The capital of the Empire of Ages was a very deep city, and only high-ranking security officers and the top of the capital's guards had a complete map of its dungeons. The vast network of tunnels and catacombs beneath the city could hold another Eternal, with its entire population and even livestock. Frankly speaking, these catacombs were another frontier of the city's defense and a reserve warehouse of impressive capacity.

Unlike Tavimark, these tunnels, though dangerous, populated with all sorts of creatures, monsters, and a couple of dozen weaker analogs of the memorable Trail anomaly, were controlled in a much better way. Tunnels were explored, dangerous areas were fenced off, the most dangerous ones were sealed, and all the tasty locations, located most conveniently or even directly on (non)large energy anomalies, served as transit points, warehouses, training camps, or research sites. The incredibly old stones of the city hid the equally ancient magic that gave it its name, and who better than a dynasty as eternal as the city itself to use that magic to its fullest?

Of course, the underground was used by both simple bandits and a lot of all sorts of people, where it was almost impossible to distinguish one from another. They used it, but only the Imperial Chancellery and the omnipresent Eyes ruled there, the latter in a secondary role. It was easy to hide in these dungeons, but not to be found when the search became serious was incommensurably more difficult. This detail was the main reason why our team did not hide underground, preferring to look for lairs above.

We're not hiding there now, either, but that doesn't stop me from crawling through remote parts of the catacombs, occasionally sawing out the overly brazen and eyeballed creatures of the local biocenosis, leaving bits of mirror bookmarks here and there. As much as I wished otherwise, the likelihood of the Kostik-Misty communication line being traced was beyond all reasonable limits. Counting on fending off or cheating the search, I didn't forget to re-insure my ass in case cheating and hiding didn't work out. Well, to be honest, I didn't think about it myself, but after Tia's kick, who suggested the whole thing with the pieces of mirrors in the subway. I'd just limit myself to the same kind of decoys. The liquidator with too long ears popularly explained that my plan was good, but only because of my class abilities and general awesomeness. But her version, though it required a lot of fiddling, gave me a much larger window of maneuver: the tunnels would work as another network of interference, preventing them from picking up an accurate signal, and the Library's searchers would wonder if the very research labs under the palace were trying to organize industrial espionage.

Although the Library faithfully serves the Throne, the two organizations are in constant competition for funding, grants, and the Emperor's favor. The latter needed both a counterweight to the Library, which threatened to become a monopoly on "hard science," and its scientists, who could work on issues that the Library could not. The two organizations, though the underground scientists were a much more loose collection of separate groups and research institutes, were too different to clash seriously, but the tension was palpable. Of course, such a "trace" would be considered a setup, but in our case, if they opened the communication channel and followed the deceptions, they might believe it. It would hardly be possible to say it was someone who had left a laxity in disguise on purpose, hoping to frame the most obvious competitors. Success, according to the elf, is quite possible, though unlikely, but the minimum confusion will be raised in any case. And in troubled waters, the real culprits are the easiest to escape.

That's how Kostik crawls through all sorts of crap, poking his blanks everywhere and thinking about where to get a new mirror. The old stock is slowly running out. The atmosphere here is quite unpleasant, and I don't just mean the stench of sewers, drain pits, and sewage, nor the stifling dampness of the usual tunnels. These places were full of all sorts of things, and the monstrous fauna was not on the first line or even on the tenth. When I said that the catacombs were inhabited and used, I meant exactly that.

I wish it was a typical fantasy dungeon under the city, where no one controls anything and it's a war zone just a step away from the capital. Alas, there are no fools living in this world, and they wouldn't keep their asses on a deployed anti-tank mine for so many years. Most of the sealed areas were created by the Imperials themselves - at least three full legions of undead with control circuits sewn in were clearly one of the capital's defenses, and a couple (or more, I wasn't looking that closely) of sealed Legends were clearly held in a strong cage, and even if they managed to break free, weakened by the imprisonment and breakout, they would be easy prey for the elite guard. There are plenty of people in the Eternal who can give the legendary a one-on-one fight, and there will be more than one. As I understand it, the prisoned legendary shit is being milked, drawing out their powers, reagents and simply studying them in order to put what they've learned to use in some useful way. And in the far reaches of the dungeon, at great depths and under piles of all sorts of barriers and traps, they are kept just so they won't have time to make trouble if they break out.

In the visions, he dug up echoes of a battle fifty years ago when one of the imprisoned creatures had managed to break free. Incarnate Madness straight from the Dark Plane, powerfully hitting with planar attacks, devouring any energy and souls, replenishing forces at a huge speed, and just unrealistically hard pressing its madness in the mental plane, turning even experienced warriors and mages either into whimpering hulks or into dangerous for everyone maniacs-crazies... Once at large, they were brutally and uncompromisingly slaughtered. It managed to kill only fifty researchers and guards, among whom only a couple-three were valuable personnel, not auxiliary personnel. The locals had long ago become adept at quickly and decisively fixing the consequences of such shit and nothing that could seriously tear the anuses of the entire Metropolitan Guard was stored in the dungeons, having long ago disposed of such inconvenient neighbors or phenomena.

By the way, despite installing dungeon dodgers, no one has even mentioned not putting them all over the city as well. More reassurance and room to maneuver is only a good thing, especially if resources and time allow. Since with my classes and build, all the resources required for this case were limited not by epic-grade (minimum) reagents, not by laborious work of agent networks, and not by mortal risk for deception installers, but only by one very unfortunate summoned with a bag of mirror scrap, the elven dictator and tyrant in one cute face went full force of her paranoia nurtured on the experience of past mistakes. Honestly, I feel like she's just forgotten that no one ever put Yoke on me. She certainly rides me like a horse!

