* * *

  The new assignment caught him selecting the security guards, who would have to cover his nowhere noble ass from the angry cws, fangs, and tentacles of all kinds of evil shit. The preliminary negotiation of the terms of the deal was already completed and Stepan just let go of the images of the spirits with whom he was negotiating. The price suited both sides, and both sides - he was sure of it - had already realized the deal would be done, but they had stiputed all sorts of smaller details. Two highly unusual spirits were strong, dangerous, and powerful adversaries, but only if it came to a battle with spirits in the spirit world. In reality, they posed no threat, or rather became so vulnerable that they simply refused to come into it even for generous offerings: at the final stage Stepan will have to literally pull them into Reality, and even create for them a favorable saturation of the territory of the spiritual power. The tter, without skills in totem shamanism, the full power of the forest clearing, and the help of territorial magic, was still a complicated task, even if Stepan could accomplish it, in the sense that he would have to once again create an analog of the clearing and totems if they did not already exist.

  The entities belonged simultaneously to the animal, water, and dark spheres, but they remained quite adequate and capable of dialog, even mencholically benevolent to the shaman, which was rare for the dark ones. Their images-reflections looked like two jellyfish of dark blue, almost bck in some pces as if floating on the waves of an invisible current. Sluggish, vulnerable, and easily destroyed in the material world, in the spiritual world they promised to run like racing bolides, flutter like butterflies, and sting like swarms of Japanese hornets, no less. Not only promise. They had every reason to consider themselves so cool, and at the same time, they also emphasized the increase in their pay. This payment, especially if he wanted not just a one-time contract, but a full-fledged deal, would have to be obtained through the system store because he personally would not be able to afford such reagents for a long time.

  When the negotiations were over, and the spirits had gone about their business, but not far away, remaining within the reflection of the clearing and the surrounding forest in the subtle spheres, his consciousness was pierced with images of the task that had come. Stepan was first pleased, then angry, and then pensive. He was happy about the opportunity to pump himself with the assignment and to replenish the stock of purchasing capacity. He was angry because the assignment was small but with the coloring of the Autogoddess. In general, the young man almost reflexively grabbed the image-inscription “...Liarat si Merrinal, Lady of Gifts and Giver of Gifts, faithful servant of Innes Inney”, so immediately and prepared to throw the assignment into the trash. He was about to do the same here, ignoring the reward of a considerable amount of experience and everything else, but then he realized the read-accepted assignment and became thoughtful.

  System assignment (small) received: make contracts with at least two strong spirits of a charming nature while maintaining standard controls and invocations. Use of contracts already granted in the name of Liarat si Merrinal, Lord of Gifts and Giver of Gifts, loyal servant of Innes Inney will not be counted.

  Reward: half of the remaining experience scale to complete; one of the previously unacquired specially offered system store items; a significant increase in the effectiveness of love spellcasting and suggestive influences.

  At first, Stepan was just a little surprised because it was probably the first time that the Autogoddess, with her supreme will had not approved the use of the same Sleepawalker for an assignment. No, it was understandable that a contract with the senior spirits could not be considered as the fulfillment of the task, but the image phrase was unfamiliar, and that made him pay attention to it. But then, having properly realized the assignment set by Bulk Milf, the young shaman thought seriously. Yes, it was foolish and shortsighted to count on an elite artifact, like a tear-stained pque with the call of the spirit army of dragon fighters. If Stepan understood anything about the Autobogina and its tricks, this item would be one of the “specified” incredibly cool artifacts that could not be used anyway. Like the same jewelry, which allows you to get into women's dreams and make them very vulgar: in theory, you can pump yourself up, and use it for espionage, and stamp double agents by the packs, but in reality, Stepan saw such cases and pumping up in the Hell. No, you don't even need to look at an artifact or a rare reagent, it's all bullshit.

  What was important was the very significant increase in experience. The level had been taken retively recently and had filled up to just under a quarter of the milestone. And another extremely interesting detail was the fact that this assignment did not require the spirits of charms to be used against random victims or to wonk with thoughts of divine tits! In principle, yes, on such terms, yes, if there was no catch - and he was diligently looking for it and still does not find it - then he can try to fulfill the assignment. Yes, it will be necessary to buy at the very minimum in the store, to spend the whole evening and the next day on appeals, but he will cope. The love spells, at the expense of the Autogoddess, he pumped better than any other direction.

  It was said and done. The moment of summoning came. It goes as smoothly and quietly as possible. From the funny details, Stepan noticed that the “depraved development II” seemed to add its bonus to the bonuses from the peaceful training even when summoning such specific spirits. A reason to think about changing the approach to pumping... and then send such changes where they belong. As it is, he's already growing very fast, and with the store, life has improved! Both spirits were summoned without problems, haggled, and pressed to the bare minimum, and generally, they behaved in an exempry manner. If only all sorts of dark or just stupid entities also put themselves and behaved, there would be little fewer difficulties and sorrows in Stepan's life

  The first of the two spirits specialized not in subtle and cunning influence, but in coarse and extremely harsh, in fact, not even a charm, but a direct brainwashing. The entity sucked on the aura in the area of the brain, and through this section of the aura passes to the mental body and begins to fill the mind with corrective and direct images. The image of the master, the desire to obey, the desire to give, the impossibility to disobey, the unwillingness to upset the master, the thirst for approval, the disregard for one's own past, the embedded triggers (two-stage acoustically activated behavioral reactions, if scientifically and correctly, so as not to be looked at as a yman), prohibitions to attack, escape, kill and harm - a standard package of what mental processing of a standard ensving type does to sex-and-not-so-sves and sves. After which they turn out to be obedient and efficient dummies that never lose their inexorable popurity.

