by the pendant, leaving a full-blown burn from the thin, red-hot chain. Well, the earthling hadn't escaped Martyr, who calmly practiced the same technique again. This time, however, he was completely cringing. The pain from this muck was unrealistically bright, like a flash, cleansing and all-pervasive; it wasn't just physical, but also deeper.

And yes, today really is a day of extraordinary luck. Martyr got his share too, though he wasn’t all that pleased with it. He staggered off to his room, almost groaning as the pain gradually subsided. Well, that’s good. Orsh’s build and stats are such that at the early steps, he isn’t particularly good at healing others—he only heals himself—but by the middle of the step, he’ll get noticeably better at it. And not just at that, either. For now, though, this lesson—that there’s a kind of pain that can’t be turned into pleasure—came at just the right time.

“You look so pleased with yourself, as if you’d devoured half of my fools while I was distracted.” Ryuek Sturgeon crawled out of his lair, looking tired—even though he was trying to hide it—but extremely satisfied, which he made no attempt to conceal. “Your smile alone would make some city shopkeeper’s heart skip a beat.”

"And you look as if one of your enemies didn't wake up last night," Ilya retorted melancholically, strictly within the limits of the light familiarity permitted him, but not going beyond them, and he himself hid more tightly in the disguise of "Lurking Evil." "Congratulations. I suppose?"

Wiping his face with cloth handkerchiefs soaked in potions—on which faint, smoldering traces of fish scales, imprinted with an ink stencil, remained—Ryuek didn’t even bother to pretend that Ilya was mistaken. His expression was indeed triumphant and gloating, and, to be perfectly honest, if the shopkeeper had encountered Sturgeon, he would have suffered three heart attacks in a row. And not just the shopkeeper—even someone gifted might have had enough. Especially someone well aware of who this fish-eyed fellow actually was. As if sensing a bit of attention directed at the eye patch that had almost slipped off, he quickly, but without haste, covered his other eye with the fabric relic.

"I accept your congratulations with dignity," Sturgeon nodded gravely and very smugly. "Well, it's not that they didn't wake up, more like they suddenly fell asleep forever. So long I've dreamed of this. So long..."

Ilya doesn’t know who didn’t wake up tonight (or rather, late this morning) or who fell asleep. But he knows for sure that this person did something very, very, very, very bad to Sturgeon. And he also understands perfectly well that Sturgeon didn’t unseal his little notebook for nothing and didn’t punish someone so beautifully for no reason. Lying low isn’t a bad idea if you haven’t yet been exposed to the entire Ridge, the Kingdom, and the Broken World sector. After Lazy, after the ritual that took place in the snow, the fact that a certain Ryuek has returned to action is something that’s foolish to hide—it’s simply pointless. By this point, surely every possible and impossible investigation had been conducted; teams of ritual experts, the Sages, and the Seekers had examined the ritual site and understood its nature.

If they didn't understand - after all, Sturgeon filled everything there with the ink of Darkness - they still assumed the most logical option.

And they turned out to be right.

So the Fish-Eyed One’s attack on his easiest targets—those he could destroy on the spot and without much preparation (probably because he’d prepared everything in advance, even before his injury, using an old billet)—was not the frenzied rage of a cripple who had regained his strength. No, it was a sign. A message. News that Ryuek Sturgeon had indeed regained his powers. That now, once again, people must fear their own names, hide them from everyone—and from themselves. That he had forgotten nothing and no one, that he would come for everyone and hold them all to account.

But even without seeing the list of targets, Ilya could have bet the very essence in his pendant that the choice of target had been very carefully considered—to frighten everyone involved equally, but not too much. To make it clear that Ryuek was back in action, but that the extent to which one humble Sage would go would depend solely on the actions of those who knew about it. A Sage who has no desire whatsoever to spend his entire life running through the wastelands of the Ridge. He fully intends to return to the Crown and shine where he is accustomed to shining—and has not quite forgotten how.

This once again suggests that Ыегкпущт may well use his unwitting ally to pay for all his indulgences. To hand the poor Wendigo over to the royal hounds and to His Majesty himself. To lure Magnus to his side in advance in order to secure a monopoly on access to the Earth Forum in this part of the sector. To claim “what is rightfully his”—and a little extra on top—and then fade into the sunset. Perhaps he’ll have to fade into the sunset to the sound of epic music, accompanied by the screams of a diver burning alive in a red-hot copper cauldron, from whom they’re trying to rip off his Blessing.

To no avail. Lottery prizes—especially those that depend so heavily on Ilya’s own disposition and opinion—cannot be won through ritual sacrifice or years of torture. And brainwashing an earthling into willingly serving his new masters won’t work either—simply because of that other reward. So they will most likely try to coax Ilya into service and a contract, perhaps even bribing him with carrots and sticks in equal measure. Or they’ll simply eliminate such a dangerous tool—not dangerous to them, but to the fragile balance that has been established in the region.

This outcome, with payment by Ilya, is so logical and so in keeping with the spirit of the world that an Earthling simply cannot help but consider it the most likely possibility. Sturgeon, having had time to study Ilya, cannot help but realize that Ilya understands this as well. But for now, they are still bound together; for now, these bonds are too strong. For Ryuek, the “Binding Thread” is too important, so neither of them is in a hurry to make any sudden moves. Because there is still time, and anything can happen. The Earthling might manage to escape, and Ryuek might find a compromise that works for both sides. But Ilya prefers to assume only the worst and prepare for it—in Broken, such a tactic is considered a surefire win from the outset.

"I see your ringing chain is almost fully charged." Of course he sees that; it would be strange if he didn't. "I’ll lead you to a small den of Wool-Balls; kill them, claim what’s yours, and then come back. I didn’t watch over you constantly; I believed that I’d managed to hammer at least a little sense into those foolish, empty, dust-covered heads of yours, no matter how much they clung to their stupidity—those insufferable, restless sources of grief and destruction! Ahem. Anyway, they’ve all grasped the basics; they’ve grown accustomed to their Gifts of the Mechanism. Now we can move on to practice. And to proper payment for your gift to me. I don’t like being in debt..."