I was not the only one working, but my "class superiority according to Marx" was the problem here, thanks to which I was the only one who could properly install, hide, and secure the deceptions among all of us. Besides, the catacombs of the Eternal, especially their deeper and "tastier" tiers, turned out to be decently protected by all kinds of magic.

And yes, there were sapient being here, too (and not just the permanent human residents), albeit in small numbers - several communities of rats, not monsters, but endowed subspecies, were officially resident here, and they did the work of plumbers, sanitizers, and goldsmiths, knowing the tunnels well and not shy to poke around in the shit. They did not go into the protected areas, safely weaned from foolish deeds, but the upper tiers, drains, and sewers were completely in their power.

I met up with a couple of their patrols, only two individuals of which were level ten, finding myself less than impressed. The unendowed ratfolk looked more like rats than humans. These were distinguished by a very humanoid, albeit not very pleasing to the eye, greater intelligence, and less of the thwarted cruelty for which this subspecies of monsters had gained its notoriety in the first place. How could they, with all their reputation, be tolerated here? No, it's understandable no one wants to swim in shit, and if the toilets are cleaned from above by human goldsmiths, it's dangerous for them to go into the deep drains. Still, I don't understand something in this world, and I haven't for a long time.

The first thing I did was check to see if the head of these guys was called Splinter, but there were no such names among the rats, and that was a pity. However, two of the First Tails, the Third Tail and the Eighth Tail, had the classes of Assassin, Monk, and Tunneler. The latter was the base class for both fighters, keeping their communities in check. Still, they were surprisingly peaceful around here, docile and providing no trouble while floundering in the foul waters. I didn't have time to check really carefully, but I can feel some high-level slavemancers were involved. And, as I suspect, built into the very blood of these tribes and passed on to their descendants by inheritance - it was quite in the spirit of both the Imperials and the whole of Alurei in general.

Alas, or fortunately, there were no reptiloids or turtle-like creatures in Eternal territory, and yet such a reference was missing! If I were someone from the Summoned of the past, I would have put these two ethnicities in the sewers just out of a sense of beauty. Though, how many of them were summoned from Earth or the other world where this cartoon was even released?

The whole operation had taken me less than two days, but during that time, the damn dungeon smell had almost grown into my brain. Even though the shadow steps a priori rid me of any dirt or stench, subconsciously, I kept smelling the damn stench. Honestly, I'd rather it smelled like shit than all that mold.

"Ideally, of course, it would be ideal to plant part of the mirror right in one of the guarded laboratories." Hestia stretched thoughtfully, leaning over Tia's (hand-drawn!) rather detailed map of the city and the deceptions located. "It would be doubly ideal to stage a diversion to release one of the prisoners you've spotted, Tin, the kind of prisoners that are rightfully called Legends."

I leaned over the map, too, though more to hide my eyes, which were almost closed in slumber. Tia's work was very detailed, with a lot of notes that she had lovingly made while she was preparing for the king's assassination. The druid drew some from memory, some from personal observation, some from suspicion or vague visions, but the resulting map would be a great reason to demand a lot of money from any resident, spy, or even a bandit ataman, though getting paid with steel under the ribs was more likely. Not that these details were so unique, but putting them all together on one map was quite difficult, even for a high-powered person. She also had a whole stack of smaller parchments showing individual districts, even if they mostly focused on Imperial Park and the surrounding neighborhoods. The park is drawn almost to every bush and tuft of grass, which is not surprising.

"How bloodthirsty you are, friend," Taria replied just as thoughtfully, trying to think of a couple of new escape routes right now in case the ones she'd already thought of didn't work out. "Is it worth it? The creatures will kill a lot of people, but they'll still run after us, and they'll look harder for us afterward. I don't feel sorry for the швшщеы, but there's a lot of risk and not much outcome."

"I'll agree with Taria's words, albeit not the form of those words." Issuing her strong opinion, the only one of us not looking at the map at all, as she knew it perfectly well from memory. "Diversion will only benefit and take the blow away from us if we are guaranteed to fail the retreat while taking away only some fraction of the enemy's retaliatory maneuver. The risks of installing the necessary mechanisms are defiantly high and unnecessary. Besides Tin to entrust this part of the preparation, which can be honorably and truthfully in words estimated in another flight of lonely leaves, unfortunately, no one. Neither I nor Hestia can make all the necessary preparations quickly and correctly. Or rather, it's not within my power to do it promptly. In a different situation, I would demand that the operation be postponed for several months, or better, a year. With the potential of our group, it wouldn't be hard to turn a third of the Eternal into a prepared ground at once, but knowing Tin..."

She said the last words with such an ineffable intonation that I was embarrassed for a second, but only for a second, no more. Even if I took away the factor of my pain in the ass not allowing me to sit still, I subconsciously felt that I shouldn't linger in the city. I'd spent the day and part of my non-renewable supply of clairvoyance-enhancing potions trying to figure out the reason for my barely-formed premonitions, despite the infuriating yelling of the boys who'd decided to play near the cursed area.

I didn't understand, simply not finding their source, as if all possible vectors along which I could catch the key image turned out not to be blocked, not even disguised, but simply absent. It was as if the very stones of the ancient sidewalk, the creak of decayed doors, and the groans of indestructible walls were speaking to me. There was something wrong in the city, something not specifically directed at me but still ever-present. The long-healed wounds of a body that had almost dissolved into black sludge ached madly, and the image of a beautiful maiden with an empty face and a body that seemed to consist entirely of black pins came back to mind.

