The next stage of the journey was fraught with several dangers. They encountered a dozen curse traps. Fortunately for them, it worked out. No one got infected. When they bypassed the dried-up lake, the moist soil pulled Faolandan into its quicksand. They had to pull him out. They also met a couple of orcs, but they didn’t create any problems. The real headache turned out to be starved Qualinorbs—moon foxes with fluffy white fur and the size of a man. They could merge with darkness and bright light and revealed themselves at the very last moment, exposing their five strong fangs at the neck of their victims. Sitting Bull sometimes lost control of the body becoming an easy prey. Latludious used most of his mana to protect him. However, when one of the Qualinorbs attacked Barahu, the wolfhound twisted in a somersault, grabbed the fox’s neck and, with the next movement, broke the monster’s spine. They did not appear again. Everyone clapped Tina and thanked it for their rescue. Faolandan even rewarded his friend for bravery and handed it a piece of steak that he had stolen on the plane.

“Have you been carrying it all this time?” Maenad laughed.

“Yes. For some reason, I thought that before going offline we would make a fire, start cooking...”

Before Faolandan could finish speaking, Sitting Bull fell face-first into the ground and shook. He and Maenad shuddered with fright. They rushed to help him as fast as they could. His pupils were dilated, and the body temperature dropped by a degree or two and chills appeared. Latludious’ “analysis” showed that the curse affected the lungs, part of the brain and legs. His left hand turned black. The Indian felt the touch of a gentle female hand holding his head. He sighed with calm. Ronnie stood to the side.

“The curse progressed and now blocks a part of the nervous system. It does not allow you to control the character,” Latludious continued, and scratched the stubble on his face.

“Do something!” Maenad shouted in a trembling voice.

Latludious closed his eyes and waved his head from left to right.

“Shit,” Faolandan said and spat. “Hang on, buddy, we’ll get you out.”

While Maenad was trying with all her might to resuscitate her friend Ronnie, and then the rest of the team heard the sounds of battle, somewhere half a mile away from them. Swords rang, wind carried falconry screams around, angry growls and groans of the dying.

“The Orcs are attacking someone. Let’s go. We’ll cling to even a ghostly chance.”

Faolandan took Sitting Bull and dragged him on himself. They jumped over hummocks, ran over rocks, overcame stumps. When they got there, some sat down in the bushes, others hid behind the Hessataule. All the members of the group saw a monster under sixteen feet tall in front of them. The body of a tiger, wide orange wings and an eagle face. It fought with the orcs, tore off their heads, flew to the back rows, reflecting magic spells. Maenad saw several cubs in a nest a little further away, tiny and defenseless.

“We need to help it,” said Faolandan and put Sitting Bull on the ground and ran forward without waiting for an answer.

Maenad and Latludious followed him, while Ronnie walked up to the Indian, sat down next to him and looked into his purple eyes and asked:

“Should I give you a gun?”

Sitting Bull looked at him for a minute. Both heard the first muffled shots of Degtyarev’s light machine gun, cutting wind spells and bullet ricochets.

“No.”

“Then hold on to me.”

Ronnie held out his palm. Sitting Bull grabbed it with a clap. The sniper jerked him up, put his right hand on his neck, and dragged the tracker forward. When they reached the place of slaughter, none of the orcs were left alive. The forest creature jumped to its cubs and covered them with wings and watched the visitors’ actions.

“Don’t move!” Latludious shouted and spread his arms to the sides with his palms up. His eyes darted around. He counted about fifteen curse traps nearby in the first ten seconds. The others saw them too, as did the short totem behind the monster. His appearance differed from the previous one. The heart was missing in its central part. In its place, a living eye moved with a vile smacking sound - a red white with black ovals around the entire diameter and a blue pupil like the Slavic sun sign.

“How beautiful are they,” Faolandan said and was touched by the sight of the monster’s little cubs. “I’d take a couple for myself.”

“Another totem ...” said Maenad, horrified by its disgusting appearance. “How many of them are in the forest?”

“You’re asking questions that no one has the answers to,” the magician said.

“Look, it’s injured,” Faolandan said, pointing at the flying creature, “we need to help it.”

Maenad grabbed the reanimating syringe, and the monster, wounded and cut, turned its eagle head and stared at Sitting Bull and growled.

“We have to go,” Latludious continued. “Leave it alone.”

Everyone agreed and, without unnecessary movements, slowly backtracked. Ronnie was standing.

“AI.”

“At your service.”

“Do you have any information about this monster?”