He speaks his final words to the wall, drawing yet another door on it with a piece of chalk he’s pulled from his pocket. Yes, yes—he doesn’t like being in anyone’s debt; he really doesn’t. Ilya believes this, though he suspects that more often than not, this phrase refers not to the fact that he doesn’t consider himself indebted, but rather that he simply buries those below him who dare to remind him of his debt. And even if he doesn’t bury them… somehow Ilya doesn’t really believe many would dare to remind this guy of his debt.

Chalk finishes the drawing, and it looks as if ink is about to flow from beneath the chalk line. Inky Darkness can also open doors, but it’s too unstable; even Ryuek finds it easier to draw at least a basic outline first before using that darkness. After quickly discussing the details of the upcoming battle—the enemy’s location and numbers—with the Sage, the Earthling entered the door—or rather, leaped through it like a fish. The enemy wasn’t exactly dangerous—certainly not their lower forms—but you could run into trouble anywhere if you let your guard down too much. And he couldn’t shapeshift, or he’d risk breaking the pendant’s chain and wasting so much hard-earned essence.

The Wool-Balls were literally carnivorous meatballs on thin legs, covered in thick, thick white fur, with a mouth on one side. The mouth was enormous, toothy, and hungry, capable of biting an unarmored human in half. Because of this distinctive appearance, Earth enthusiasts of Old board games and figurines referred to all subspecies of these creatures as “squigs,” alluding to the fantasy—rather than the cosmic—version of the legendary Warhammer. There were indeed similarities, which people habitually attributed to the connection between the noospheres of different worlds, trying not to delve too deeply into these questions—otherwise, you might end up transported into a room with soft walls. However, most of the Forum used the more widely known name—meatballs.

Large creatures above the first step can swallow a Mechanist riding a combat golem or along with steam-powered walking armor. There are creatures there that make you suddenly realize why, in the liturgies, Mawballs (the general name for the entire species line) and the super-powerful Langoliers are considered distant yet kindred. Fortunately, Ilya ended up facing simple juveniles—the woolly variety, adapted to snow but lacking speed and maneuverability, and preferring ambush tactics. About two dozen creatures, each about the size of a genetically modified super-tomato grown on hydroponic farms—that is, just below Ilya’s knee in human terms—were struck by the Wendigo’s Ice breath and met their end right there.

The enemy is truly dangerous if they manage to surround their prey, attacking with the ferocity of a wolf pack, forcing the victim to maneuver and focus on just one of them while the rest sink their teeth into the flesh. They have excellent senses and can easily detect the crunch of snow and the vibration of footsteps—even from an ordinary, gifted person with no talent for stealth—from a kilometer away. Ilya could spot them himself from a much greater distance, seeing the beating hearts of very much alive, flesh-and-blood creatures—and on top of that, they’d tossed him right into the creatures’ lair. There was no fight—just a breath, with which he silenced them, followed by a quick finishing blow. At least it yielded a drop, and then another; the last one fell past the pendant, which had overflowed to the brim and could no longer absorb the earthling’s essence.

Tap.

A red-hot strand of iron drips down the back of his neck, leaving painful wounds on his body. Another training session for Orsh. The crystal bell becomes transparent and ghostly, as if only half-material. The crimson-gold glimmers that were barely visible before are now clearly discernible; one can distinguish the moment when six more sparks are added to the twenty-one. Games with the numerical mysteries of the Broken One—it was three times seven, now it’s three times nine, for both numbers are beloved by the Dead Gods. These drops are not created out of nowhere, but from the tension of the Mechanism, from those actions and decisions you came to understand while wearing the pendant.

Ilya allows himself a moment’s pause, seeing that the pendant’s material is still holding up; he grabs the three most intact pieces and hurls them at the door in front of him. An alchemist needs to train, too—not just bake buns—and the materials in the shelter’s storerooms have already been almost entirely used up by Torya. And only after entering the shelter once more does he nod to Osetr, who watches with some curiosity as the ringing chain fills up so quickly when Ilya activates it. Such artifacts can be activated in many ways, whether through a fairly simple method or a laborious, pure ritual.

But here, the Earthling takes advantage of yet another benefit of his class. His wild nature. And you can actually do this without the Mental Stability trait—but only if you’ve leveled up your Hunger-based talents very well. Yes, that’s right. Ilya opened his mouth wide, shoving the pendant into his mouth in an instant, and then began chewing it with some effort. The tension came from the fact that the pendant’s immaterial nature kept trying to slip between his jaws, like a ghostly image. He had to concentrate a little, and now his mouth was being pricked by tiny needles of phantom glass that had shattered into sharp shards.

And taste.

Oh yeah, taste!

Ragweed, which compels the beast—chained by the bonds of will—deep within Ilya’s very essence to howl with equal parts triumph and fury. This taste is like a hundred hearts torn out and devoured, which is like victory and triumph, ecstasy and delight. Ilya effortlessly ignores the euphoria induced by the chain’s effect, accepting only the completely purified drops of Essence. Well, well—he had suspected Ryuek for nothing after all! He’d had a fleeting thought that the fish-eyed one might use this trick to add something extra to the image of Ilya’s altar. He had, but Ryuek actually has a slightly different specialty. Plus, he’d studied Ilya and his resilience, studied his nature, and understood that the icy lake would simply… devour any implant, infection, beacon, or anything else of that sort.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Not bad! Actually, it’s great! For such a relatively short time working as a tutor and, in a way, a training dummy, it’s absolutely great! If only because he didn’t have to take any personal risks at all. The Sage, to be sure, would have earned three or four times as much, especially with the mentor build, but as for Ilya… . well, he’s got horns and a big, toothy mouth. But seriously, he wouldn’t have made such rapid progress as the Sage, because he would’ve died long ago. However, that Sage would have been embodied in Broken somewhere else, under different circumstances, and with different problems.