"A flight of lonely leaves?" Losius, like me looking at the map simply out of politeness, interjected a term he was unfamiliar with, as he always tried to remain erudite in any situation.

"An operation conducted outside the support of any allied state and entity in which the first petal, the group commander, is left with only his squad and whatever he can use without outside help," Tia replies casually, shifting her nowhere stare strictly to me. "It is considered in case of failure, you are recognized in advance as fallen leaves and have no right to help or even escape. Only death in battle or at your own hands. Tin, is something bothering you? Something to do with your gut?"

She sensed it, though, damn it.

I should not have remembered that skirmish. The memory of her agony and her near-death, which was far worse than death, broke through even my armor of denial. Not much, but my eared colleague, who had worked with me more than once, had enough experience, simple life experience, to catch that brief moment of weakness. And after her words, which she had deliberately said in front of everyone, the whole team looked at me. I could get away from Tia alone, but if I got all of them, especially Taria and her pity-pressure skills, I'd either have to get stoned or go for a walk around the city.

"I remembered when I had the same problem. I couldn't smell anything either." I answered reluctantly, not wanting to remember, nor relive it, nor scare the others with nothing but a too vague premonition of trouble on my hands. "I've developed my instincts quite a bit since then, so I can't be fooled by tricks like that. I'll calculate by the voids. It's just that the situation itself is similar. Silence on all spectrums, like you're banging into a wall of absorbent cotton and feathers."

He spent the next couple of hours recounting his adventures in the Kraj in detail, and with Tia, it was impossible to do otherwise. She listened with an unreadable expression on her face and an equally unreadable tangle of feelings in her soul. I could clearly distinguish only one shining morning star image, the closest analog of which would be "and how you, moron, having learned about the madness going on in the asshole town, did not leave it the same hour, faster than your squeal?". A perfectly understandable reaction, which I fully share. Had I known in advance the scale and danger of the creature lurking in the town, I wouldn't have gotten involved, but at first, I still thought I could take them all down and be that, and then it was too late.

"Black Sky..." She said slowly, literally rolling those words on her tongue like the rarest sort of floral honey or a sip of excellent wine. "And hatred of shadow energy itself. A strong connection to the Darkness, provoking physical mutations and building recruitment chains through distortion. Have you not tried to examine that blackness with your gift as an alchemist?"

"I didn't think about it, and I don't think about it now." I'm choking on that kind of accusation. "It's too nasty and dangerous, especially for me at that moment. I gave the image. Even now, I wouldn't want to touch that stuff, and then I'd have to puke at the thought. And I don't think it was the essence, even if it was distorted. Maybe I could have missed that detail behind my disgust and apprehension, but the last time we met, I literally bathed in that filth. And it's also too invisible as if the stuff doesn't even exist until a critical mass of it builds up, allowing it to manifest in reality. I feel like I've seen not the abomination itself but its imprint on the universe, a marker, if you will. Something akin to the materialized effect of Aegis, an embodied lapse into the Darkness."

For a few seconds, she evaluates my words, obviously going through all the data archives she knows, which are stuffed in there enough to be wanted by every influential person on the continent.

"It was something very ancient." She finally decided on an answer, immediately playing Captain Obvious in all his might. "Ancient and weakened beyond belief. I've read a few scrolls that said something suspiciously similar to the words about the black sky, but they were parchments so old that even those copies, taken from decayed scrolls, were almost crumbling to dust in my hands. Scrolls that spoke of something far older than even the Eternal Forest. I can't say much more until I've done some guided meditations to re-energize the dust-covered memory."

"Take the potions in the common locker." I prompted, remembering if I'd put the memory potions she'd asked me to put in there. "I'm still not sure if it's the same thing in here. Or similar. Different handwriting, different nuances, different everything. Common only in elusiveness to my senses. Maybe this is even a foreshadowing of Alishan's soon-to-be diversion. On the border, skirmishes are already turning into full-fledged hostilities, and the emperor has sent as many as three and a half armies to those regions if you count the Jaeger corps."

"Even so, I won't forgive myself for brushing aside a hunch because of the low chance of it being true." Tia parried, and I realized that I would have to spend the next week alone, as the former liquidator would focus her attention entirely on her new area of interest.

I wondered if she was really worried or if she'd just gotten out of an exhausting joint psychic session. The latter, of course, is unlikely because she appreciates such an opportunity to develop skills and class abilities, but I still feel left out in the cold.

"Yes, yes, I remember Konstantine and the Low Chance Theory. You've complained to me about that before." I waved it off, focusing on the current situation. "Then I'll leave it up to you, and I'll take another look in about four days, see if I can catch anything."

"Someday, I'm going to make you tell me what your full family name is, you bastard." Taria puffed up like an owl, and Lósius and Hans agreed. Why are you making such a big deal out of this?

The discussion went back to the business direction and even managed to enter it, but the same bad feeling of foreboding did not give me peace of mind. It seemed nothing had changed, but somehow it seemed the time before some bad fuck-up had become a little shorter.

Once upon a time, when I was running through the woods in the company of goblins hungry for a cut from my ass, I, a little intoxicated by my newfound abilities, allowed myself a little (not really a little) fun. Killing not only guaranteed and maximized efficiency, sparing to the reserve, but doing it artistically. The power, hitting me in the head, the pressure of a barely formed planar connection, my own idiocy, not yet etched by the blackened steel of Alurei's realities - all these were equally the reasons for some illogic for preferring pathos over correctness.