  In fact, it is the same as giving the victim to the same specialists that are avaible at any sve market, only here the specialist himself will come on call. And just like in sve markets, it is preferable to first fix the victim well and pump the victim with accompanying alchemy that rexes the consciousness and suppresses the will. Spirit, in principle, is able to change the flow of images adjusting them, as well as the final result, depending on the wishes of the shaman. In theory, it can be used to work with ordinary sves, not just sexual ones, but the spirit is used as its specialty. And now he is sitting in a small piece of cut crystal, as if covered from the inside with a barely visible greenish cobweb, and waiting for the order of the shaman who called him. It is a very valuable thing, in fact, it can be sold or given to someone, only slightly adjusting the conditions for the spirit, so that it knows whose commands to follow. This is no longer silver, no, here they will sell and buy only for gold and still be happy that money - to normal specialists is often not easy to negotiate even with the necessary finances.

  The second of the summons was pced in a golden and beautiful coin. The most common Floren bought from the store. Its nature was quite reted to money and gold. Quite a rare and narrow sphere, even a mixture of these spheres, at first gnce even close to something unpleasantly demonic, but the spirit is still a spirit, not infernal something, just the nature of it is so, strange and greedy in all senses. Actually, the impact of the spirit is such that offering this coin to someone, just showing it, and then activating the contract. The victim will be ready for this coin to give in any position and form, considering such a deal extremely profitable and taken for granted. What is funny, it is to give oneself, to have sex, and not something else, though the most harmless, and to change this effect in the direction of “change the coin for the rest of the treasury” will not work, because it is also a limitation of the nature of the spirit.

  It is a very powerful and penetrating thing, an ultimatum against a defenseless gifted, but good protective amulets will definitely repel such a blow, and not-too-good ones also have a chance to reflect or at least weaken. From the problematic moments: the coin does not correct the memory and does not blur the memories, and the effect of distorted thirst to possess a gold roundel passes for half a day. After that, it is better to be as far away from the victim as possible, or they may stick a pitchfork in his ass. Still, the individual who used such a donation will have a lot of questions about who he paid with a coin with a spirit pnted in it and which one has already come to his senses. Although no, not so, the spirit in the coin is not pnted, he temporarily became this coin and then died, stopped being a spirit, in fact becoming an artifact created from his own spiritual body. It was a difficult concept to understand and an extremely rare spirit, so maybe Stepan had overreacted and not-too-good amulets would be powerless against it, and the good ones wouldn't work properly.

  Is it any wonder that both calls were counted by the Autogoddess as fully complying with the conditions of the completed assignment? A quiet whisper of approval behind him, as if nails were running along his spine, made him jerk habitually, but no more than that. The experience bar had grown normally, the spirit body was marked with the appropriate marks to facilitate the work with spirits of the love charm type, and the aura had undergone a slight modification, simplifying even more the sides of the use of his own gift specified in the assignment. Stepan intentionally tried not to blink, but, as always, the system reward materialized unnoticeably and suddenly - an oblong case made of wood covered with exquisite patterns emerged from the void, and the young man immediately guessed what was stored in that box, without any intuition or system hints. Carefully lifting the lid, which opened easily and silently, he only nodded at his own guesses.

  "Well, who'd doubt it? They've caught up with me." The young man muttered, looking at the snow-white stockings with ce patterns, tightly and neatly folded in his vault, looking as if he was looking at a poisonous insect. In some ways, he was even right because this artifact in anyone's hands is much more dangerous than any caracourt or scorpion. "And I can't throw it away, or someone might find it. And it's not easy to destroy them, because they're more armored than Abrams."

  No, if he set his mind to it, he would undoubtedly ruin this truly powerful artifact, but it would take a lot of effort, as well as time, and maybe he would have to buy reagents. In the end, it was too much trouble just to show his own stupidity, and Stepan decided that one does not look a gift horse in the mouth. There would be many more volcanoes on his way. He could throw the super-artifact in one of these volcanoes, together with the container, if he happened to pass by. Although, no, not together. The package is made of rare wood, the patterns are effective enchantments disguised as decorations, and the box itself is quite suitable as a storage for rare reagents which are contraindicated to be in the fresh air, as they give their magic outside and thus shrink. In the box, shrinkage will stop, as well as the leakage of power.

