From the asked question I got goosebumps. Yes, now I understand everything. Apparently, my attitude to this whole situation was on my face, because Seeress added.
"However, in your case, it's not so bad. You got your Cthulhu when Azathoth decided to participate in one of the games as a source of superpowers. He voluntarily committed himself to follow the rules of the Game, so as long as you participate in the next game, he will not devour you. In addition, you can listen to the mood of your symbiont. If he's not happy with you, then you're going to break the rules of the Game. If he is watching you, it means that your game has attracted divine attention of Azathoth, and you must continue to make every effort to win. Well, when your time comes... it is quite possible that Azathoth will allow you to live on and amuse him with your actions.”
Yes, a great prospect, what to say. I don't have any words, just swears. Well, at least now I have a free sensor of the 'legality' of my actions. If Azathoth doesn't mind if I release a game figure, then who will dare challenge his decision? And such scam as the release of a prisoner from the most secure prison in the universe will not pass by his attention.
"Well, thank you for your answer.” - I nodded.
“You are welcome.” - Eternal Seeress smiled. – “I will answer to any questions about the future and the past. However, according to the agreement, I do this only in exchange for the appropriate fee. Your today questions were paid by Being using the Phoenix’s heart. If you ever decide to visit me again, you should save something valuable, like your tails.”
Uh, what? My tails are dear to me as a memory. Anyway, I get a hint, so I'm going to wrap it up.
I grabbed the glowing ball with coordinates and placed it in my mind. Since it was just a set of information, the 'copying' went smoothly. However, as with other Stargate addresses, my address was disposable and had to be erased after use. So, I put all received information in a completely isolated area of memory, so that it would not erase anything necessary along the way.
After saying good-bye to Seeress, I threw back the cloth that covered the entrance, went outside, and squinted in the bright sunlight. It took me a few seconds to remember that I was actually supposed to be in the dungeon. When I turned around, there were no doors behind me. Only the solid wall of a house.
As I walked down the street, I began to plan my next move. To be honest, I didn't want to put my head in lion's mouth. But I didn't have much choice. If it's not Cthulhu, then Being will devour me. And I don't know what's better. I stopped in the middle of the street and looked at the cats playing in the shade of a tree, then I gave up and went to the furry hunters. Being’s quest is not going to run anywhere. I'm sick of running around with my tongue out. So, I'll take a little vacation in Ulthar.
With that thought in mind, I lay down on the grass and watched the cats. A couple of kittens immediately chose me as a means of camouflage, behind which they could hide from the 'prey'. However, I myself turned out to be a 'predator' and caught one of the most impudent kittens to caress and cuddle. While I was having fun, in such a simple way relieving stress, there was some commotion on the streets of the city. Someone was running somewhere, shouting something, but I didn't pay attention to it, immersing myself in my world of entertainment.
After a few hours, the sun set, the evening twilight came, and the furry predators went out to hunt. Surprisingly, there were a lot of mice and birds in the bushes and grass, which the cats caught and devoured whole and in parts. Some particularly brave of the cats tried to hunt me, but as punishment for such an attempt, they were subjected to forced groping, after which the 'hunters' ran away from me in upset feelings from the realization of my superiority over them.
Only after about a week later that I felt rested enough to continue completing of the 'epic difficulty level quest'. During this time, all incomprehensible fuss around calmed down and the city again turned into a sleepy kingdom of cats.
I got up from the grass and headed for the nearest forest. A couple of curious cats followed me. I caught one of the 'spies' and carried it on my arms listening to its purring. In the forest about half an hour's walk from the city, I found a small clearing and used the magic of Order to create a real Stargate with the design of the Ancients. However, there was no 'dialer', because the address had to be entered by magic.
After making sure that the Stargate meets the 'specification', I released the cat, moved a few meters away and used the address of the Unknown Kadath. I heard some shouting from behind, but I ignored them and went quickly through the portal.
I stepped out of a circle of light shining inside another portal device that looked suspiciously like the same Stargate designed by the Ancients. I was standing on a stone platform with a colonnade around it. The place looked deserted and desolate. The sky was hidden by clouds, and the land was dry and barren. As far as eye could see, all around was dotted with strange glowing crystals, inside which froze all sorts of 'prisoners'.
I went ahead, following the path indicated in the Seeress's message, while examining the contents of the stasis traps. As I'd been warned, magic didn't work here. Even the Chaos and the Order was unavailable to me. But the design of the stasis installations looked suspiciously like the works of the Ancients. Most likely, the Ancients copied the design from even older samples of technology. And now I could observe the very original standard of appearance of 'ancient and advanced technology'.