It has been a long time since then, even if it may seem like a few moments to some. My strength has increased, and at such a rate that there will be a long line of people from here to dinner who want to repeat this explosive growth, even if they pay even more than I refused to pay. On the contrary, the desire to fool around in battle is long gone. I could only tease and jab when the mockery was more painful than the blade, and in other cases, I preferred to kill immediately and without delay. The fate of the first of the legendary creatures I met, who was eaten by the abomination I had summoned simply because it decided to play with food, was more eloquent than any instructions and lessons.

On the other hand, the opportunity to play with other people's dreams, minds, and even souls became a kind of release when I let my slightly (or not so slightly) sick fantasy run wild in the absence of the usual victims for trolling. Let's leave out the immorality of my actions because what I'm certainly not going to do is justify my actions with typical bookish hypocrisy. Far more importantly, if I've ever chased the spectacular, the funny, or the beauty of the moment, it's in my use of the mirror class. The very nature of Dream is such that it indulges this fantasy, calls for it, and forces it to never be repeated. Any creature can be destroyed with roughly the same lump of shadow energy, but every Dream work is unique in some way, dependent on thousands of little things, thoughts, desires, dreams, personality traits, mirror glare, and other principles even less clear even to me.

A Shadow is a hungry beast that will kill you first of all if you only give a slack, if you only stumble once, or if you look away in fear.

A Dream is a lazy and unfathomable striving for something, where the main problem is to preserve oneself on the way to the goal because the price for each step is huge.

So different, but at the same time, so similar in their nature facets of the universe. It's just a question of how much of yourself you are willing to give for the sake of another piece of power, a new title, a level, or a closed skill. Each realm asks for its own, gives its own, and changes you in its own way, but the result is somehow the same. Flirting with planes is like a huge intestine: it doesn't matter how you get on this road, it doesn't matter who you were and what path you followed to the goal, it doesn't matter what the goal was - the output is still just digested shit. However, from my point of view, not only the connection with other planes but also just life under the sky of Alurei has such a nature.

All of us, even the Summoned ones, are his children in some way.

Losius, for example, is quite definitely a child of this universe. When he asked for his revenge, revenge for the terrible and shameful of a proud noblewoman's death, He did not care about the proportionality of his revenge. His mother, the one who had given him life and raised him, had been despicably murdered, and her body and honor had been despicably violated - that would be enough for a moralist to forget about morality. Losius, in spite of my friendship and respect for him, had neither the mild character nor the forgiveness of a Christian passion-bearer. And in asking for vengeance, he wanted the pain, suffering, and despair with which his soul was filled, and with which the soul of his dying mother was filled. For all who were involved, for all who were dear to those involved.

I did not speak in vain about the absence of happy fathers and mothers among the executors of that long ago and, no doubt, already forgotten by them. Because I'm not sure if I could fulfill Losius' request in such a case. Losius is a child of his world. For him to execute the entire clan of his mother's murderers in a torturous manner is an act as good as it is right. Perhaps, just perhaps, he would not have been able to stab with a sword blade a seven-year-old boy whose fault it was to be born of the murderer's blood. Far more likely, he would have simply given the order to the family retinue, albeit through force.

I gave my word that there would be no live performers among those people, and neither would their families. It would have been easy to kill only those who disgusted me personally and to tell the fellow that I had done everything. But that would be wrong to Asterium, who had fought with me shoulder to shoulder more than once, even if he would never know about it if I didn't want him to.

Once you're in, do it.

I don't like hypocrisy unless I can convince myself it wasn't hypocrisy (yes, yes, mutually exclusive paragraphs, welcome), so I wasn't going to justify myself, but it didn't make me feel any better. Fancy dude had sacrificed his future for me, jeopardizing what was left of his family by leaving that family behind. To not repay that decision would have been a disgraceful thing to do. Fortunately, in some moments, the meaning of "terminate the lineage" can be interpreted broadly enough that the carnivorous sheep are fed and the wolves are not devoured by those sheep.

The easiest thing was to create nightmares for the performers - it was not for nothing that I talked so much about the creative space provided by the Dream. Creating a personal hell for several bad personalities in the past (and in the present, too) was a quest in itself, but in this case, I had outgrown that quest a long time ago. Routine, nothing more.

It was also easy to deal with quite a few of the relatives and friends of these very bad people. As a person who really knew their secrets, sins, and real faces, not the social roles they wore, it was a pleasure to work as a prosecutor. Some died in their sleep, some in accidents, and some were killed in street robberies, although by the time the thugs' dagger broke through the head of an individual who had carelessly strayed into the wrong alley, only a walking doll remained of the individual. Too many deaths in a dream could have disturbed the people in the know, and called for attention, and the good grandfather Weaver would have crawled up to that.

The hardest part was the few people I found myself killing somewhat... uncomfortable. In my time on old Earth sons and daughters were not responsible for their fathers, even if such words on Alurei would elicit only a surprised look. Anyone who said such a thing would be looked upon as a madman. In a way, what they got was no better, but we're here to make Kostik feel like he's not a complete wreck, not really to establish justice, right?

Artle Vintirum's younger sister is the only official survivor of her family's demise after a time of turmoil among the aristocracy. Her two brothers, having sensed in time which way the wind was blowing, managed to take refuge with some of their loyalists in a very remote estate, which the prudent Artle had bought and prepared for such a case. I covered them there, making it look like a very successful green-skinned raid. Buying real estate close to the Frontier it's a bad idea. Though, in fact, there were only half a dozen goblins there, who finished off the guards I'd treated, kidnapped the brothers, who had almost been reduced to a vegetable state by nightmares, cooked them, and got so gluttonous that they died of overeating.