“Please wait, searching information… Search completed. This species is absent from the bestiary.”

“As I thought.”

Ronnie looked at the chicks, at the winged monster. The same thoughts flashed through his head as before murdering the boss from the Nepril desert. How alive is this digital model? A feeling of pity swelled in his chest again. It’s all bullshit. He spat and took the Barrett off his shoulder, removed the safety catch with a slight movement of his thumb and pulled the shutter. Latludious froze when he heard the rumble of the return spring. He turned around at the sound, his eyes shone, a spell of the “wind” element formed in his hands. Yet the magician was too late. He saw how a 12.7 x 99 mm bullet pierced the flesh of the magical creature and went through and took two more lives of the small cubs.

As soon as Ronnie saw his experience streak increase by 3%, he felt a burning pain in his left side, and then flew off a couple of yards and fell and hit his head on a bump. Maenad saw the bloody body of a forest dweller, its blood bubbling and spreading on the ground. The little cubs screamed in a plaintive and heart-rending squeak. She took out a flamethrower and pointed it at the sniper and said:

“You’re gonna burn, fucking bastard. But don’t think that your death will be quick.”

Faolandan was taken aback and fell to his knees, like a warrior mourning his fellow soldiers on the battlefield. Barahu growled at the magician, and then ran up to Ronnie and stood up for him. Sitting Bull lowered his head and said:

“When we show our respect for other living things, they respond with respect for us.”

“Why the fuck did you do it, you soulless bastard?” Maenad shouted.

Ronnie stood up like a dead man from the grave and said, looking at her from under his brows:

“The forces from above ordered me to do it.”

Maenad almost pulled the flamethrower’s trigger, but Latludious pulled the weapon out of her hands with the help of magic just in time. She turned to look at him. Her face filled with anger and grief.

“What if it was the only representative of the species in the game?” Faolandan said in a plaintive voice and got to his feet.

“There are still a couple of cubs left. You just wanted to take them for yourself. Now no one stops you.”

“Your heart is filled with darkness.”

Ronnie picked up the rifle, put the safety back on and slung it over his shoulder and said:

“It’s just a game. Don’t get attached to digital monster models. You want to be the first, reach the top, are ready to betray the guild alliance, real people. You’re not doing any better than me. So it’s not for you to judge.”

“You killed a creature that did nothing to you!” Maenad screamed, and tears flowed from her eyes. “You killed it. Defenseless! You son of a bitch! Now let’s kill all the monsters that did nothing to us! This is the human essence. You want to drown the world in blood.”

“Unlike you, I don’t pretend to be kind.”

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“What?” she whined in response and her lips trembled. “What are you talking about?”

“Tell me, Maenad, what is the difference between this monster and the dragon that you showered with machine-gun fire? Maybe it has cubs too. Or it is still young and green. You tell everyone that you are protecting species that are not being revived, but if your life is in danger, you open fire to kill without a twinge of shame, without the slightest hesitation. You’re a hypocrite. And you’re angry because you see your true reflection in me.”

Ronnie walked up to the dead monster and took out a scanning chip from his backpack and stuck it into its flesh, and did the same with the killed cub. He threw the second dead chick at Barahu’s feet, and it happily swallowed the carcass in two gulps.

“So you walk with him now,” Faolandan said, clenching his fists and restraining his emotions.

He came up to Ronnie at arm’s length and despite him squatting down and stroking the little cubs on the head, saying: “What will happen to you now?”

Sitting Bull leaned back against a tree and slid to the ground and breathed as if he had run a ten-mile marathon. His fingers barely obeyed the orders of the brain. His legs were weak. He could feel his internal organs failing one by one. The sensations were too painful, too real.

Ronnie looked at the symbols on the trees, but did not approach. However, he noticed that there seemed to be fewer letters. Strange, he thought. He walked up to the Indian, squatted down opposite and said:

“You’re probably going to die. I advise you to kill the same way I do. Maybe you’ll get lucky, and you’ll have time to get the twenty-fifth level before you turn into a ghost.”

“Our first teacher is our own heart.”

“Yeah. You’re right.”

After a few minutes, Latludious urged everyone to move on. Yet as soon as they got together, the magician noticed how the red symbols on the trees disappeared.

“What the hell is going on here?” he asked without waiting for an answer. And looked around.

The branches of a Hessataule, touching each other, rustled from a gust of wind. The totem’s eye did not stop moving and watching what was happening. In this silent speechlessness that had come, it was as if they felt the deep sighs of the wounded forest. For one minute, everyone froze, succumbing to the influence of the surrounding environment.