“Get to work on your self-improvement—don't just stand there like a statue!” grumbled Sturgeon, clearly suppressing his genuine envy at how unfairly fast that insolent diver was growing. “I'll be waiting in the dining hall. I'm ready to devour a horse—maybe even alive. And it's all your fault! You're a bad influence on me! Young people these days have really become degenerate! I remember, back in my day..."

He wonders if he’s just doing this out of habit, or if he genuinely enjoys breaking the patterns with his grumpy-grandpa mannerisms—and the unmistakable aura of a highly developed third step that he doesn’t even try to hide? Ilya couldn’t even admit to himself which possibility he feared more, or which one seemed crazier to him. However, one thing Sturgeon is definitely right about is that he needs to focus on his own development. A full thirty drops. It is enough for two upgrades at once. It’s time to gradually bring up the lagging Bone Carver, and the second aspect of Lurking Predator might very well prove quite relevant in upcoming affairs.

That said, it’s generally very difficult to render talent development irrelevant and useless, although even on Earth, some individuals manage to do just that. It’s also a science and statistics, providing a clear understanding of what future generations should not do. If it weren’t for the remarkable intellect of certain individuals—who manage to repeat the same mistakes time and time—then the world, all worlds combined, would be completely different, utterly different. Perhaps not the most pleasant, but far more logical and predictable.

Sweat dreams.

But first to Orsh. Wounds are so painful.

* * *

Ilya’s private quarters were located in the farthest corner of the underground refuge, since that corner—a separate cave offshoot—was also the coldest. No magical or physical insulation had been installed there, and the heating system did not extend to that part of the underground complex. The darkness did not bother the earthling, but he did enjoy the coolness—comfortable for a highly evolved Wendigo—as well as the very fact that this wing was remote from the main underground complex. If Osetr made a mistake, or if a raid by his enemies happened to track them down in this hideout and then attack, it would be easiest to flee far away from this very spot. Still, old Ryuek, if he were to fight, would draw the fire of practically any number of enemy elite forces, while Ilya had a chance to escape from ordinary clean-up specialists.

His room had its own lighting amulet and an oil lamp, but Ilya didn’t use them unless he was entertaining guests in his room. Lishka loves to drop by for a chat about some nonsense, and she doesn’t get hints—even ones as thick as a giant’s butt—that Ilya isn’t in the mood for conversation. Or maybe she’s just very good at pretending not to get them—that pesky little thing.

Meditative calm gives way to a sudden flood of images: a snow-covered lake, crimson light shining from beneath the ice, and an icy mist that shrouds the lake in a harsh veil. The Chalice, filling with golden blood, spills scarlet gold upward, releasing stream after stream of droplets, saturating the ring of mist around the rock, the altar, and the chalice. The strange figures—ghostly and shimmering—that appeared after the previous surge have become somewhat clearer, yet paradoxically have intensified their shimmering quality and immateriality even further, becoming not even images but an illusion, a trick of the eye on the very edge of perception.

Take a closer look – they’re gone.

Turn around - they got closer.

Turn away - they are behind your back.

Abilities and Tricks:

Lurking Predator: 3/5 (Essence invested: 0/30)

One of the main challenges when hunting a Wendigo is the unpleasant tendency for the roles of hunter and prey to reverse if the hunter is not skilled enough. But just as frustrating for those seeking to destroy a Wendigo is the impossibility of finding it if the Wendigo does not want to be found, or if it is not confident in the success of its own hunt. Outside cities and inhabited areas, in the wild and far from any signs of civilization, the Wendigo is capable of concealing itself, its presence, its nature, and its Hunger, becoming a ghost and a shadow, a patient observer that chooses the moment to attack or avoids the fight altogether.

The degree of blurring of the energetic imprint increases, acquiring features of mimicry against the natural background; staying in the hidden phase additionally hides the essence of the Wendigo from a number of exotic search methods.

Fringe: The Wendigo’s closeness to Nature—one of the core aspects of its essence—allows it to interpret the very concept of the energy background quite freely. When the need is great—whether to lie in wait, sneak up on prey, or hide from a particularly dangerous and observant victim—the Wendigo can weave numerous shreds, threads, and beads of the natural background into its own energy, becoming part of the landscape, regardless of whether it is viewed with the eye, magic, or a mechanism. When creating this cloak to hide the Wendigo from pursuit, one must be wary that it may be impossible to remove it afterward. That the cloak itself will dissolve the wearer into itself, leaving only Hunger and nothing else.

It is now easier to keep Fringe in active motion; the weakening effect caused by Wendigo talents has been reduced; some direct detection methods no longer detect the presence of Wendigo in the energy field; and the amplitude of force flow distortion has been reduced.

Trail: the essence and part of Wild Nature that permeates the Wendigo not only fills this creature’s very being with primal power, but also serves as a unique marker, a sign, and a symbol for those who know how to see—first and foremost for the Wendigo itself. Succumbing to merciless Nature, it continues to give itself over to Hungor, bound by the Cald. And with particular effort, the Wendigo is capable of sinking its teeth into the energetic background—not with its mouth or fangs, but with its very essence—devouring any traces remaining in the subtle layers of the Broken World. Traces of its own, as it hides from detection, managing to vanish right before the eyes of the victims attacking it. Traces of others, along which it can pass, catching only a faint hint of the taste of its escaped prey.

This aspect isn’t the most powerful of those proposed, and it has no direct correlation with the mental resilience of the anomalous Wendigo. However, it is precisely this aspect that has unlocked yet another extremely promising combination, perfectly complementing the recently acquired “Fringe,” paired with “Loss” from “Knowledge of the Curse,” and linking directly to “Transformation” and “Transcendence.” The final result will not so much radically change the core combat style as it will supplement it with a whole range of very promising tactics.