The sister was another matter. Once she was held hostage by the honorable hostages, she was clever enough to play the fool and, in all likelihood, even survive. Marry one of the candidates picked up by the captors (suitable for her status). After that, the shrunken property and lands of the noble house of Vintirum smoothly change owners, and Flia herself lives and lives well. And even in that position, she managed to arrange things so she wouldn't be quietly poisoned when the lands changed hands. I could have frustrated the plans by letting her die, or I could have left her alone, but in the latter case, there was a slim chance of reviving the House of Vintirum.

As a result of a long deliberation, a landless knight, a notorious knave and head of his mercenary lance, decided to lead his troop by a slightly different route. Flia, who had known this guy since childhood, remembered her childhood crush, lost her head, and, spitting on her honor, dignity, and possible prospects of keeping the house afloat, ran away in the arms of her longtime love. After all, her brothers are still hiding somewhere, so let them fuck with this house, but she wants to fuck with a completely different person while trying anal sex, which she - it turns out, she always thought so - likes much more than usual. The latter is the secret wish of the knight who tried Sorz whores in his wanderings and was impressed by the skill of the ladies trained by the slavemancers. The indelible shame is worse than death for an aristocrat, but still not death.

How could the girl know that the brothers had already digested in the stomachs of the goblins, who had died of gluttony? She had a better chance of survival, though. A landless knight's spear, which has almost officially become a mercenary unit, could use its own Bookkeeper and Accountant with a sharp mind and a tight ass, and I even helped them "decide" to emigrate away from Melareth to the much calmer Ramadon. It's easy to get screwed over there if you don't have connections and acquaintances, but once you've done it, you do it to the end. A series of induced dreams and sent visions, and the spear squad will successfully find a perfectly suited employer for a long contract, who will be a perfect match for their team. All they need to do is to make sure they don't get chased, and when they do (the opportunity to get the goddamn fucking endowments and capitals of not the weakest and poorest kind has fled!), that they don't catch up. There were messages that didn't get through, sentries that went blind, informers that overslept, a contrabass that decided to betray an old acquaintance, through whose loopholes they would cross the border, slipped, and so on.

A good story has a good ending, doesn't it?

In much the same way, I interrupted the bloodlines of those whom I considered killing to be excessive, even for my psyche. Teenagers who had forgotten their names, families, homes, and everything else, who found themselves in recruitment regiments recruiting new meat, of course, had far less chance of survival than the sons of a village headman, even if he was dead. And the life of a recruit for the lowest and shittiest military units, next to which even the place of service of Hans, who had also had a lot of hardship, was not so terrible, was much harder, but they had a chance to survive and live.

A mother and daughter who, after the death of her husband, decided to become nuns (the daughter) and the second one to sell her body when she is still in her prime and can still get a bigger buzz out of life. So, the first can go somewhere up the clerical branch, even if she forgot her name from a sunstroke. And the second has all chances to collect money for a trouble-free old age, even taking into account that she will not give birth to new children - she lacked sex in her life, and her husband could not satisfy her and did not particularly want to, while the experience and enthusiasm of a couple of elite courtesans inserted in her head will give a good foundation for career growth and pumping profile skills. I'm sure when she dreamed of sleeping with whomever she wanted, she meant something different, but still she also "has" a non-zero chance of life. A shame, too, both for the former, who had gone novice, and for the latter, a perfectly satisfactory revenge for what was about to be done to Losius's mother. The comrade will be more than satisfied and will not demand their elimination.

A good swordsman, already one step away from the first class, dropped everything, ran away from all his acquaintances, and accidentally burned his tongue and face, falling headlong into the fire. And in one night, he forgot how to wield a weapon. All that was left was to join a small troupe of itinerant artists as a fool and live like that, perhaps, having achieved recognition in a new field. It is a disgrace for a warrior and a man, but during his life, he had no time to do anything reprehensible enough, so there is nothing to kill him. And the fate of a fool is more than worthy punishment from the point of view of the hateful Asterium.

Fates, fates, fates.

It was too easy to begin to see my victims as mere toys, gimmicky scenarios that could be manipulated to my liking. It was fear of becoming like Weaver, if only in small things, that made me seek ways to peculiarly spare those I wished to spare while giving them the kind of fate that Losius would deem worthy for the individuals he hated in absentia. He will, I am sure, appreciate the irony of my actions, for Flia as much as for the rest of us, while I will pretend that it was the innocents I "spared" and not the remains of myself, the one I came to this accursed world to be.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

In addition to avenging the death of my companion's mother, I was engaged in a very cautious investigation into another "player" who had somehow glimpsed too often at the limits of my sensitivity while I was still in Melareth. Someone who had sicced Weaver (and pretended to obey) on a minor nobleman I'd met in Ostmark. Someone who was at the very edge, through many intermediaries, without direct influence or orders, but still invisibly connected to the slavers of the Red Knot, where I had the opportunity to conduct traumatic treatment of one small elf child. Someone who carefully guided the actions of Sylay Mariun by roundabout intrigue and a web of guiding events, forcing the late Advisor to make the decisions that the mysterious player needed. Someone whose vision, a strange, unaccustomed, and extremely dangerous vision, was invisibly present alongside each intrigue, like the stroke of an invisible brush, the rustle of an easel whose foundation was fate itself.

We missed each other by an edge, like two ships in the fog. At first, I had no power to notice my colleague without having developed my "third eye on my ass" sufficiently. The colleague failed to find me not only because there was nothing to find. The lack of leads and complete anonymity were no guaranteed defenses against an artist who perceives the whole picture of events. I don't know much about his classes and methods, but even the little things I've seen were enough to impress me. He is, in my opinion, the strongest of all of Melareth's seers, even if without access to the Shoreless Eye. And the Eye won't help him, to be frank, because his method of action is too exotic.