“Most likely, this is the main totem that protects the forest. When we freed it from the orcs, it activated and destroyed the traps,” Latludious answered his own question.

Everyone immediately thought of the Sitting Bull and turned in his direction with a synchronous movement. Following the blackened hand, the filth reached his face, body, and legs. The veins under his skin swelled and glowed with a fluorescent bright color.

Maenad wiped her tears and calmed down a little. Latludious came up to her, put his hand on her shoulder and said:

“While we were killing orcs, our comrade rose from 53% to 95%. Let’s try with all our might to pump him if we can’t save him.”

Everyone nodded. Faolandan walked up to Ronnie and said:

“I’ll pray to all the gods for your health. So that at the end of the journey, you stayed alive. Because then you won’t have time to catch your breath, as my bullet will pass through your fucking arrogant face.”

Ronnie grinned back at him.

“You’d better learn not to share your plans with someone you want to kill.”

Latludious felt weak and unwell. Endurance did not rise above the five-point mark. He opened the HUD and saw his mana reserve - 8%.

“From now on,” he said, “I’ll only use the eye to search for opponents. The rest of the time, I’ll restore mana. All hope is on you, Faolandan, and on you, Maenad. In case of further clashes, I’ll rely on your ability to deal with packs of monsters.”

“Have you heard the order?” Ronnie asked and looked the Top Secret flamethrower straight in the eye. She turned away.

They headed forward and came out on the trail. A flock of bats flew over their heads. But didn’t touch the travelers. The group went down the slope into a ravine, climbed over fallen trees, and everyone felt the cold of the fog coming from the south. The rays of the sun from time to time made their way through the crowns of the trees and, like forgotten lanterns of a war-scarred city, sprayed small shreds of light in the murk of darkness. Forest sounds turned into an endless hum and howl, diluted only by the murmur of streams. So they walked for about twenty minutes until a red magic wave as a boomerang flew through them, with such a shock force that everyone almost fell off their feet. The ground under their feet trembled and calmed down.

“What was that?” Faolandan asked.

“There are too many questions today. Don’t expect someone to answer you.”

“Do you want us to be silent?” he replied, flaring up.

They stared in fright when they heard Maenad’s scream. Everyone turned around and saw how next to her, in a place where there was not a single symbol, a new one appeared and activated. A red-purple mist floated around the Top Secret flamethrower and the white of her eye turned purple. Ronnie smiled. Faolandan ran up to her headlong and hugged her. They touched foreheads and froze, as if saying goodbye forever.

“Hold on, I’ll get you... both of you out of this damned place,” he said in a lively manner, with slight pauses between sentences. Then he turned around and looked at the magician, dumbfounded and frightened. “Think, Bishop,” he continued, “think as if your life depends on it.”

Latludious stood like a statue, and would have stood like that for half a day if Sitting Bull hadn’t come up to him and slapped him.

“If there is a way out to our salvation, then you have the key to it right here,” the Indian said, thrice poking his index finger into his forehead.

Ronnie went to the symbol. Barahu followed him. He opened the HUD, went to the screenshots tab, and compared the sign he met yesterday with what he saw in front of him. They really differed in a couple of letters.

“AI.”

“At your service.”

“Have you understood how to distinguish an active trap from a used one?”

“Yes.”

“Add this information.”

“Fulfilling your request…”

Less than a couple of minutes later, Ronnie received a cash reward for new information.

Meanwhile, Latludious sat down on the cold ground and bowed his head and his fingers gathered in a pyramid that touched his chin. He tried to take deep and even breaths, concentrated on his own thoughts, replayed all the information in his head. The man squeezed his eyes shut. He plunged into his own world, into the deep subconscious, where there was no one and nothing.

“Think,” he said to himself, “think.”

Maenad, frightened and confused, sat down on a hummock, grabbed Faolandan’s hand and did not let go. Ronnie stood like a lookout on a tower. Sitting Bull lit his pipe, smacked his lips and blew smoke.

“What do you think? Is there hope?” Maenad asked. “I don’t want to die.”

“We’ll manage,” Faolandan replied. “Latludious has never let us down yet. He’s our brains, and I’m our weapon. Together, we’ll overcome any obstacles.”

Maenad did not feel better after these words. She looked at the magician, did not look away, waited until he got up and told them everything. Faolandan was looking at her, stroking her palm. His heart was breaking inside. There was a piercing ringing in his ears.

Barahu leapt up and barked at Matafire, who had flown in. The bird looked up at it without a drop of fear.