  After sending rays of goodness to the Autogoddess, who had configured a very normal OP System in such a way that getting something useful out of this System became an extraordinary task. Stepan breathed for a few minutes, gradually accelerating, bringing his body and spirit to a normal bance and replenishing his strength a little. And only then, having finally calmed down, he slowly raised both anchors of the contract simultaneously sending a complex and predetermined chain of images to each of them, which could be deciphered as an assurance of early completion of their contract without penalty payments on their part, as well as with the the absence of any cims for the fact that they had already received full payment and the assurance that it could not be returned in any form. To put it simply, it was something like, “Everyone, get out while I'm being kind, keep the fee, ciao-cacao.” Naturally, the spirits, as well as any other entities possessing a specific mind, perfectly understood the degree of benefit of this or that action, and therefore were not annoyed by such a statement of the question, as well as to ask a hundred times whether the shaman is sure of his order. They only once crified whether they had deciphered the images correctly, and then they really left, taking advantage of the totems in the clearing to quickly dive into their native spheres. Well, the one in the crystal crified, because the minted one left silently, though satisfied with the payment, even the process of resurrection-death did not disturb him.

  A piece of crystal with a spider web inside it cracked and almost burst, which, by the way, could hurt Stepan, forcing him to pull the fragments out of his flesh, and the coin simply faded, as if it were not gold at all, but made of an incomprehensible viscous and easily crumpled material of unknown nature. And even though the young man was a little sorry, or rather greedy, to waste good contracts, which turned out to be not so easy to conclude, but throwing his efforts in vain, he was very pleased, a smile was begging on his face. Never could he have imagined that he would be so uplifted and self-important by being a character from an anecdote. The trickster who'd cheated the cab driver by paying the money but never going.

  The super stockings were hidden under the bed in the vilge house, and Stepan wrapped the case in a clean cloth and hung a couple of separate protective spirits on top, just in case. It was uncomfortable to leave such an artifact unattended, given that it was worth as much as several vilges with all its contents. Even including Stepan, if we took away his System. Otherwise, the work continued, and every day Stepan realized more and more clearly that he was a little bit, just a little bit, drifting on the twists and turns as to the degrees of precautions taken. New traps, new lines of defense, another batch of sealed pots buried around the clearing with offerings and spiritual structures burning in them, which would have to create a complex influence on the territory around. It seemed to him that the system would increase his skills, if not in totemic practice, then in territorial magic, but he was wrong - the System revealed a new talent.

  Received: “basic techniques for building defensive arrays”; significantly increased affinity with higher spheres; significantly increased effectiveness of territorial influences; increased probability of acquiring knowledge and properties of the branch of barriers, druidism, witchcraft.

  The acquired talent is added to the overall Pyer status.

  Stepan had to sit down right there, by the tree and began to absorb the gift into his already creaking brain, roughly assessing both what he had gotten and what he could do with it. And there was a lot to do. It was as if the knowledge had been created for a fierce synergy with practically any of the already existing ones, even love spells and tantric magic. However, the highest form of mutual reinforcement was obtained in conjunction with totems, territorial influences, and work with sources. In fact, he had literally suffered for this entire preparatory operation, during each of the days spent on it. He already had the knowledge that could be referred to this block, but it was just that each of them belonged to a different direction because the three “maximally reted” to the protective arrays of knowledge could not contain them in one way or another.

  Totems are strongest in a long and high-quality defense, territorial influences in general live and exist by that defense. The magical source can not be put in a pocket and taken with you (not at the current level of understanding of their nature certainly). That's why the defense line for maximum squeezing of all the potential from himself and blood from the ill-wishers who came to visit uninvited can be built on the basis of totem shamanism, and at the expense of ordinary calls, and with the help of a bunch of witchcraft practices, and taking into account the experience of a fighter, and with the use of contract reserves from each of the directions of development that he has in the Status. He used all of the above, created successful combinations, as well as tried out a couple of novelties from himself, which resulted in the disclosure of full-fledged knowledge.

  This knowledge touched on all the same topics that he had used to acquire it, only now it systematized the approaches, improved the understanding of the results of the actions already performed and, of course, revealed many new ways. That's when he, who had already evaluated all the ways in which his line of defense could be strengthened, reinforced, and made the training complex as steep as possible, realized that it was time to exhale a little.

  What he had already done was almost everything that could be done quickly, efficiently, and without attracting a flow of expensive resources that would have to be thrown into the furnace of a running steam train. Stepan stood up from the cold ground and shook off his clothes, clearly deciding that he was done with the preparations, building new lines as needed, not paranoia. In fact, he would still spend about a week more going over what had already been done, fitting the individual elements of the built structure to each other and reducing the conflict between those elements, but beyond that, stop.