Very few such combinations were recorded in total, but they did exist. It’s just that Wendigo doesn’t use them, and these aspects appeared in other talents. However, the predictive calculations provided an almost guaranteed result—a very rare luxury in the work of a professional build-builder—and a similar effect was expected for Ilya’s combination as well. And on top of that, there’s the multiplier from “Transcendence”—not the base multiplier for the aspect, but specifically the synergistic one. The point, of course, isn’t in the makeshift tracking ability that lets you devour a prey’s trail and thus pursue it more effectively; the point isn’t even in the improved stealth. Although that is undoubtedly a nice bonus.

No. The real beauty lies in the part of the description directly related to combat use. By using both “Fringe” and “Trail” simultaneously, you can maintain an extremely disruptive concealment in battle without even having to cast the spells. Sometimes you can even amplify it for a split second. That split second is enough for your enemy to lose sight of you and miss a fatal blow. Even in human form, it’s an extremely dangerous combination—but when paired with a transformation into a fearsome monster? O-o-o-o-o! Ilya couldn’t wait to put it to the test.

As a result, he managed to enhance the standard stealth capabilities—not through any special tricks, but through a comprehensive, high-quality approach that acts as a multiplier for both effectiveness and combat potential. After all, it’s not quite invisibility, not quite stealth, and not quite a distraction. It’s all of the above and none of the stated effects, which is why it’s also difficult to completely and reliably block this kind of nonsense. Even a developed first step, unless it has unique relics or a build that truly counters Ilya, will have that split second to lose its head. If this combo had been active during the fight with that Gladiator, Ilya would have torn her apart much faster and without any risk at all.

That said, that cat-girl wouldn’t have been fooled by that trick. She knew how to do something similar herself, slipping out of perception even in the heat of battle. Yes, her talents and abilities were clearly different… or perhaps the same—who knows. In any case, she wouldn’t have been confused. Not with her intuition and instincts, which could replace all her senses at once. It wasn’t as if Ilya was particularly envious. Not considering his own gifts from the Lottery. But still, there was envy. The battle with the cat girl made it crystal clear who was worth what. Ilya’s victory was a victory of relying on luck, not personal strength or skill.

Recalling once again all four aspects he had set aside, he reaffirmed that he had done everything as correctly as possible. The only aspect that could be considered equivalent to the one he had chosen turned out to be “Loss”—one that was even rarer than “Trail.” It is a rather complex aspect, most commonly found in the talents of Occultists—and indeed, in anyone who summons the spawn of Gehenna. The aspect is characterized by a high azimuth coefficient, and its direct effect varies greatly depending on which talent acquires this “Loss.”

For Ilya and his +“Hiding Beast,” this aspect would grant the ability, for a split second, to enhance their camouflage and stealth to such an extent that most targeted attacks would lose their mark once and for all. This isn’t just the ability to pass through defensive and sensory barriers. It’s also the end of any Charmancer, Totem Shaman, or even an Occultist who relies on debuffs. It is precisely their talents that home in on a target on their own, seek it out themselves, and eliminate it when necessary. With such “blinking,” they would hardly be able to offer Ilya any resistance at all during the first stage, since the Earthling could “blink” several times per second, ignoring the pressure of the madness induced by his Lot.

If it weren’t for the fact that this trick doesn’t work against all opponents, and that it doesn’t reduce the chances of rolling some desirable aspects for “Shapeshift,” he would have chosen it. Even so, he can’t help but feel a little regret—but only a little. The other aspects didn’t inspire any regret at all: it was as if the Mechanism had compensated for two excellent options with three that were frankly worthless. “Exhaustion” is completely out of place under this talent—it’s nothing more than a standard debuff targeting those who hunt Ilya. As long as they remain within a territorial radius of about one or two days’ travel, the very act of hunting Ilya will cause increased consumption of stamina, mana, and psychic resources.

Yes, it’s a good trick—very penetrating—and there’s no defense against it at the first level, but the effect itself is weak and secondary; even the boost from a number of synergies won’t make it more effective. Now, if a mob of untalented people were hunting Ilya with clubs, dogs, and herding tactics, then yes, it would be very helpful—after all, that effect would completely drain ordinary people within a couple of days; they wouldn’t even have to be killed. But gifted ones—and experienced ones at that, with good gear and alchemy, like that memorable trio that chased him away from Toothy? They’d simply increase their consumption of fortifying potions and continue the pursuit.

The "Bite". An even more niche and useless ability for Ilya. It operates according to the rules of an inverted “Mark”. Usually, the talents and aspects in this group make it easier to find the victim he initially targeted and then bit, but in his case, this aspect improved his stealth against those he had initially wounded. To put it mildly, this is a highly controversial aspect, since Ilya will most likely finish off anyone he’s capable of wounding anyway. And as for those from whom he needs to flee and hide, it would be difficult to wound them first and only then begin hiding.

In principle, the “Brotherhood” aspect could be useful, but under completely different circumstances: it enhanced Ilya’s disguise not just from the Mechanism’s children, but from all manner of creatures. It’s a skill designed purely for hunting and farming; in a group with other Earthlings, it would be the perfect addition to the build, since it also slightly increases the drop rate. And considering “Transcendence” and the fact that “Brotherhood” also slightly affects Fofa’s mechanics—albeit just a little—it’s actually more than just a little. Ilya certainly has a group of temporary or even permanent allies, but the focus of his development right now isn’t on fighting creatures at all—it’s on battling other gifted individuals. He’ll take down plenty of creatures anyway, without any extra help, whereas people will try to take him down.

And they have every chance of success.

Having finished working on his latest talent and fully mastered this new aspect, the Earthling practiced the new technique a little, forcing his energy to devour his own traces, but he didn’t bother with a full-fledged training session. There’s no point—it’s difficult to do alone; it’s easier to ask his students for help, giving them a new task in the process. Meanwhile, the remaining ten drops trickle out of the bowl, but now they don’t fall into the ominous fog; instead, they run down the outside of the bowl, covering numerous bone amulets or even just small bones tied to the bowl with primitive threads and cords made of sinew and wool.

