Быть Гладу и Хладу / There will be Hunger and Cold: 23. Он собирается показать все, что только может, не сдерживая ни крохи резерва, не заботясь о необходимости отступить

23. He is going to show everything he can, without holding back a crumb of reserve, without worrying about the need to retreat

Camrad_RIP 13.09.26 в 17:02

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Camrad_RIP 12.09.26 в 19:36

Once again, a snowy night opened its arms over the blizzard-swept Deadman's Ridge. Upperstone, being much smaller and poorer than Lazy, had storm protection, not exactly bad, but inadequate under the current conditions. So, while the city wasn't completely paralyzed, most of its population chose to stay indoors. In the poorer neighborhoods, residents abandoned their homes entirely, gathering in large groups, sorting themselves into streets, workshops, and priestly parishes, just to stay warm. This way, they conserved fuel, the very coal for stoves and hearths that kept them from freezing to death these days. Not everyone, however, could afford it, since they'd find plenty of dead bodies after the storm passed. Oh, so many.

Camrad_RIP 13.09.26 в 17:40

Upperstone was located relatively close to Lazy. But that's if you measure distances by lines on a map. There are many kilometers of the Ridge between them, especially with the current weather. However, old Sturgeon didn't want to fall into a trap or expose his inky-scaled face, so he sought approaches to the city very carefully. And at the same time, brazenly, it must be said. Literally hiding in plain sight. Because hardly anyone except a distinguished Prophet or Soothsayer would have imagined that the old man would decide to settle here, so close to Lazy. And his lair, mothballed and abandoned but still functional, turned out to be very well protected.

Camrad_RIP 13.09.26 в 18:21

They didn't enter through the gates. They remained tentatively open, guards standing guard, allowing travelers to pass. But they would have had to knock on the guards' annex, show their faces, and introduce themselves. No one needed to. They wouldn't have been able to blend in with the crowd of newcomers, even if there had been one. Their company was very conspicuous, and they traveled without cargo, which was also an important detail. But Ruyek didn't open the ink passage either. He preferred to use a secret, long-abandoned passage leading directly to the underground shelter complex.

Camrad_RIP 13.09.26 в 18:39

They had no fear of surveillance. The walls were empty, and magical observers or surveillance devices would have been easily spotted by Ruyek; it was very difficult to hide reliably from his eye, which he had unsheathed for this very purpose. Such individuals might not have existed in the kingdom in general, or on the Ridge in particular. The tunnel was intact and reinforced, the stone compressed into a solid monolith, and this wasn't due to the earthly talents of an Enchanter or even a Shaman. A full-fledged Architect was at work here, so there was no sense of magic; there was none in these stones. A rare class, and one more often chosen by locals than by divers, because a community only begins to search for its own Architect once all other vacancies have been filled... often preferring an additional Sage.

Camrad_RIP 13.09.26 в 18:49

The Architect worked here. Ilya sensed it in his gut, with the same instinct as a Wendigo, who barely sensed the building's imperfections, as if it were deliberately feigning non-magicality, devoid of magic as such, hiding its obviously unconventional nature from his senses. Most likely, a dormant, stagnant spirit of the place lingered here after so many years, yet still fully formed and undissipated. The Architect's combination of talents for creating and awakening such a spirit is effortless, but it's still a complex undertaking, and a risky one at that. In basic builds for the first step, it often happens that the Architect literally pours his soul into his work.

Camrad_RIP 13.09.26 в 18:57

It certainly couldn't have happened without "Soul Severance," "Birth of the Hearth," or "Source Germination." Any talent of your choice, but with "Self-Sacrifice" required, or the gifted one had a second step, which is unlikely. Otherwise, that same gifted one would have remembered this place, for purging the owner of such a rare and scarce specialty after completing the shelter would have been imprudent. And if that Architect had lived, having outlived his usefulness, too many would have known about this hideout. Ilya touched the stones, infused them with a bit of power, felt the response, and dripped his cursed blood onto one of the door arches, peering into the nuances of energy until his eyes stung and his sockets throbbed.