  He returned to the house and spent the next three days finalizing pns for further actions, testing his creation at the same time. The distance from the clearing to the cabin meant little to him now, and he could successfully control most of the structure and the overall array without getting up from the table and without stopping to reprimand the desperately dumb Meld. Yes, he was also busy teaching the boy, giving him a marathon of herbalist skills, and at the same time telling him how to deal with all sorts of nasty things, not necessarily even spirits, and the same undead. Most of these tricks were unknown to the vilgers - it was one thing to know that a dead man from the grave could be put to rest with silver, it was certainly not a secret. And the idea to roll small silver crumbs into the meat gut of the bait, and then feed the result to a flying ghoul, an ogre, can also be thought of. But more interesting things, like the possibility of passing silver coins through the fire, fusing them, then washing them in the spring river under the spring rain, and then pouring them with his blood, and leaving them for a moon and a half in a box with dried motherwort, wormwood and a couple of magic herbs vilgers have no way to know. And after such treatment, the silver ball could kill weak and wild undead without direct touching, by its mere presence. It also would scare away and burn ghosts. If they are weak and not protected by specific shields in the necromancer's performance.

  * * *

  Stepan didn't know why he was giving the boy a lecture in the style of a young student of the witcher shop, not real, but from Sapkowski's works, but if he listened with such interest, why not? In this case, the boy did not have youthful maximalism with courage, the desire to go right now and show his prowess to put back in graves troubled cemetery. He was just interested to know and listen. And the teacher himself did not skimp on the details of how such creatures can kill a presumptuous idiot hunter who is nowhere near Geralt of Rivia, but merely Meld of the Upper Lyady. Most of such tricks turned out to test very specific and useful against one or a few types of undead, useful in strictly limited conditions, and even then did not give a full guarantee. And if there was no desire to be cunning or if one had one's own strength, one could always defeat them simply by superiority in firepower - a few spirits of the fme sphere, a boost of strength, adding the influence of the wind sphere so there was something to burn, and there was no need for a garlic-sauce-dipped aspen stake in the ass of a gothic vampire, he would burn anyway.

  Though the tter was no longer a fact. Stepan's knowledge said that bloodsuckers in the real-fantasy version, which were the top of the branch of intelligent undead along with lichs and a number of other, more exotic beings, were rarely weak and always possessed some degree of magic. So it's best to fight them using the “just you, me, and the twelve combat mages behind my back” method, rather than having a fair fight in the style of Vanya from the glorious city of Helsinki. However, the Earthman told Meld about vampires or other higher undead only in the style of identification methods, and the advice on active counteraction in case of gastronomic interest to his own person was the same for all cases of life: run, bitch, run. Preferably to water or a consecrated temple, and it is very desirable to run faster than the other runners.

  The next assignment was a small one. It required working with moon-type spirits and doing a simple ritual to accumute moonlight, which he had done before, even before coming to this vilge. He was able to perform the job again literally in passing, without even going to the clearing, a couple hours and the backyard was enough. No songs, dances, or ritual signs, only the elements of his neckce id out around the young man sitting on the ground and a small totem to the side, and two hours of silent and intense spiritual exercise, which resulted in an increase in the effectiveness of working with the spirits of moonlight, as well as a small, fist-sized, slightly illuminating pebble. No, it did not glow from radiation, but it was just its natural and magical property: sityr-amol, which in transtion from an ancient nguage means “moonlight stone”, absorbed this light and then gradually gave it back. It was not a bad ritual object, though Stepan didn't need it right now. It wasn't even a consumable, it could be used a lot and often. However, it was also quite effective in the opinion of any shaman who didn't have access to the store from the System it waste of resources.

  In the meantime, two more ships came to the vilge, but Stepan did not see them at all. Each time they arrived in the afternoon, when he was busy with shamanic affairs, and stayed just long enough to buy supplies in one case, and in the second to rake up all the free and not so free ropes that the vilge had. If to believe the swearing of the merchant, the destructive element thrown out by a kick in the ass without payment for drunkenness had managed to spoil some of the rigging before being kicked out, and it turned out to be a big mess. Well, the river is not the sea. Here the situation was much simpler and the damage to the rigging, as well as the spoige of the remaining stocks did not lead to the loss of the boat, but still, the peddler was wildly furious and promised to find the drunkard and skin him alive. He was even more furious when Kirik wouldn't let him buy the ropes for nothing, because the experienced swimmer knew perfectly well not only the price of them, but also how lousy it was to sail without rigging, maneuvering with oars, and experience of the helmsman.

  "He, the honorable Pann, can say whatever he wants, but the very fact that the crew didn't notice their rigging being cut, and other trifles.... It seems to me that it wasn't for drunkenness that the vilin was thrown out. It was just an excuse. To throw someone out in the middle of a voyage without pay, no, that's not the way to do it." Headman expined his actions not very satisfied with everything that had happened. "According to the River Law, to leave a drunken man on the shore with his things, not even in a town, but at a fishing outpost, it is necessary to doze off at least at the post before the attack of the river's dashing scum. And for such a thing they won't throw you out of the boat. You can swim straight after the corpses overboard right into the cold water, if you can. No, Pann, it seems to me that it's not all clean. The ropes of the peddler were cut by some of those who stayed on the ship, from the shipmates of the abandoned, namely the sailors, not the peddler's guards. The others didn't notice, and those who did close their eyes. And they cut them expertly, I say, to get the boat moving, but without risk. It's nothing to the men, they're used to steering with oars, but the goods, especially perishable goods, and with such a dey...."