A moment—less than a moment—before these bones become more than just bones, something strange, not quite material, though by no means ghostly. The first of the carver’s four options closes, and the Earthling chooses, almost without hesitation, the one he needs most. He’s lucky again, though he would have preferred that such luck in drawing rare variations of the most useful aspects hadn’t fallen on the “violin.” But this isn’t even “small pearls” anymore—it’s practically “diamonds of insufficient clarity.” To put it simply, Ilya himself feels that he’s gotten a little too brazen in his grumbling and whining, even if he’s only complaining to himself.

Bone Carver: 2/4 (Essence invested: 0/20)

Hunting for flesh and gnawing on bones, Wendigos often end up with too many bones to devour. It may seem strange how they decorate their lairs and hunting grounds with elaborately carved ornaments, figurines, amulets, and tokens made from the bones of those they once devoured. Few know that there is another, deeper reason for this strange habit.

The Wendigo more clearly senses the power hidden in bones, more easily understands its nature, and the limits of what the power will allow. Working with unyielding or excessively strong bones is easier.

History: Every bone was once someone or something, belonged to someone or something, before the victim encountered the Wendigo and became just another attempt to sate the insatiable Hunger, to warm a body taken by the Cald. More importantly, as the Wendigo comes to understand the limits of its strange and deceptively primitive craft, it learns how to use the bones’ past to its own advantage. It extracts a fragment of history from them and then embodies that fragment in patterns and designs, imbuing them with a wild and unexpectedly potent power.

Is this how his encounter with Elea played out, despite the Forum’s assurances that the Tournament would have no effect on the Twin? How did he end up with one of the most valuable aspects for any Storyteller? And it’s also one of the best options for a crafting talent. If he had a different build—one specifically tailored for crafting and production—he could have completely skipped this aspect on a secondary talent in order to acquire it on a key or root talent instead. But the Earthling has exactly one “violin” talent, and that’s precisely why he chose the most obvious option.

“History” literally amplifies all the “miraculous” effects of his bone crafts, allowing him to create a whole array of useful items—even harnessing some of a creature’s abilities or a gifted individual’s talents, provided they become donors to his bloody art. Of course, it won’t be possible to create a set of items that allows you to fully utilize all the talents of a slain Gifted One, even if you make these items temporary. But one or two amulets, and with several charges to boot? It’s entirely possible, yes.

By the way, if he does manage to die, his dead body—if it survives—will need to be found so his bones can be used, especially if he dies in battle form—those horns would be the perfect raw material for something useful. If it weren’t for the guaranteed permanent disability until the moment of death and healing, he would have tried sawing off one of his horns and carving something out of it. There are plenty of options, but thinking about them is considered a bad omen—unproven, but a belief that’s deeply ingrained among divers across all worlds.

Actually, the most enjoyable part of this aspect isn’t even the improvement in his crafting skills, since talent alone still can’t surpass specialized builds. No, what was truly satisfying was the opportunity to interact more actively and deeply with pure rituals—that very wild ritualism that, in theory, he can now apply more comprehensively. Provided he has a supply of suitable bones, of course.

The other three options weren’t bad, but they fell short of the chosen one by quite a bit. “Sigils” led down a path of a very specific branch of runology. This aspect allowed him not only to carve glyphs of Dead Languages into bones—which he could already do—but also to imbue them with power, drawing it from those bones. Yes, it might be useful, but this aspect isn’t really suited for a Wendigo, and its usefulness is limited to nothing more than run-of-the-mill tricks. Being able to throw a bone fragmentation grenade when the opportunity arises is certainly useful, but not when each of these oversized firecrackers requires a huge investment of time, effort, and resources.

The “Clarity” aspect didn’t offer an endless cup of saltine crackers, a trendy haircut, or youth gang tattoos all over your face. It simply made the carved patterns sharper, and their effect became more powerful. You could say that, for “Clarity,” the “History” aspect chosen by Ilya is a natural “mom’s friend’s son.” Because it gives you all the same things, only much better, and on top of that, a whole bunch of other good stuff, too.

The last aspect, known as “Motion,” made it possible not only to create patterns, drawings, and scenes carved into bones, but also to turn them into moving images. Selling such items would be pure pleasure—they’d sell out faster than non-refundable loan payments—but Ilya isn’t interested in business or a career as a carver right now. He has different prospects and priorities now. He’s gotten himself into politics! Of course, the aspect doesn’t just provide a pretty picture—you can perform quite a few interesting rituals with it—but it still pales in comparison to “History.”

Well, if there's one good thing about this strange alliance with Sturgeon and his brood, it's the increased leveling speed.

So to speak, very comfortable seat upholstery and excellent lighting in this gas van of yours.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_van

Excellent, dammit, thoughts before bed, simply wonderful!

* * *

Ilya didn’t immediately realize that he was asleep—that he was actually asleep, not just seeing a dream induced by Sleeppy. This was probably because neither Ilya nor Sleepy—nor anyone else—appeared in the dream; there was only a strange stream of images carrying him on the waves of a turbulent river. In this dream, the sleeper sees the snow-covered, desolate wasteland of the Ridge, endless cliffs dusted with snow caps and covered in ice. He also sees a rock standing in the path of the wind—tall and sharp, like someone’s clawed finger pointing toward the heavens. Or a broken bone jutting out from beneath the stony firmament, itself resembling a stone.

The magical currents around this rock literally swirl into a spiral, revealing a powerful natural anomaly, but its natural character is significantly compounded by what some malevolent force has wrought upon this rock. The closer the current of sleep carries the slumbering Ilya toward this rock, the more evidence of the nightmare that has passed he sees. He sees blood frozen on the snow and rocks, traces of battle and dragging, as if someone had methodically and persistently dragged the already dead bodies toward the rock. Ilya sees the corpses themselves—dozens, even hundreds of them—but right up close to the rock, he sees the corpses of beasts, the corpses of creatures, and, of course, human corpses. The gifted and the ungifted, hunters and travelers, mercenaries and guards, caravan drivers and bandits, the noble and the commoners, the rich and the poor—all of them are now so close and so alike in this vast heap of frozen corpses.