To my surprise, the stasis traps contained not only living things, but also various kinds of artifacts. Each 'prisoner' was accompanied by a plaque with a brief description of his name, achievements, and the crime for which he was here. And if I passed by all sorts of monsters without much interest, the 'divine artifacts' my greed insistently offered to 'release' and use for my own purposes.
As I remember Being said, that if I did the job, I could get a reward. It did not promise to reward me, but only spoke of such a possibility. So, I should 'take the initiative' and take the award my myself. Isn't that what's expected from me? I asked this question to the parasite, but it ignored me as usual. Well, let's assume that everything that is not forbidden is allowed.
In a few hours I reached the place I wanted. I was not bored on the way, because I felt like I was in a museum. The exhibits were very interesting, and I was not in a hurry, reading the texts on the tablets and considering the most interesting specimens.
My target was a pretty girl. Her figure and face were perfect. Only large curved horns on her head a little spoiled the image of ideal concubine, leathery wings behind the back and a thin black tail with a 'heart' at the end. But what surprised me most was her weapon. It was like a bazooka like size of her. It was clearly high-tech. However, while we are in dream world, it was only an image. And in this place, the weapon wasn't supposed to work at all.
Photo:
[http://img1.reactor.cc/pics/post/%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%82-%D0%B1%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%8B%D1%88%D0%BD%D1%8F-%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B2%D1%8B%D0%B5-%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%B8-1398229.jpeg]
I glanced at the sign attached to the exhibit and read the text.
‘Zinovia Reinhardt. Game figure. Won ninety-nine high-ranked games in a row. Sentenced for promising to shove her spiritual weapon into Yog-Sothoth’s ass'.
Ha-ha-ha!!! An excellent reason to imprison absolute champion. I can feel a hand of experienced schemers. But to win ninety-nine games is pretty good. I participated in sixteen, but only one of them was ranked.
I sat down and started to study the stasis device. It had a small screen and keyboard. After a quick run through the options, I found that to disable the trap, I need to enter the correct password, despite the fact that the password itself was changed at intervals of a thousand times in a second. So, it was necessary or to able to enter a twenty-digit number in less than millisecond, or... predict the desired combination in advance and enter the last digit at a certain point in time.
Now I understand why a probability mage is required. I could not directly influence the future, but I still had an experience of viewing and choosing the right options of future. Although this was a dream world, the laws of this place formed a certain reality, and predicting the future here was quite possible.
I sat down in a comfortable position and meditated on my options for the future. The task, of course, was not an easy one. Password selection was complicated by the fact that each time you click on the button, the entered number affected the generation of future passwords, which made the selection of the desired combination even more difficult. The number of possible futures was so vast that any normal wizard would have gone mad just trying to view them. But I am not normal mage, so, I immediately asked myself: if gods want to release some prisoner, will they sit here and guess a password?
It was obvious that a normal god would consider it below his dignity. Which means it's much simpler. There is a single password that picks itself during the process of typing it on the keyboard. So here I either had to know the correct code in advance, or just see a future event where the code is typed by itself, just because it needs to be typed. Here the chances of guessing the password are quite simple. Either I guess it or I don't. Fifty - fifty. Without another second's hesitation, I began to type the code based on my intuition. After all, I've watched Alex Browning's actions long enough to understand how it's done. And he was the chosen Probability Wizard who never made mistakes.
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After a few seconds, the stasis device beeped softly and shut down. A glowing crystal 'slowly melted’, releasing its filling.
“Hi.” - I greeted Zinovia, standing up to my feet. – “I am Atman. Your boss is calling you to work.”
She crunched her neck as she examining me and my surroundings, then shifted her grip on her weapon and stepped off stand of the stasis device.
"Who's our boss now?" - She asked unexpectedly in a harsh voice. That's not what you expect from a girl whose appearance screams like 'take me'.
“Being.”
"What kind of being?" - Girl did not understand me.
"A Being of the highest order, whose greatness your primitive mind is simply unable to perceive.” - I literally repeated the phrase that the owner of this name told me.
"Ah, that Being. Such a tricky bug. He personally put me here.”
"Do you know him?"
“We know each other. By the way, not the worst player option. At least he does not give obviously impossible tasks, plus does not bother with his advice and teachings, what and how to do.”