  Stepan only nodded to himself, but he made another note to remember that no matter how Kirik tried to pretend to be a simple man, he had a great deal of intelligence in his head, and behind his slightly thinned hair hid an analytical mind and keen attention to detail. More and more questions arose involuntarily about how many such little things, from which a whole picture is formed, he had noticed in retion to the shaman named Pann, who had come to his vilge. How many he noticed, what did he put together, and what conclusions he came to, for obvious reasons not discussing the conspiracy blunders with the conspiracy man himself in the person of a fellow isekai? Of course, he sent dream spirits to the headman, but even with the increased skill he could only say that Kirik did not intend any evil, did not talk much about the magician, did not prepare a setup, and did not call familiar svers by owl mail. Such thoughts gave him a headache, so he resolutely returned to his work, finishing preparations for the first dive separately from his meat shell.

  This st detail was a new belt, bracelets, and neckce, specially made so that their image could be taken with him into the spirit world. He had created small and not-so-small amulets of this nature many times before, so that their material beginnings would no longer mean anything, but the reflection would continue to work. The trick is simple and, in general, basic, the essence of the same houses of spirits, but without the spirits. Something simir to the way the same spirit of greed in the gold coin changed the nature of its anchor, only now there was no spirit left in the anchor, only the changed essence of the material. What he had pnned was no longer closer to amulet-building and totems but to witch artifacting. There was enough knowledge to fulfill his pn now. All he had to do was to work a little bit more and purchase in the System store, having spent almost all the stock and once again refusing the special offer. He skips the special offer even with pleasure.

  The small and exquisite-looking pendant was, first of all, a woman's pendant, and secondly, it could only be worn by a woman, but it had its own properties. First of all, of course, it was a protection artifact of a very high level, as if it was made by a master artifactor, and at a level closer to the top of the rank than to its beginning. Poison detection, curse neutralization, thought protection, and a pretty sure physical and magical barrier field for emergencies. But, as with the stockings still lying under his bed in the case, that was only the tip of the iceberg, the deliberately revealed essence behind which lurked the second. The pendant, which looked like the sprouts of flowering grapes braiding a milky-white stone that looked like a pearl but was not, might well have begun to glow with a light that was barely visible even in the darkness, and that was where the fun began.

  The glow causes a gradual increase of trust, disposition, submission, and passion towards the female owner of the pendant - exactly the female, at activation it is necessary to focus on separate nodes of subtle bodies, which males do not have - and also reduces suspicion and forbids even to begin to suspect the owner of the jewelry in anything bad. This in itself is not bad, but much more dangerous is the fact that this glow is fixed on a single target, without being detected by most of the scanners, acting not outwardly, but in itself. There is a gradual adjustment to the aura and defense of the target, always only one, and extremely imperceptible and very insidious - if you give enough time, then even the top defense of the mind will gradually become ineffective and only then the affect on the mind in general begins. In fact, you can come to a dinner party with this pendant, and then for a few hours of cheerful conversations unnoticeably open the defense of the host or hostess of the ball, suggest a walk in the garden, and already there to finish full-fledged brainwashing, without raising arms at all. And even the victim's guards following in the distance would not notice anything. It would be enough just a conversation, a dialog, and nothing more. Stepan was quite well versed in magic, the effect of the level and simply obscenely huge arrays of encyclopedias filled in the head, and therefore clearly understood: even if the scale and damage of this pendant with a pte calling dragon-bearing spirits are not comparable, but the complexity and skill of execution of the imposed charms there are two or three times higher, at least. And it costs even cheaper, which is much more hirious, causing rage at the injustice of the universe.

  Stepan even wondered why his namesake would need this pendant, so fortunately offered by the Autogoddess, who had found a Chosen One to match her. There is a clear impossibility to use this artifact in the right way and to the full hundred percent if you don't have tits and there is something dangling between your legs! What, to distort the auric nodes, hanging over the disguise, or what? It won't help, the pendant has full synchronization with the user's aura on dozens of levels, it's in the fucking help! It would be easier to change his gender than to build such a strong disguise and risk injuring himself, but somehow the guy doubts that even Stepan would go for such a trick.

  Stepan fell asleep with this thought reluctantly, even a little anxiously, though there was nothing to be anxious about. All night long he was troubled by vague and viscous dreams, in which there was no exact plot, but each fragment seemed to be a part of a story he had not seen at all. Especially remembered was a small and cozy tavern, in which gathered a very unusual company, all human, but somehow not so much. Stepan recognized himself, hugging a portable totem pole, as thick as a log and as long as it, but he also saw others with whom he felt an incomprehensible kinship. Some pale man in his thirties with bck-painted lips and eyes with no less bck contact lenses, who had managed to enter the anonymous imageboard through a mirror-polished tray. A little to the side sat chatting with two of his yearlings with autistic faces, staring at nothing in front of them and not moving their pupils. Only one of them was dressed in a cssic fantasy mage's robe, and next to him was a cool staff made of magic-infused psionite, and it was normal, not like Stepan's, and the other one was dressed in an earthly way, in jeans and a sweatshirt, with worn-out sneakers on his feet and a pink children's backpack near his feet, but somehow he seemed even more dangerous than a mage armed to the teeth and armored to the brim.