Camrad_RIP 13.09.26 в 18:59

You understood everything correctly, Iliy. It's unlikely the old man had mastered the advanced telepathy necessary to sneak into Ilya's head. Rather, he saw his actions, compared them with what he knew about Ilya, and realized the earthling had almost reached the same conclusion. "One of the aliens from another Gehenna helped create this place, and then he was eliminated. But not here, don't worry; everything was done smartly; he didn't have time to curse the stones, didn't manage to merge himself with the guardian."

Camrad_RIP 13.09.26 в 19:00

He spoke these last words not for Ilya, who understood everything himself, but for his anchors, trying to reassure them. But they, lacking the necessary erudition, understood little of the explanation and, just in case, grew even more agitated. Yes, a rare class, but only rare. It's not the rarest, because enterprising natives cultivate Architects for a specific term, for a few masterpieces, into which the poor fellow will pour his all, and then burn out. Here, clearly, they hadn't used a local, but an outsider, who had made a grave mistake in choosing his Lot and talents. However, in his defense, most of the Architect's possible root skills include the ability to "horcrux," to break off a piece of one's soul and infuse it into a structure.

Camrad_RIP 13.09.26 в 19:09

Even more!

Camrad_RIP 13.09.26 в 19:10

The lion's share of their class advancements involves either renouncing the body or tying it to a constructed stronghold, turning oneself into a limited-mobility and highly fortified lacuna. The Earthlings even had one who reached the fourth step, becoming a Wandering Stronghold, having implanted a fully functional Heart within himself, thus ascending to the fourth step. But that man had long ago severed ties with both Earth and his native community, moving to the Broken, and then taking his core and body deep into the wilds, represented by deadly swamps of varying degrees of nastiness and danger. Into the very core, so to speak, of this sector-consuming and gradually spreading plague.

Camrad_RIP 13.09.26 в 19:12

No one ever saw or heard from him again.

Camrad_RIP 13.09.26 в 19:13

How did Ilya guess that this place was created and embodied by an outsider? By his reaction to the blood—not the curse in it, but the blood itself. All outsiders, in one form or another, are considered distant relatives; this kinship, incidentally, underlies many, if not most, of the ritual markers used by divers to search for each other or indicate their location. And his blood didn't react to this place as it should have, which led the earthling to suspect the obvious.

Camrad_RIP 13.09.26 в 19:16

While it's difficult to describe in words the sensations a particular aura response will produce (especially since each class and build alters the response and its perception), there are also full-immersion virtual capsules. There are special simulators created with the help of real, registered divers, which attempted to convey their own sensations during a particular ritual through neural stimulation recordings. It all worked poorly and imperfectly, simply because even a diver on Earth can't experience what their Twin experiences. Well, unless that diver has at least the third step, enjoying the open attributes on Earth.

Camrad_RIP 14.09.26 в 11:15

Needless to say, London AU did attract the very best to create its curriculum, including several fourth-steps. Including the most legendary faculty members and invited legends. It was in one of these simulations that Ilya "learned" to detect the presence of sacrificial echoes in material objects based on marker-like affinities. The sensations weren't quite the same, not quite similar, but the concept was identical. The Earthling knew neither the name nor the fate of this unknown diver, but he still felt an involuntary tingle of irritation. A reminder from the Broken One, a reminder of who he was dealing with and how this case could end if things went wrong.

Camrad_RIP 14.09.26 в 11:17

Or even too well.

Camrad_RIP 14.09.26 в 11:18

"Unsealed. The walls are intact; the Hearth hasn't gone out, though it's dormant. No traps remain, except the one in the toilet. The sealed storerooms need to be opened. But that's tomorrow, and now I'm ordering rest." Sturgeon seemed to be suppressing the urge to yawn loudly, for he, too, was tired, and had barely slept in the last few days, overwhelmed with tasks marked "urgent," "very urgent," and "should have been done ten years ago." "Why are you frozen like marmots before a fox? You've taken apart your chambers, the ignorant, dissolute ones, woe to my old soul! So that by dawn you'll be fresh, healthy, with your strength replenished, and not such fools as you are now! Although, why am I saying this? You will never cease to be fools, even when the sun goes out, when the bones of the world heal, the sleeping thickets awaken, and the Dead themselves come to life; you will still be fools without a drop of brain in your empty skulls! Run from here, while I still retain a drop of kindness, undeserved by anyone here! And you, Iliy, stay."