One might call this a mass grave, but there was no grave. The bodies are piled around the rock. The bodies hang from the rock itself, nailed to its sheer slopes with bones torn from their bodies. The bodies are gutted, stripped of their hearts and entrails; garlands of intestines spilling out of the bodies—which were still warm at that moment—are visible, as are crumpled dark-blue lungs and traces of claws and teeth on the bones. No, this is no grave at all, but merely a desecration of one. It is a giant refrigerator for a savage beast that devoured the most delicious parts, leaving the rest for last. A massive pile of corpses, a massive burial pit. The final resting place where, for the first and last time, a nobleman and his servant, a soldier and his commander, a bandit and his chieftain lay down, embracing one another.

Because to the one who did all this, they are merely meat, mere prey, merely a way to sate the eternal Hunger briefly. To warm himself with blood still warm. The current of the dream carries him upward, higher and higher along the cliff, past bodies pinned to the rock, worn down by time and cold winds, all the way to the very peak. A peak where there is no longer any place for flesh. Here, there are only bones—gnawed and splintered, shattered skulls from which the brains have been devoured, pieces of gnawed-through spines and ribs. The site of a feast that was not enough to sate the bottomless pit of another’s Hunger.

The bones lie in a strange arrangement—chaotic, yet at the same time embodying a design incomprehensible to the ordinary mind, a malevolent and purposeful will. At the very peak, stretching upward like yet another stone pillar—motionless and nightmarish—stands a gaunt, elongated figure. There is nothing human about it. Its very humanoid form—distant and distorted—is an affront to human nature, a maimed and merciless reminder of how little separates a human from an animal, from something even worse than any beast.

The wind howls, sweeping tons of snow from the cliffs, swirling like a tornado around a solitary rock; its gusts scream, playing a melody on the strings of intestines and the keys of bones, while the Cald torments the dead bodies of those who have fallen prey. And the motionless figure suddenly jerks what resembles a face upward toward the sky, piercing it with sharp, branched horns, letting out a howl—terrifying and mad—howling in tune with the wind’s wails, in tune with the resonating melody of Hungor and Cald, which has come here, which has become this place, and has claimed it for itself. And in this howl, one hears neither triumph, nor malice, nor a desire to tear and torment—no.

You can hear—if one can say that of something even the most sensitive ear cannot distinguish—the barely perceptible grinding of the colossal Mechanism, the very essence of the Universe, which with every passing moment draws ever closer to this place. It is as if the Wendigo, howling in a frenzy, has cried out to something higher than its prey, higher than its Hunger, higher than the Dead Gods themselves. To something that could elevate him as well—elevate or cast him down, grinding him to dust, punishing him for his audacious attempt to disrupt the natural order of things, to touch that which is forbidden to touch.

The embrace of Cald and the insatiability of Hungor push Wendigo. It carries him forward and upward, helping him climb, step, and overcome that step that leads to the peak no one has ever reached.

Ilya sees all of this, sees it in one moment, one manifestation, one long image-fragment, and then wakes up, opens his eyes, and in a surprisingly calm tone utters a single phrase.

“Well, congratulations.” He looks at his own palm, raised to his face, but it seems to him that he can still see the long, slender, clawed hand of the second form, covered in dried and frozen blood and caked-on dirt; he sees the palm that is still clutching someone’s torn-out heart. “It’s strange that it’s so late.”

Perhaps it was because Ilya had managed to get a good night’s sleep for the first time in ages. Sleeping after a talent advancement is actually a very effective way to relieve some of the strain on the subtle body. And before that, he’d been constantly helping Sonya train her talents. She’s lucky. And they’re all lucky, including Ilya himself. A low baseline, a small number of secrets and Mysteries known to the Anchors—multiplied by Ilya’s blessing—allowed them to accumulate drops incredibly quickly. And since Ilya, with his pendant and chain, served as their mentor, some of the drops resonated with his own Lot, ultimately reaching the Earthling.

It might seem like you could deliberately not teach new recruits anything, then bring them to the Citadel or some other community, and only then start training and teaching them—so that, starting from that very low baseline, they could quickly earn their first two or three dozen drops. In reality, of course, that’s a ridiculous idea. For one thing, they don’t have the Great Blessing. And second, having a Trait from the Erudition or even Secret branch—even a basic one—doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be as outstanding as Ilya… In the long run, such traits and even basic training will yield far greater benefits.

And then there’s the survival rate of newcomers—which ones will grow into seasoned veterans, and which ones won’t die, not even out of stupidity, but simply because they don’t know why you shouldn’t sleep by candlelight near mirrors, why you shouldn’t walk through doors that weren’t there yesterday, why the scarlet ribbons tied to the trees in someone’s garden require summoning a strike team of gifted individuals—including at least a couple of fiery Warlocks—as well as hundreds of other “whys.” In short, they don’t apply this method to Earthlings, but they do use it on natives from time to time. Especially if the natives have recently undergone the bestowal of gifts but simply haven’t had time to complete training that would be considered adequate by Earthling standards.

The ice-cold shower washed away the last traces of the Mechanism’s vision, and a character endowed with its attributes and build—who hadn’t been pushed to the limit for at least a couple of weeks in a row—can only suffer damage from an attack of Dreamwalker. In principle, he had interpreted the hints from the dream quite clearly; it’s entirely possible to try creating an ascension ritual based on these visions. It’s possible, yes, but not necessary. It’s not the optimal path; it’s very cumbersome, very bloody, very costly, and besides, there’s no need to rush.

By the time an Earthling has developed all his talents, the forms of ascension will have changed several times over. Although just for the sake of curiosity, he could ask around about this strange rock. Even if it’s right nearby, he definitely won’t use it. Or rather, he definitely won’t use it if it’s close by! The resonator and amplifier are good—simply wonderful—but they’re also conspicuous. If such a rock is even remotely close to inhabited lands, the locals surely know its coordinates and probably use it themselves, even if only to elevate their Spellcasters or Shamans.