  SpoilerSome pale man in his thirties with bck-painted lips and eyes with no less bck contact lenses, who had managed to enter the anonymous imageboard through a mirror-polished tray. - it's Kostik from They never called, yet he is here. The rest are from Avada's other works.

  [colpse]The third person in their company, who seemed to be the ringleader, was a tall, athletic, and very beautiful woman of Asian appearance, about twenty-five years of age, carrying a pair of very nicely enchanted daggers at her belt, and a very ordinary earthly revolver. The composition was rounded out by a strange and dreadful man in his forties, dressed as a Goth with bck lips, no less, who came from the kitchen of this unknown tavern. Also dressed in a cssic three-piece suit according to Earth fashion, he seemed both very sturdy and wiry, and somehow unpleasantly aged, as if fading, which was only supplemented by the unnaturally bck color of his eyes, but this bckness was somehow viscous, alive and moving. The net of inky-bck veins, now and then appearing under the skin of his face, continuously moving like worms, added to the ominousness. In his hands he held a huge cauldron of fresh and steaming pif, so heavy that when it was pced on the table it even sagged a little, though it was firmly made of thick pnks. The whole company welcomed the appearance of the pif with joy and immediately began to pour it into bowls for themselves, paying no attention to the appearance of the strange cook or to each other.

  This picture reeked of something simultaneously unknowable and murky, but also homely and cozy, somehow close to home. For some reason it seemed to Stepan, watching the whole scene, that they were all somehow connected with each other, as if by an invisible and unbreakable chain, but he could not realize this thought, nor could he understand or see the chain - he woke up. He woke up fresh, awake, and full of some vague premonitions, ready for new incredible accomplishments.

  * * *

  Perhaps that's how Shakespeare felt when he closed the st sentence of his Macbeth with a dot, as Stepan felt now, looking at the items lying in front of him. They could be described in one short phrase, even a combination of words: "The power of cash." Creating two bracelets, a neckce, and a belt, Stepan spent all the accumuted stocks of purchasing power, shoveled the reserves to the bottom and it is still very convenient to him came in the asset two small assignments. Material goods in the form of a fully working amulet from the curses and no less working billet for the totem of the animal sphere also turned out to be not superfluous, but put aside. All attention, will, and effort went to his new toys, the st element, the ck of which separated the young man from the execution of the pn. Outwardly, his new toys looked pin and almost identical - a leather cord with a lot of knots, and between these knots small cy and bone rectangur tablets, each with a cubist abstract picture on one side and a bloody thumbprint belonging to Stepan on the other.

  In fact, they were not spirit houses, but spiritually processed material, so densely processed that its spiritual reflection was no longer holding on to the matter so tightly that Stepan could grab the neckces with a ghostly grip right now and pull the reflection toward him, leaving the useless matter lying where it was. He could, but it was too early to do it, and it would take a long time to pull the reflection and the matter back together, so he didn't want to try it just for fun. He had already checked the efficiency of the new tool anyway. He recognized it as satisfactory and would check it more than once before actually stepping out of the body.

  In the center of the clearing, right next to the main bulk of totems, there was a bed made of small ft stones, each the size and thickness of an Apple tablet, and on top of this bed, there were many sharp and jagged patterns, incomprehensible, but slightly illuminating. Not only strengthening the call but also protecting the ownerless body from unpleasant situations, as well as simply protection, built into the defense array of the whole gde. This is the bed he'll be lying on when the real extreme begins, but until then he needs to test a lot and make at least one test exit in the safest possible conditions. Just to get used to the new sensations and to realize what he is even capable of with his modification and transformation of the spirit when only this spirit will be left of him.

  It didn't happen on the same day. No, he'd taken a break again. He sat with a cup of honey brew at another vilge festival celebrating the arrival of winter, got a little nervous, checked his new gear one more time, and only then did he lie down. The stone chilled the body but warmed the aura, literally stimuting it to push the already willing spirit out of the body. For anyone who wasn't a shaman, or even a badass shaman, lying on such a bed was fraught with trauma to the subtle bodies and subsequent unpleasant death, not to mention the way Stepan had adjusted the bed solely for himself. He felt himself quite comfortably, only a slight tickle in his aura prevented him from rexing, which was not surprising - it was contraindicated for him to rex now. Maybe some of the shamans risk leaving the body when they fall asleep, immersing themselves in meditation and maximum peace. In some ways, the move is correct, because so the risk is less and the exit is smoother, but as a result, the spirit out of the body may well not realize that all this is not a dream and do not remember why it was all in the first pce.

  For an ordinary shaman's apprentice supported by a more experienced mentor, it is even logical in its own way. The mentor will let him get used to it and gently stimute the thinking transferred to the aural carrier, bringing the missing brains back to their pce. So to speak it will wake you up without waking you up. The Earthman had no mentor, only himself, but he had a strong subtle body and a habit of controlling his own spirit, so he expected to go for the tougher option and not fail. The tickle turned into a tingling sensation and a strong, yet steady, wind at his back as if he were standing in front of a fan. He felt as if he were being literally lifted up on the currents of this breeze, embracing everything and making it float above the ground.