Now I've grown up, matured, become better-looking (but still delightfully humble!), and can play on this field in my favor, but still invisibly flickers near the image of Weaver, not letting me relax my buns and enjoy the feeling of my superiority. Yes, grandfather is still hidden, even from me, but after such a long study of this relic, I can recognize his interest by indirect signs, the lightest fleur of residual images.

I have to be careful not to rush things and ideally work through a proxy, preferably not turning it into a doll-like piece of meat, but through a carefully and subtly guided seer. And I have, ever since I escaped from Melareth, a lady with the right class, level, high professional qualities, and a door left in her essence through which I can work properly with the mind of the evil aunt who once almost caught me in the act.

Persea Tiaram, level twenty-seven and the owner of two epic classes at once, the Seer and the recently taken (during the mess left by our sightseeing trip) Comprehenser, is now the head of Melareth's central circle of Seers. She took her position in place of Bernard Dautier, the same wrinkled old man who sought us out through the Eye during our escape through the woods and fields. Bernard had long been feeding the devils in Hells (figuratively, for no one would give his soul with all its secrets to the devils), having chosen the wrong side and, even more accurately, having started to push his rights and demand more privileges for his support of the throne at the wrong time.

The Throne in the person of His Majesty thought and accepted Persea's proposal at the same time, making sure she was superior to the old seer, who was unused to working without the support of the Eye. In fact, Dautier would never have pushed if he had not been sure the pressure would work and there was no danger to him. Persea had successfully deceived her experienced but arrogant colleague, hiding the true reaction of King Arial from him without even showing her face. She was sitting in the waiting room three walls away from the room where Bernard had made his last mistake. She had not forgotten to demand a record of the old seer's summary execution, which the furious King had willed to take place right there. He had a funny look on his face when the lady opened the veil of deceit at the last moment. She was then busy putting the deceased's personal records and image vaults in order - he had been killed, but he had protected his secrets well. He might have been questioned first, but the King was very angry, and the deceased had crossed a line that required an immediate answer.

Persea, having become the main Seer, having confirmed access to the Eye, which she had before, but now she was the one in charge of its use, took up the task and began to cheerfully pump up the level, at the same time multiplying all those who disagreed with His Majesty's policy by zero. Successfully, though, she risked her own life. If Tiaram had destroyed the priceless Mythic, she would have been slaughtered with all the agony she deserved. She'd done it, she'd gotten herself pumped up, and now she was as confident as she could be in the situation.

Who but her to find the traces of one obscure colleague and try to unwind them with the help of both her own forces and the state apparatus and clues of a certain isekai? It is only necessary, for a start, to ensure her obedience to these clues.

It would be foolish to think the mind and will of such a high-ranking and necessary secret carrier were not protected from influence. Even in frankly beaten Melareth, such things were not to be ignored but worked in the usual mode of highly professional paranoia. There were amulets, even in the bathtub, and mental defense of the trained mind, a couple of interesting rituals, and even a very funny early warning system with a dozen triggers left in her brain by her hand. If one of these triggers, one of her beliefs, gets caught, her subconscious mind turns on the alarm. And everything is quite subtle and cunningly twisted. After all, if Persea has a passionate desire to move to Sorz or run away from the yard in the company of one of her lovers, then even a fool would realize it's bad, and if he doesn't, it's too late.

Trigger reactions involve more fuzzy elements of personality that may not cause anxiety at first: if she becomes lazy to do her daily workouts, if some task she had put on her mental list of things to do falls out of her memory, if there are sudden changes in her tastes and preferences, and so on. In the initial stages of processing, such criteria of alarm will help to notice the initial stage.

To say that my task was as easy as eating a pie would be an exaggeration of my awesomeness. No, if I wanted to make a slave, a toy, or a pure agent, even if she didn't realize her new status, it would take much less time and effort. The main effort had to be spent on making sure my actions were not just hidden but literally lost in the labyrinths of her mind. In effect, I was strengthening her defenses, will, and self-awareness, making her a multiply more dangerous target for any brainwasher. In a second layer, I was masking this amplification on all levels of retrieval, both energetic and psychic, forcing her to remain the same Persea Tiaram in the eyes of her superiors and coworkers. It wasn't until later, not even the third but the tenth layer, that I began to weave an imperceptible web of my wishes into her dreams, thoughts, and personality. Yes, they could be used to override direct control or to play with her body and soul, with little or no way to trace the consequences of such games. But far more important is the ability to synchronize her skills, abilities, and class with the image blocks I can send her.

I dare hope that by the end of this project, which can't be done in one week, even Weaver or someone of comparable caliber won't realize that some of Persea's visions, insights, decisions, and plans don't really belong to her. And if the ancient creature or the very artist I seek eliminates her, parsing her actions into their smallest elements, they will see only a very lucky and talented seer whose class and personal talent have blossomed with her appointment to a new position. A seer who has become enough of a nuisance to be eliminated, but definitely not an agent of the very idiot that the same Weaver and likely his ally in the material world is so diligently seeking.

And the idiot himself will be able to follow the elimination from the outside and already this idiot will catch the images of a hunter who came to kill a hare and did not notice that this hare has long been watched by a powerful battle deer.

Or a moose.

Or a сarduelis.

For the current stage of the operation, a separate warehouse was allocated, located on the territory of the same damned manufactory. And I needed a lot more mirrors, both for the communication session with Misty and for hiding the background from the resulting construction. I even had to use Ygra and send her to cut out one of the criminal element's lairs, where stolen or fought goods were stored. I had forbidden to touch them before, well, or not ordered to, since their warehouse was located actually within the city limits of Eternal. Not within the circle of walls but in the suburbs, which had long since become part of the city, even if the capital's inhabitants considered the suburbanites to be some kind of visiting monkeys.