That is, if Ilya was correct in his initial assessment. The place of power shown to him by the generous Mechanism could be a one-time occurrence and rapidly deteriorate after the ritual is completed. But the Earthling has no doubts about his conclusions. The source of power is not only stable but also deeply rooted in the world. It cannot be damaged by a single ritual of ascension from the first level to the second. If, however, the place is unknown to anyone and has no owners, then yes, it’s worth taking a closer look. Even if not for ascension, then for a whole host of pure rituals of the highest order. However, no, simply no. There are too many human corpses in the visions. It won’t be possible to do that much so far from civilization.

It’s more likely that some of those corpses from the vision tried to wrest the source of power from the Wendigo, only to become fuel for someone else’s rise. The main thing to remember is that the vision showed the way, not the result. If he decides to claim such a place for himself, even as a “peak” but still just a “one,” they might bring in a “two” with an entourage. And thus, the story of Ilya Khvat’s ascension will end in an inglorious rebirth, with the loss of the Vessel of Rebirth and the partial emptying of the Vessel of Ascension—which had been filled to the brim and destabilized by preparations for the ritual.

“We’re moving on.” With those words, Sturgeon greeted him, pointing his spoon right at the earthling’s midsection, but immediately plunging it back into the rich meat soup—after all, the meatball-like creatures were not only perfectly edible but also delicious. “This place has given us everything it could.”

Furthermore, the series of eliminations carried out through naming—even though it was kept under wraps and concealed as much as possible—couldn’t help but expose their hideout, at least partially. And that’s why Ryuek doesn’t want to take any chances. He’d rather leave the exposed location and will surely try to leave a surprise or two for the hunters who’ve come here.

"I’ve prepared a few nice gifts for those who come here after our souls." Who would doubt it? But not Ilya, who’s most interested in the type of trap being used, though he’ll probably go with some version of that ink-based nonsense, since Sturgeon is quite good at ink magic. “And we’ll move closer to the people. Or, to be more precise, to Upperstone, since there… Come on, Lishka, Tsokres, what’s the matter with you? Are your heads made of wood and your brains made of confetti?!”

The orphans exchanged glances, clearly embarrassed. The boy was usually very quiet, but Lishka was always trying to cheer him up, and the two of them ended up getting an earful from the “old fart.” They were a little flustered, but then Lishka finally spoke up. Or rather, she cleared her throat first, glanced around as if to say, “Let someone else speak for me,” but ended up having to do it herself.

"So, well, that asshole from the coal mines—the one I beat the shit out of so he wouldn’t go reaching for anything he shouldn’t." Judging by the twitch of Sturgeon’s eyebrow, he clearly remembered that moment. "He’s from there, from Upperstone, so to speak. And he definitely remembered me."

Ilya once again demonstrated to Ryuek Sturgeon the superiority of earthly training over local methods, managing not to burst out laughing or punch himself with a facepalm. Sturgeon, however, couldn’t resist the latter—and did so with both hands. Muttering something under his breath about how the Purifier through Action was punishing a certain Sage for all his sins—both real and imagined—he nevertheless replied.

"Lishka, the stake in my grave, your tongue has no bones. The Crowned One’s hounds are coming after us, after me, but after you too. The entire army of the city burned six times." Well, he’s exaggerating here, because if the entire army of that city were really after them, the story would already be coming to an end, but yes, that’s exactly how it is. "Do you think I care about some lousy little rat who promised you some kind of revenge if you ended up in his city?! He’s not even one-hundredth of our problem."

“Yeah, I know, Grandpa, don't yell.” Lishka was completely flustered, and she was the only one who could say ‘Grandpa’ so naturally and endearingly that he didn't even seem able to get angry, despite all his arrogance. “I'm just wondering if I may twist out his head?”

Ilya was very close to death. He still couldn’t quite hold back his laughter, so he had to cover it up with a cough. Sturgeon nearly cut the earthling to pieces with his gaze at that moment—perhaps even literally. But Sturgeon spoke with surprising calm, even a touch of kindness, managing to hint to the impenetrable Harlequin that some new, mind-blowing training sessions were in store for her. And Ilya would have to take the heat for them again—such wonderful news!

“Yes, you may. If you keep quiet.”And she did fall silent, even mimicking a gesture she’d seen Ilya make—locking her mouth with a key and throwing the key away—which, in Broken, given the mysteries of the Lord of Locks, carries a similar but deeper, almost religious meaning. “So here’s the thing. Upper Stone. Hidden beneath the city lies another refuge like this one, very secure—more secure than this one. And the very walls and boundaries of the city… Pfft! City! An overgrown village populated by coal miners, bestialists, and bestialist-coal miners—not a city! But yes, there’s a place to hide there, if that lair hasn’t been discovered. But it hasn’t been discovered—I’m sure of it; I’ve already checked, albeit indirectly."

Ryuek isn’t just talking. He’s also finishing his soup while simultaneously creating highly detailed, high-quality drawings, plans, and maps of Upperstone on the wall behind him. Ilya notes that the fish-eyed man either observed the city or somehow conducted preliminary reconnaissance. The map is very accurate, matching what Ilya himself remembers. But it’s very rough, as if it were sketched from just a couple of frames taken from a bird’s-eye view using “Sketched Landscape” or “Long-Range Mapping.”

***
https://his.ua/img/articles/N8_fSWG4do.jpg

“There was a family left in that city—one of those who remained loyal to me, and for which they paid dearly.” He continues, immediately shattering the solemn atmosphere of loyalty’s victory over treachery. “It wasn’t out of any great sense of honor. They just didn’t realize at first that I’d been terribly wounded. Then they spent a long time deciding whom to sell out to, and in the end, all they could do was put on a brave face and remain loyal. There was no one to sell their loyalty to—no one was buying. But they remember me, and if I find something to tell them—and I will, oh yes, I will—I’ll tell them something they’ll remember forever, and they’ll become useful to us. Even to you. Not to me. You still have a lot to learn, and you, you icy lout, you bottomless pit—you’re all alone, and you yourself will have to learn a lot! So we’ll see, we’ll wait and see what happens."