  After about five heartbeats, it became clear that it was not his imagination. Attempting to perceive the surrounding reality caused him to perceive it even excessively. Ordinary sight didn't work at all, nor did hearing, smell, touch, or sense of bance, but their spiritual and magical counterpart was repcing all of those things with more. He saw more, realized and understood in a way he could not before, and saw the obvious solution in pces where before there was only an insurmountable wall. The world had changed, though there was still something recognizable in it, but only if you deliberately did not look where the recognizable ended.

  The clearing was the same, only incredibly sharp as if every bde of grass and leaf had been rendered by a top-level Photoshop master. The clearing was permeated with countless threads and knots, woven into a multiyered and extremely complex openwork structure. As if it were a dome, a net, and bearing walls at the same time. These elements were also seen as peculiar currents, as if pipes, along which some or other entities were drifting, slowly and conscientiously performing the task assigned to them. At the base of the clearing, not so much physical as metaphorical and just as “meta” physical, were totem poles, numerous auxiliary ones, a smaller number of main ones, and a single central one, but they did not look like the usual image. The idea of calling them spirit dormitories had never been truer-they seemed at once unchanged, remaining the same size, but growing to the scale of a high-rise, threaded with windows, passages, corridors, rooms, and separate segments.

  There were not enough colors in the vocabury to describe those that opened to the shaman's gaze, the long-studied spirits were seen from a completely new side, and these visions were not always pleasant, but inevitably captivating. The measured pulsation of the entire protective structure was mesmerizing in its completeness, but also disappointing in its incompleteness, for only after being in such a profoundly abnormal state did Stepan begin to notice the fws in his creation even more acutely than he had noticed before. He did not immediately notice his bed, from which at that moment there seemed to be streams of power, feeding the spiritual body and preventing it from losing touch with Reality; he did not immediately realize it was right under him, under that point of coordinates absent in the spiritual world, where Stepan himself was hanging, oscilting together with the streams of Ether. And when he noticed it, he did not realize at first that he was seeing his own body, which now seemed dull, faded, and as if poorly distinguishable against the background of the extravaganza of colors and paints.

  No wonder, for his spirit, was not in this shell now, having left only the flesh and those fragments of aura which had not left the flesh together with the spirit. So, he looks dimly to himself, as he looks at the carefully removed and lovingly ironed suit. He wandered around the clearing a little more, evaluated his work, looked at the subordinate spirits guarding him from all sides, and even communicated with them all. He was amazed at how effectively their images could be understood. And no less significant was the realization that in such a state the marks on his spirit had a noticeably stronger effect on his surroundings - the same Blessing of the Spheres or the Mark of the Roots had increased in effectiveness, according to his personal feelings, though not twice, but by seventy percent exactly. He wanted, sincerely wanted to try to go outside the clearing and wander at least in the backyard of the familiar house, not inside it, but he resolutely stopped himself. This was a trial run, he had not yet deployed all the pnned defenses and had not called the best defenders. Not today and not now, there would be time for a full expedition. Though, he was tempted to change his mind at this very moment, to change his mind and step off the cliff in a daring dive, discarding the superfluous and disregarding reassurances. He intuitively understood that a little more and was guaranteed to receive some of the specific and not ordinary system knowledge about leaving the body or staying out of the body.

  The potential reward he could not be sure of was not worth the risks and possible injuries so, pragmatic and bored Stepan came back to the center of the clearing, activating, directly from his spiritual state, the reverse mode of his bed. The wind blew gently and strongly in the opposite direction, allowing him to bind himself to his body without wasting energy on keeping the streams of ether from carrying him off somewhere far away. First he-spirit removed the reflections of his belt, bracelets, and neckces, putting them back in pce and connecting them to the material anchors, which in the real world looked not even dim, but almost invisible, even less significant than earth and stones, especially if everything around him was so imbued with spiritual power. Funny, but thanks to the contrast he could distinguish the foundations of his creations since they seemed like specks of emptiness on the fierce beauty of the universe. Only after he had finished connecting the images of his artifacts did he slip into his body, putting it on as easily as he put on his usual clothes in the morning.

  Stepan woke up with a very strange sensation, and he woke up exactly, because his body, as soon as the native spirit returned to him, immediately fell into sleep, even if for a couple of minutes, no more. He felt strange as if he had been asleep for a long time, but he woke up too early and didn't want to do anything, and his head hurt a little. He was back to normal in just a couple of seconds, just by running his own power through his aura, but he made a mark for himself. He made a lot of marks, lying down like that and putting thoughts into the system notebook, mostly all sorts of “redo”, “supplement”, “fix” and “this here is fine”. Standing up from the stone, stretching a little, and looking at the experience bar that had grown to four-fifths of the new level, Stepan began to do, change, fix, and prepare - the test had been successful, the only thing left was, as they would say on Earth, not to screw up in the production.