"Yes, it's about him.” - I agreed, looking at the almost naked figure of my colleague.
“Well, come on, let’s start.” - Zinovia demanded.
"Start what?" - I did not understand.
"Let's start demanding that since you've freed me, I have to give myself to you right here and now."
To be honest, I had this thought in my head. But the situation and the environment were not quite disposed to such a development of events.
"Maybe some other time." - I refused. - "I'd love to fuck you, but I don't see the point of having sex in Dream World. It's all simple dream. One visibility all around.”
"Are you doing me a favor?" - The girl got angry, believably playing out the offended innocence. - "Do you think I want that so much?"
"Yes, that's what I think.” - I said hastily. - "Let's get out of here."
The girl cutely pouted her lips and went towards the portal, erotically wagging her ass.
"Can you get out of here by yourself?" - I shouted after her.
“I'll figure it out.” - She answered irritably.
Well, no one pulled her tongue. I think I'll stay here and pick up my reward. I went in the opposite direction, away from the portal. As the results of observations showed, the farther into the forest, the thicker the guerrillas. I mean, with each step, the exhibits in the museum around became more advanced and promising.
Now there were not only working stasis installations, but also inactive ones. I also carefully avoided them. I would not like to 'get caught' in one of the traps simply by negligence. Being will explode with laughing from such ending. In such case I am sure that no one will save me from here.
So, gradually moving forward, I came to a territory where something similar to the remnants of the world from which the prison was made. There was nothing in the vicinity of the portal at all, except for the clustered stasis installations. And then there were some ruins, half-rotted stumps and just rough terrain. The 'stasis installations' themselves were also met much less often, hiding from eyes of passers-by behind all sorts of obstacles.
Once again, looking around the horizons opening to me, I noticed more or less preserved ruins about a kilometer away. Interested, I headed straight to them, only taking in the contents of the surrounding traps out of the corner of my eye.
The ruins were fairly well preserved. To be more precise, it was not even a ruin, but an unfinished temple, which was missing a roof and part of the walls. At least I didn't see any signs of structural collapse. Everything was clean and tidy, which was somewhat out of the image of those ruins that I had seen before.
Going inside the temple, I saw another stasis trap. Only here it was standing on a pedestal, almost as an object of worship. Looking around, I saw inscriptions carved in stone on the next wall. Usually, in the dream world, I could easily read and speak any language. But this language was not included in the list of 'auto-translator'. But I knew it on my own. These were the writings of the Nerubians. Even in the world of intelligent spiders, this language was considered as 'dead' and used only for ritual purposes and important events. But since I had copies of all the knowledge from the spider library in my head, there was also a dictionary combined with a simple grammar book.
The text on the wall was rather archaic and sonorous, but I managed to read most of it. It said that the image of the Flame of Nothingness reflected in the Dream World has imprisoned in this temple. Despite the fact that it was only a memory of what the original flame looked like, the power of the last petal of the Phantom Fire was so great that Other and Righteous Gods jointly decided to seal this section of Dream World with the strongest seal available to them to prevent the Phantom Fire from falling into the hands of mortals.
I even began to suspect that because of this object Unknown Kadath became a prison of universe. After that my hands started to itch from the desire to expropriate this is wonderful thing. I glanced at the parasite, but it was happily sleeping in its lair, paying no attention to my actions. This is a chance!
After a furtive glance around, I went to the stasis installation and typed the code on the keyboard. Again, there was a soft squeak, and the glowing shroud disappeared, revealing a fluttering petal of flame. It was much smaller than I had imagined. A flame of this size is produced by a damp match. But around this flame was a fairly powerful barrier based on Bahion, which allowed to move it, while isolating from the outside world.
I grabbed the glowing sphere, found a place to sit, and fell into meditation, trying to figure out what I had snatched. At first, I wanted to initiate one of my tails with this flame, but after studying the structure of the trap in which it was placed, I realized that this trick is unlikely to succeed. This fire will destroy everything it touch, so it will burn me. Only thanks to the special 'barrier of negate' on the basis of Bahion the flame could be isolated.
And yet, as it turned out, this piece of flame was what is called 'on the last breath'. It could flare up one last time, by burning everything and then it would disappear completely. I also failed to understand the 'essence' of this flame, because it burned all my thoughts. Moreover, the more I tried to meditate on it, the less of this flame remained. So, in the end, all I had to do was sigh and seal the sphere with the Phantom Fire inside of my soul, using accumulated reserves of Bahion. Well, at least I could change my own soul, even when I was in a dream.