Camrad_RIP 14.09.26 в 11:22

The Earthling had no intention of going to bed. He knew what the old man wanted to check, throwing off his light vest as he went, revealing the circle on his chest that had reappeared two days ago. They didn't get into the city right away. They had to wander around the Ridge, spending three nights in the snow, either waiting out the latest peak of the never-ending storm or simply waiting for Ruyek to replenish his reserves or perform some rituals. To save time, they had to clear out various creatures, and once the old man even set up camp near an ancient burial ground. A truly ancient one, dating back to the time before the Ridge became the Dead Man's Ridge.

Camrad_RIP 14.09.26 в 14:26

Ilya didn’t know exactly what the old man was doing out there in the blizzard. The old man hadn’t taken the Earthman—who was overly well-versed in all manner of ritual lore—along with him, for a perfectly obvious reason. Yet the undead from the burial ground did come swarming out, even though the Anchors were ready for it. Sturgeon had warned that the dead might strike. They had undoubtedly been stirred up by that faint, barely perceptible wave of magical disturbance that Ilya had managed to catch at the edge of his perception. And so, for half the night, they fought off waves of those undead creatures—yeah. Fortunately, the attackers were incredibly dim-witted, sluggish, and practically harmless, coming at them either singly or in small groups of five or six.

Camrad_RIP 17.09.26 в 08:13

They weren't even skeletons, really—more like bone fragments and shards that had lost any coherent form, held together by rotted scraps of flesh, snow, ice, and dust. One wouldn't normally expect Drops from such things, but that rule didn't apply when they attacked all night long with barely a pause. By the end, the tally exceeded nine hundred. Thanks to Ilya’s presence, even Sleepy managed to snag a handful of Drops; she had armed herself with a combat staff and fought the creatures hand-to-hand, relying on the single combat-enhancement ability in her talent arsenal. It’s just that by the end of the night, they were dead tired. As it was, the twelve Gifted simply got a free leveling-up session.

Camrad_RIP 17.09.26 в 08:17

Ruyek, who returned in the middle of the day—though it was damn near as dark as it had been at night—even shook his head respectfully, then muttered under his breath something about "miscalculating the impulse." The Anchors, exhausted from a sleepless night and having depleted their reserves while dancing inside the cavern-temple—hewn straight into the rock and on the verge of collapse—simply accepted the new orders in silence and prepared to set out. Even Lishka, who always had something to say, remained silent—though her silence was eloquent indeed.

Camrad_RIP 17.09.26 в 08:22

This all means that the one-nine-one ritual cast on Ilya was barely holding up, so oversaturated was he with the drops he'd earned. Of course, if it bursts, the earthling will survive—psychic damage isn't a problem, either—but he could very well suffer an aura spasm, or even damage the altar image. Consider it a wound to the very core of his soul, the part of it that's inextricably fused with the Great Mechanism. Premature activation and rupture of the halo will, of course, reduce the potential for additional essence gain, but he'd rather not lose all the collected drops at once, which could easily fall into the crimson lake, the Vessel of Exaltation, rather than the bloody chalice of the Vessel of Eternity. It's not quite "losing," but he still needs talent development, not anything else.

Camrad_RIP 14.09.26 в 11:27

"Tear it apart," Ruyek said briefly and with utmost seriousness, looking at Ilya with his normal eye and likely activating the magical one hidden under the blindfold. "And don't wait until morning. Go straight to the meditation hall, the one behind the sixth door. A simple circle line, that's all you'll need. Don't wait until morning. It might be too late."

Camrad_RIP 14.09.26 в 15:55

It's nice to be so valued and cared for. But there's always a healthy suspicion—and in Broken, a very, very healthy one—that this is just caring for cattle being led to the slaughter. However, right now, Sturgeon is worried about himself. Ilya's injury poses a risk to his anchors and, consequently, to Ruyek himself. But on the other hand? He doesn't beat me, doesn't try to cut into the ritual structure to extract the Blessing; he even actively helps me develop now and in the near future. What more could Ilya, a Wendigo like him, need?

Camrad_RIP 14.09.26 в 15:59

"Thank you for your advice and wisdom," Ilya said briefly, not even within the bounds of etiquette, but rather within the local holy scripture of the Purifying by Deed, eliciting a chuckle from Ruyek, who recognized the reference to one of the chapters of that terrifyingly chthonic bible.