The rest of the Anchors remain silent, just like the Earthling. They respected their grandfather anyway; even before, they rarely contradicted him—except for Romchik, Lishka, and Razg, the Occultist—but the first one always argues at the end, after he’s heard the arguments. The second one has already been scolded, and the third argues only if the old man touches on his love for street theater, for the young man truly loves all kinds of performances and plays. And his cherished dream was to visit the Crown Theater in the capital, where real gifted actors perform. In every other respect, he’s as obedient as can be, yes.

"You’re not ready. Not ready at all. You’re not fighters—you’re just a bunch of shit. Well, except for you, Iliy, but then again, you’re all alone! It’s very irresponsible of you not to be able to split into duplicates!" He seems to be joking, which more than anything else suggests that Sturgeon is actually pleased—as if his nickname weren’t Sturgeon but Elephant—but he’s joking with such a serious expression that it’s downright hilarious. "We can’t afford to waste too much time, but you need experience—experience working with your gifts. Two decades! We’ll spend two nines in the wastelands, but no more—after that, I’ll get bored of looking at you and listening to your whining! I’ve already marked the necessary lairs; we’ll see how you measure up against the beasts!"

While everything around him pale, revealing varying degrees of fear, anticipation, and expectation, the Earthling mentally notes that Sturgeon won’t get bored. No. It’s just that he won’t be able to maintain a dynamic camouflage over all of them for more than two decades. A camouflage reliable enough that they won’t be found by accident, and no one has yet begun to deliberately comb through the entire—literally the entire—Dead Man’s Ridge. Not yet, anyway. And this, of course, isn’t Ilya’s deduction; it’s simply that Ryuek personally consulted with the Earthling on how best to conduct training and how to provide cover from search operations in a way that wouldn’t interfere with training or earning drops.

Ilya argued until he was hoarse that sending them all out to work as a crowd right off the bat was a recipe for disaster and the deaths of a couple of idiots who’d gotten themselves into trouble. They didn’t have the coordination, the training, or the right personality to start working right away in such a large group—an unholy eleven. At most, a cross formation—with or without a center: four or three subordinates with Ilya covering them. For Sturgeon it’s better not to stand nearby at all and to intervene only as a last resort. Otherwise, they’ll get cut off drops, and training against the creatures is needed first and foremost precisely for the sake of those drops.

“Wait—wait—wait, grandpa! What do you mean, ‘Iliy’?!” And as soon as the Earthling silently pointed at himself, without breaking his intense train of thought, the little brat was blown up. “So you didn't even tell me your name?! What the hell?! I thought we were buddies!”

"You didn't ask," he explained simply, as if to a small child, for if the girl had asked him if he had told her his real name back then, before the ritual, he would have confessed. "And what difference does it make?"

"I feel like a fool now – that's what I am!" She pouted indignantly, folding her arms across her chest and pouting like a mouse.

“Only now?” Ilya, Romchik, Orsh, and even Ryuek all asked at once—so in unison that they even stared at each other in surprise. “Ouch! You little shit!”

It was Romchik and Orsh who uttered the last two sentences, because Ilya had caught the half-eaten piece of salted pork thrown at him from his spatial pocket and set it down on the table next to him, while those two missed the throw. Or rather, Romchik missed it, and Orsh didn’t even try to dodge it.

“O dead Lords of our world, cursed and cursing—why must this befall me?” Ryuek asks into the void, but to Ilya it seems as though he, too, is smiling—or rather, carefully pretending that he, too, is experiencing emotions and feelings. “What cruel and evil thing did I do? Well, yes. I did. And these two weeks will be my punishment for that.”

“One,” Ilya finally said, twirling a simple wooden cube in his hands, the one Lishka had thrown to him again, having previously practiced juggling with it. “One week, and then we can set up the new lair in the city. The one that’s an overgrown village with faggot coal miners. The one called Upperstone—which you, esteemed Ryuek Sturgeon, didn’t tell me about until the very last moment; otherwise, our plans would have been completely different.”

The Sage looked at Ilya—who had now switched to polite manners and a reproachful tone—with a somewhat inscrutable gaze, but to the Earthling, it seemed to convey bewilderment. He wasn’t used to the diver making such remarks, especially with a hint of sarcasm, but he simply couldn’t bring himself to remain silent. Or rather, Ilya wanted Ryuek to think exactly that—to believe that Ilya had truly fallen for the ostentatious “equality in communication” that the fish-eyed man was so diligently maintaining.

"Beneath the city lies a lacuna—already formed, but not yet matured or spreading—the first stage. The axial creature, I’m certain, is close to the second stage or is the second stage itself." Well, for the sake of that look on his face, he’s willing to spend a little more time revising his plans for future mop-up operations in the surrounding area. "Inhabited by corpse-eaters. The axis takes the form of a gnawed-out pit, likely containing priestly relics that were not merely devoured but also assimilated. Full specifications..."

To his credit, not only did he silence Lishka—who was staring at him in bewilderment, having heard nothing but horror stories about the gaps and wanting to ask a million questions—with a single glance, but he also listened to everything Ilya had to say without interrupting. Even more surprising, he not only listened to the end but also found the strength and the ability to swallow his pride, clearing his throat awkwardly and even spreading his hands in a gesture of helplessness. In this disarming admission that, yes, he could have mentioned this detail in advance to his best and only (and therefore best) right-hand man.

"Yeah-yeah-yeah, I really messed up this time, just like in my younger days." Maybe the old man will make up for it and even get his revenge, but that’s still unlikely; he’s just “evil,” not “stupidly evil,” but Ilya really needs to be taken seriously and not kept on an information diet too strictly; for that, it’s worth dancing the cancan on the minefield of the Third-Step Sage’s wounded pride. "Then, yes, we need to tweak the clean-up plan a bit. But we can linger in Upperston a little longer... Perhaps I might even admit that this city isn’t just a barren abode of coal miners and cattle-fuckers... Although no, I’ll never admit that! Never-ever!"

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