They feel the upcoming death, Ronnie thought and pulled out the Stechkin’s pistol and lowered the bird to the ground with the first bullet. The wolfhound ran up to it wagging its tail and sniffed and looked at Ronnie and snorted. It decided not to eat it.

Latludious cleared his throat and drew the group’s attention to himself. He stood up with a heavy sigh. The face could not be more serious.

“We’ve been looking the wrong way all this time,” he said.

Everyone held their breath.

“We thought totems were a symbol of the forest. What if it’s not? Imagine another version of events where they cause the infection. Then it becomes clear why, when we showed Sitting Bull to the Ent, it pointed to the totem.”

“The theory doesn’t add up. You said yourself that the Orcs attacked this pillar.”

“I said they used dark magic rays. That they attacked it, we assumed it ourselves. Try to understand what I mean: the curse traps are the product of dark spells. They can appear both point-by-point, thanks to Orc magicians, and can infect hectares of land. I presume they need totems for the second one. They weren’t trying to destroy it with dark magic, they were trying to activate it. But they failed.”

“And why didn’t they succeed?” Faolandan asked.

Latludious’s mouth twitched:

“We would never have known the answer if not for our greedy for the first-place sniper. Apparently, the bird he killed was blocking the main totem’s work. And after its death, the protection fell off. Overflowing with energy, the secondary totem transferred its supply to the main one and, after a while, it activated.”

“How to explain the disappearance of marks on trees?”

“They weren’t active,” Ronnie said.

“What do you mean?”

“Open the bestiary. The AI recently posted information about used and active traps.”

Everyone was silent for a moment, then stared at Ronnie:

“Can you tell us how the fuck you found out and why you were silent?” Faolandan yelled. “The curse on Maenad is your fault!”

“Bull crap, you know it yourself. If I had known it was going to happen like this, I would have said.”

“You open your mouth when you don’t have to, and when you do, you keep quiet. This information could change everything.”

“Shut up, let me think,” shouted Latludious, waving his hand and after a couple of minutes, continued. “It turns out that totems work as a separate mechanism. They remove used traps and create new ones. With complete information, now we seem to be able to solve this problem, because we know exactly in which direction to move.”

A light of hope appeared on the Maenad’s, Faolandan’s and Sitting Bull’s faces. They got up, cheered up and asked:

“Tell us what to do.”

“Come here.”

They came up.

“Open the map.”

They opened it.

“Now, the most interesting part. Look at the infected area that we passed at the very beginning. It has round borders. What else strange have you noticed?”

“Black dots,” Ronnie said. “One in the center, the others at twelve, three, six and nine o’clock.”

“That’s right. I guess there used to be totems there.”

“So another mystery has been revealed. It turns out that our totems are arranged according to a similar principle, right?”

“Yes. Mark them with a marker on the map. A straight line. So, one of them is central, the second is secondary. I dare say that the one behind us is the main one. Secondary at six o’clock, so there are more at three o’clock, nine and twelve. Draw a circle with a compass. It is in this zone that the infection occurs. The secondary ones feed the main totem, it pulsates and traps the trees. If I am wrong and the main totem is the one at six o’clock, then we’ll try to reorganize as quickly as possible according to the same pattern.”

Latludious looked at everyone and noticed how Faolandan’s eyes were looking at the ground, and there was confusion on his face:

“Is there something that confuses you?”

He cleared his throat and said:

“Why don’t the Orcs leave traps at every turn?”

“Most likely, it requires large reserves of mana.”

Everyone nodded.

“It makes sense.”

“If there are no more questions left, we’ll proceed as follows. Sitting Bull, are you still able to move?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re going to the totem at six o’clock. There, you are unlikely to meet any resistance. Maenad stays at the main totem. Burn it to the ground. Ronnie, you’re leaving at three o’clock, Faolandan at nine, I’m at twelve. We’ll have to fight alone, otherwise there may not be enough time. If I’m right, then we’ll all get to the checkpoint together by evening.” He paused and continued. “Safe and sound.”

They stood up, ready to go in their own direction, as Latludious gasped.

“What happened?”

He pointed his finger forward. The others noticed how another trap, on a tree fifteen yards away from them, released a mist that flew to the nearest Hessataule and activated a new symbol on its bark.

“I’ll be burned in the flames of Hephaestus. They multiply!” said Maenad.

“I’m scared,” Faolandan said.

“We’re all scared. Let’s hurry. We’ll keep in touch via chat. As soon as you finish, go to the northern totem. That will be the rally point.”