As soon as I finished messing with my 'consolation prize', the parasite began to stir in my soul, hinting that I had nothing more to do here. I had to take my feet in my hands and at a pace to roll in the direction of the portal. When reached it, I dialed the address of the very Stargate I had created in the vicinity of Ulthar. There was no sign of Zinovia, so I didn't linger and jumped into the opened portal.
Coming out of portal in the forest, I was unpleasantly surprised to see a whole 'meeting committee' lined up in front of me. There were creatures of Chaos, angels of Order, and other creatures. But what they all had in common was that they were incredibly powerful, and wildly angry, and the object of their anger was me.
But before I could even prepare myself for certain death, I was yanked into the Void, where I was able to see a joyfully smiling Being.
"Yes, you did it.” - It laughed. - "You should know how much nerves my enemies disposed when they found out what you can do. They set trap in the Ulthar and waited for you there for more than a hundred years without success, while you wandered in circles in the Dreaming Forest. Then you committed an audacious murder in the city of Ethereum, which caused them all to rush there to catch you in prison. And during this time, you managed to reach to Ulthar, talked with Seeress and then spent a week hiding in the grass under the spies' noses, playing with cats like a native of the city. And in the end, you used a cat to hide your aura, and you only let it go when you were ready to open the portal. I'm amazed at how you can do this without making any effort.”
I'm surprised even more. It turns out that I was literally walking on a knife's edge all this time. Am I really that lucky? I don't think so. Especially against the background of the fact that I 'wasted' a hundred years of my life, and now I am separated from the clarifications of relationship with Azathoth a little less than eight hundred years.
"In general, everything finished so well that I decided to give you a small gift."
"What? Why?” - I frightened. I know these gifts.
“How would you like to play a real online multiplayer computer game?”
"Hmmm... usually it helps me to relax." - I admitted reluctantly.
"That's what I thought, too. You need to relax.” - After these words, I am even more tensed. - "But first, you will have to attend a small court hearing as a witness. Just don't say anything there.”
I had no time to resent to the change in my status from a limp instrument to a witness, when I found myself in a huge hall where sat powerful creatures, compared to which even the Being looked shabby and downtrodden.
“A case is under consideration to restore the rights of the game figure of Zinovia Reinhardt, which belongs to Being on the rights of the property.” - I heard a distant voice. – “This game figure has released from an untimely imprisonment in Unknown Kadath, which, according to the laws of the Universe, is considered as an acquittal for all charges.”
Being nodded in agreement.
“I protest!” - There rang another voice, the owner of which I have not seen or could not determine. - "Her release should rather be considered as escape operation organized by her new owner.”
"What do you have to say for justify?"
The question was addressed to Being, so It answered to it.
“This event was the result of independent actions of a blind game figure belonging to me. I did not give him orders to release Zinovia. He was only supposed to deliver payment for services of the Eternal Seeress.”
“Then this act can be considered as a crime committed by one game figure in collusion with another.”
"And what was the collusion? If Zinovia was in stasis and couldn't deal on anything?" – Being surprised. After his words, squashed laughter was heard in the hall.
“No matter.” - Unknown prosecutor continued to press. - "He could demand her to pay for his actions after the crime has been committed.”
“What payment?” - Being asked clarification. – “Let's talk about the real world, not about how you would like it to be.” - This time the laughs were more apparent.
"Didn't he even demand sex with her?" - The prosecutor worried
"No." - Being said proudly.
"I'd give her a blow." - There was a low whisper, followed by a ripple of laughter. – “After the hundredth victory.”
"Still, the only way to get out of the Unknown Kadath possible only with the approval of the Higher Powers. And without it, getting out of prison would be considered an escape.”
"The Lord of Chaos Azathoth himself watched the release of Zinovia Reinhardt through his projection in the soul of the blind figure.” - Being gave out his 'trump' argument.
After that, there was a grave silence in the hall. The eyes of powerful gods focused on me. All I could do is to expose my parasite 'on display' and ask him to 'wave his hand'. The effect was overwhelming. All eyes immediately dulled and disappeared.
And about a minute later, the judge's voice rang out.
“By the court's decision, game figure Zinovia Reinhardt is fully restored to her rights. It will be noted in her personal file that she has now won ninety-nine consecutive qualifying victories, with a total of 93,258 points. The next ranking game for her will Determine her Fate.”
At this court session ended, and I have been moved as usually to the place of the next game.