That reminds me of something...

The guards were affectionately and tenderly laid to rest forever, and I had to quickly and technically steal ten bags of mirror fragments and four individual height mirrors from the warehouse. It was even a bit of a shame to ruin such quality merchandise. There was a whole story behind the theft of this shipment, worth a fabulous amount of money, without a single dead body or drop of blood. The story involved two Shamans, an Illusionist, a highly skilled Gigolo, a dozen and a half homeless beggars, and an Alishan runt, but we're not talking about this heist of the century.

We had to haul the mirrors all together since I didn't risk building a mirror portal. Not after the potential exposure at the House of a Thousand Spectacles. Tia supported my paranoia, happily agreeing to take a little more time for the sake of less risk, but Taria and Hans were not so happy. Losius, as the owner of not-too-outstanding stealth and a face that had become quite familiar after his duel, abstained from voting. He was left at the base, reading another historical chronicle. Honestly, if he continued like this, after a couple of years he could get a job teaching at some prestigious educational institution.

The warehouse was turned into one huge mirror labyrinth, and the wooden floor reinforced by Tia was turned into a continuous mosaic of mirror pieces, in the center of which a lovely flower bud blossomed, consisting of larger shards on the edges and whole mirrors in the center of the inflorescence. I look at this horror and realize that with my own hands made an analog of the launching shaft for a nuclear missile. If I really bother and work hard, I can cover a city the size of Tavimark with a single blow without leaving a single living creature there. Or, if I invest not in scale but in cumulative power, I could try to eliminate King Melareth right now, without any preparation, because I had time to get the necessary images from Melanie's memory. The chances of success are high.

Fortunately, all the conceptual changes in the mirrors processed by my abilities are for other actions. Again resorting to Earth terms. I've made a cloaked nuclear mine into a powerful radio tower and radar in one, leaving it still just as invisible to the rest of the world. Work on the design is finished, all associates are instructed, escape routes have been negotiated a thousand times, and things have long since been put into suitcases. Whatever the outcome of today's operation, be it a failure or a smashing success, we will quickly leave the inhospitable Eternal. Or first, we'll hold out until I've replenished my strength, then we'll leave. We're already overrun, and I'm not even sure what I'm feeling.

Fuck it!

We'll change the lair, and lie down, perhaps, right outside the city walls in the company of Ygra, after which we'll give a quick flee from the local population.

* * *

I chose a time for the connection to start so Pypysh would be asleep. His daily schedule was as stable as a Swiss mark, like any self-respecting halfling, so we had time to study it thoroughly. Tia could write it down by the minute. Of course, there were occasional stumbles and emergencies, but in the absence of them, he preferred to sleep well at night rather than work late into the night on the next report. He got up very early, though, just to be able to go to bed at a normal time.

The signal was like a fine spoke, a needle even, a red-hot thread making its way to its target. No defenses, no barriers, or complete removal of most of the planes from a certain part of reality would help. It would not help because I was guided by a unique coordinate system, accessible only to the adepts of Dream, where reality or the absence of something is as much a tool as plus or minus for a mathematician.

The defenses weren't perfect, but they were close to it, as close as the Empire of the Ages and the Eternal Library, in particular, could afford. But I didn't break through the barriers, didn't try to seep through the gaps or trick the ever-vigilant enchantments. I was simply linking the existence of the Misty and the mirror flower linking them directly without using the constants familiar to the creators of echeloned defenses.

The connection was established so smoothly - not to count the wild load and a few burned-out elements of the overall construction as such - that I was even confused. I was too ready for an instant retreat or for a whole wagonload of special tricks designed for such clever people. What I certainly wasn't prepared for was getting it right on the first try and without complications. I was so unprepared that I almost lost control by surprise, only at the last moment managing to keep control.

It took me a few seconds to establish a connection with Misty, and I completely disconnected from reality and began to dig into the memory of what was probably the most dangerous halfling in the empire. No, just one of the top five, according to the data I'd gotten from Tia. I'll have to ask her about these guys because I wondered what surprises Frodo's furry-footed followers might give out. The brains of the creature in charge of the Library's communications with the outside world, hiring new staff, and issuing security clearances for visitors were probably better protected than any other sentient being I'd tried to read, except Tia. If I didn't have a cheater Misty who literally flushed ninety-five percent of that protection down the toilet, it would have taken at least a few days of continuous labor, and more likely a couple of weeks, to discreetly open that armor.

The most frustrating thing is that I don't have access to thousands of thousands of secrets, which I can hardly find out any other way (unless I search for something intentionally, but for that, you should at least wish to organize those searches). The limit of time is delineated by the limit of Misty's strength, which is now under heavy strain, literally forcing the construct to digest itself. Time is running out, and I just don't have the luxury to waste it.

Blocks are deceived, rewritten, layered on top of each other, or simply eaten by Mr. Misty's distorted essence. Pypysh is sleeping and having the best erotic dreams of his life, and I am careful, layer by layer, dissecting him like a frog. He has a good chance of surviving - there's no point in killing him. It would be suspicious, and leaving him alive would buy us all time until the next inspection. I'll be able to cover my tracks, but not in such a time crunch, so I'm limiting myself to the essentials, like deception or disabling instant alarm triggers. At least one legendary artifact covered his mind from being captured on Library grounds, with its effect shutting down a fair share of "important" persons. Fortunately, my actions are not wholly brainwashing, mental zombification, obsession, or anything else. Uniqueness helps, so to speak. As does acting from underneath the defense itself rather than from the outside.