  He realized that such preparations couldn't be done in a couple of hours, so his next expedition to the spirit world would take at least a day, but more likely more. It's a big risk, but the result should be really outstanding. If without training and in the thick of the fire, the System will inevitably reward him for such feats. But, since he didn't want to go into the fire and had already spent on preparation, now, he only had to repay the expenses. In fact, of course, he wants to walk around the world of spirits for a day or two, or even more, not for fun and the desire to end his life. His knowledge clearly indicated that such raids for a long time are practiced by many shamanic traditions. One exit from the body for a day will give much more than seventy-two for one hour, many times more.

  So such techniques were used everywhere, if, of course, one had the skill to exist for so long in an alternate state, the strength to maintain that existence, the willpower to continue to realize oneself in such an unusual state, and the means to provide such a luxury for oneself. Contract spirits, numerous tricks, special reagents, strengthening rituals, as well as colleagues, retives, and mentors (or students), which will follow the abandoned body and will not let you die foolishly are also important. Stepan could either provide all this himself, no worse than others, as with spirits and training, numerous protective constructions, which will cover no worse than a couple of colleagues, as well as his modifications of the spiritual body, which in general will allow to immediately begin to realize themselves in a new state and effectively act.

  But even with all this, he was not zy to go to Kirik, to eat another pie from his wife, whom he had not seen in person yet, but already respected immensely, even more than Kirik, and also to inform him that for the next week, or even a decade, no need to send Meld with food. The shaman will go to the forest and shamanize there, it is not worth worrying and considering him eaten by wolves too, as well as to organize rescue expeditions. The protection of the clearing averts the eyes, and before the decisive phase of the pn, he will bring it to the afterburner and paranoia mode, which can kill a random traveler. Of course, there was still an option in which he urgently needed help, the spirits would not be able to provide it, and people simply would not reach, but this is from the category of nonsense. If he found himself in a situation where all his cherished training would not save him, then Meld, who had accidentally reached the totemic clearing would not be able to help him, even if he sincerely wanted to.

  "Gotch, honorable, it's clear to me, I won't send the boy with food, let him help someone else or at least stay out of the way." Kirik agreed calmly and without unnecessary emotions, but Stepan did not like his next question, even though he did not let his emotions show on his face. "Honored Pann, tell me honestly only, here. Shall I forbid the children and everyone else to go into the forest any time soon? Don't misunderstand me, Your Magic, but I know how it is when something doesn't go according to pn."

  "Well, then I'd better not go," Stepan admitted frankly, monitoring the man's reaction with a couple of additional spirits pnted in his own aura in addition to the one he already had, as soon as the topic of conversation became a little slippery. "There won't be anything directly dangerous there, and I've closed off my clearing from prying eyes myself, but I'm not sure. When I come back, you can go mushrooming again, everything will be fine."

  "Heh, to the mushrooms, in winter, oh, Your Magic, you know how to say it like that, I'll have to memorize it, hehehe. Now I'll know how to send someone to gather mushrooms in the forest in winter." Stepan realized he had made a mistake with mushrooms, but didn't care what they went to the forest for in winter, for strawberries of a special cold-resistant breed or magic cherries for real heroes. "All right, good, I'll twist everyone's tails and ears, and you, as soon as you come back, tell me right away so that I don't worry about you or my assholes. They're all my retives, like children, sometimes not the dumbest ones."

  Smirking in response to such a fttering characteristic of the vilgers under his charge, with whom the poor headman had turned gray so early, Stepan finished his pie, said goodbye to Kirik, and went back to his room. Still, there were really important days ahead, and he seriously expected to close not only the almost-taken level but also the next one, not to mention a couple of specific knowledge, that could be obtained as a result of out-of-body travel. He was no longer nervous, just burned out after so much preparation time. If he managed to get into trouble and get himself killed, then it was just unclear how else he could avoid it. The offer to sell himself into svery to a pretty elven magician with a great passion for shamanism and young human shamans should not be offered, no one would offer anyway. And he with such offers would be fried by lightning by these same elven magicians, that's for sure.

  This time he dreamed at night of numerous air battles, where he, riding on a jet barrel with beer, leaving a trail of beer foam behind him, shot down the test generation MiGs with blows of paired enchanted scoops, making obscene gestures in the face of shocked ejected pilots. And then one of the pilots, waving his arms very quickly like a bumblebee, caught up with his jet barrel and, removing the oxygen mask from his face that prevented him from speaking, brazenly decred that he could not physically fly the beer barrel for so long, because the beer in it should have run out long ago. Immediately the foamy beer tail, which had begun to thin and shrink, made sounds like a pipe clearing, and the keg with its pilot flew downward, to the mocking ughter of the pilot waving his arms. Stepan shouted to him that he couldn't fly like that either, because it was anatomically unreal, but he only ughed even more mockingly and said that he hadn't passed anatomy at school.

  Stepan woke up abruptly, almost falling out of bed, and for almost a minute he thought what a fool he was that he had not thought of simply plugging the hole in the barrel with his finger and flying on the remnants of beer without a foamy tail. Only after bemoaning his stupidity for about three minutes and successfully washing his face did he finally wake up and realize what a crazy dream he'd had.

  * * *