Camrad_RIP 14.09.26 в 16:08

"I accept well-deserved gratitude with dignity," he replied, using the exact same quote, before waving his hand dismissively. "Off with you now, you temple jester—you scourge of the garden beds!"

Camrad_RIP 17.09.26 в 08:45

Ilya walked on, involuntarily replaying in his mind the text of the temple parable—a story that circulated from Sector to Sector, wherever prayers were offered to the Purifier through Deed. Its form often shifted—sometimes not merely the form, but the very nature of the temple recitation itself—morphing in response to fluctuations in the ruling Party line and distorting the parable’s meaning, at times almost to the point of inversion. Yet the parable of "Two Over Nothing" remained highly popular in this Sector too, even if it was rarely recited during sermons. The plot of the original version had never been recovered—only interpretations of varying accuracy existed—and working with fragments of the original scripture was a task reserved for Liturgists and Theurges of the fourth step (or occasionally the third, though that required severely cripple one’s build).

Camrad_RIP 17.09.26 в 08:47

The joke is that these quotations belong to the two main characters in the parable, the Enlightened Sage and the Wisdom-Hungry One, and their conversation takes place literally suspended above Nowhere, a place of utter emptiness and decay. So, from the perspective of these characters, Ilya was making fun of them both, exchanging polite conversations, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they were a hair's breadth away from complete oblivion. Sturgeon caught the humor, and Ilya was able to discern that the old man would find it amusing, not offensive, and then feel pain. Or perhaps Rueyk's model of playing out a masked character worked, allowing Ilya to construct the old man's character in his own mind.

Camrad_RIP 14.09.26 в 16:09

In general, there are a lot of reasons for paranoia, yes.

Camrad_RIP 14.09.26 в 11:27

Musing on just how difficult it is to read and calculate the reactions of higher steps, Ilya made his way to the meditation hall. It was a crucial facility; among other things, it served as a venue for advancing talents—a process utilizing a structure where the world’s energy and currents were isolated and looped. It offered peace, relaxation, and an absence of irritants—factors of particular importance for gifted individuals whose psyches were already prone to instability. The moment a new talent tier is unlocked, the psyche typically experiences a surge of pressure stemming from the nature of one’s Lot and the mechanics of the System itself. This pressure either spikes or drops sharply, depending on whether one is elevating a compensator or the build's offensive core.

Camrad_RIP 17.09.26 в 08:48

Obviously, it's much more pleasant to endure such stress in a well-isolated and calming place. It could even have soft walls. This isn't a requirement, but for those who've already absorbed more than necessary exposure to the chthonic shit, it could be considered a strong recommendation. Well, you either need to be Ilya, or be bound to Ilya by a very specific ritual. Then you can elevate even very unbalanced builds at any time and under any conditions. Even between battles, if you're willing to take the risk. Although many take that risk. In London AU, during Small Group Tactics, they even taught and practiced the group formation "covering an ally's elevating talent."

Camrad_RIP 14.09.26 в 17:58

Ilya didn't undress, nor did he prepare particularly hard. He merely charged the basic line already drawn on the floor, draining his aura of power to the chant of a couplet of pure invocation. Then he simply lay down, closed his eyes, and turned his gaze inward, to the hazy halo above the stone altar basin, seemingly black with gold and snow-white with blood. It seemed another moment, another second, and this closed circle would be torn apart by the strain, and then a rain of drops would drench everything around him, spilling over the lake, and some even elsewhere. The diver didn't wait for such a result; with a single act of will, he willed it, completed it, stopped it, turned it around.

Camrad_RIP 14.09.26 в 18:02

And then...

Camrad_RIP 14.09.26 в 11:28

ring

Camrad_RIP 14.09.26 в 11:28

will

Camrad_RIP 14.09.26 в 11:28

essence

Camrad_RIP 14.09.26 в 11:28

... everything ended.

Camrad_RIP 14.09.26 в 11:29

To start again.

Camrad_RIP 14.09.26 в 11:29

Tap.

Camrad_RIP 12.09.26 в 19:48

Tap.

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Tap.

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Camrad_RIP 12.09.26 в 19:49