Other people's memories, especially those of a strong and pumped up (forty level exactly!) personality, are a labyrinth, and long years filled with victories and defeats, intrigues and secrets, disappointments and achievements, accumulate a huge amount of information, which even with my accelerated perception during sleep and "sleep" is a hell of a lot of time to process. I plunged into work, sparing no nerves, shuffling the most distant memories and fleeting thoughts, as fleeting as they were deep...

...the deep levels of the central building, a warehouse of dangerous but valuable items, holding more than a dozen cursed or unstable legendary artifacts alone, and where the trophy Pedestrian's Canopy had been taken to check for bookmarks or destruction schemes. Entry modes, passwords, tests, and deceptive aura scans, hid another use of the Abiding One's Sight, which was why Pypysh, who was well aware of what was sleeping in the depths of the Library and what the Library was built inside, preferred not to go there without the need...

...need to go to the First Foundation of Inscriptions and Descriptions, located in the heart of the library, where only those books, scrolls, papers, cuneiform tablets, crystals with illusions, or image casts are recognized as truly valuable and unparalleled. Books, the reading and learning of which can automatically raise skills, raise or close to a cap a particular ability for a particular class or group of such, grant a title, or even awaken an arcana. Or just eat the soul, cripple the shells, and drive you crazy because not everyone will able to withstand the written, enclosed in paper. All sorts of material anchors of contracts and agreements are kept there, excluding those of a divine nature or state-political importance. Recently, a stolen item was delivered there straight from Alishan ...

...from Alishan had returned the newly seconded Cerach Podrius Hrass, fully committed to his master and his goal of preventing Pypysh from being promoted to a higher position than he currently held. A halfling with a grip could be allowed to do many things, but not the top three Librarians, who hold the deepest secrets. However, his unwillingness to cede his power isn't the only reason for having a whole group of Podrius men stationed around him. The Trinity, the old bitch, can't be sure that the non-human blood of Pypysh won't arouse the keen interest of that which slumbers in the Depths, only occasionally opening one of the countless eyes of his...

...his loaders with thirteen tons of first-grade parchment, soaked in alchemical potions that prevented wear and tear and erasure. It would last for a long time; there was a reason he'd made that contract in advance, having waited five long years, holding the goods in personally paid warehouses. The Sovereign's Procurement went exactly as Pypysh had planned, pushing out those who wanted to warm their hands on contracts with the Library in favor of his debtors, partners, and distant relatives. But he had to personally sell three fools who wanted to save money on the quality of their goods to be publicly flogged and given to laborers. There is a limit to any impudence. One must not give Trinity an excuse to sway an honest half-brother, though they had recently warmed their hands.....

...hands of the poor guy are ripped off. No archmage could heal him. Pypysh had helped to get him better prosthetics, for it wasn't his fault that Volume of the Echoing Storms had decided to wake up again just as he was being transported from the reading altar straight to the waiting altar. Lately, written on the skin of ancient orc kin tortured by ancient orcs with the gift of foresight, the book has been awakening more and more often, and it's getting harder and harder to calm it down. The vile thing senses the coming war, which is already from a week to a week will begin quite officially, and feel the smell of blood...

... blood of the Enlightened Za continues to decompose right in his veins at the expected rate, but the prognosis is still very optimistic. Yes, it would be impossible to cure the mighty defector, with whom the Eyes are carrying around as if with a gemstone, from an extremely cunning curse. But among dusty reed tablets, it was possible to find a description of the curse and a method of breaking it. Only to carry it out in the safest possible configuration, it is necessary to wait for the right position of the stars...

... star power he wanted, bastard! How did they persuade him to let the youngster into such dangerous literature? Look like old Magaryda had paid off his four-uncle with her charms, and Pypysh had foolishly sent Benjamin to watch the guest. He, of course, is a clever man but unforgivably considers the intelligent people around him clever too. Everything ended quite expectedly, but still foolish...

... foolish to expect that an outsider would be allowed to enter the central search altar, even with all the precautions and at great expense. The mythical artifact, with its power to encompass all the stored knowledge of not only the Library but most of the capital, held so many secrets that it could not be touched without a position on the Council of Bookworms - not a whim, but a contract. The same contract, directly changing the laws of the universe, will make the heart of the violator stop, and his soul will leave the body, feeding the altar with another portion of power ...

...power sought within the walls of the temple of knowledge, but found only boring routine and career dead end, even pity this bitch, because she is good looking, damn. But now her days are really numbered - to escape from her vows, breaking the contract by sacrificial extremely cunning ritual using two junior employees in love with her, and even on the eve of war - such will not be forgiven. But the ritual was good, really good: to set up a duel to the death between two rams, not otherwise with the help of mind-affecting potions, to treat the walls of the far vault with the necessary signs on their own blood and essence from the heart of an unborn child, and then wait until the two fools voluntarily doom each other's souls in a "fair fight for the sake of their hearts". Beautiful, graceful even, even makes you laugh, only how she managed to survive intoxication from the shreds of other people's suffering ...

...suffering and then some more. The Torture Book of Torture is no ordinary book, but a goddamn legendary artifact that might be considered mythical if it weren't for its near-total uselessness, except for its value to collectors or as an object for study by mages. An embodied spatial fold where a vast labyrinth is sealed, in which languish three hundred bound to unbreakable, as long as the labyrinth stands, contracts of devils from different domains, but invariably belonging to aspects of Agony. Now all three employees, who had miraculously survived the journey through the labyrinth and training with the masters of their craft locked there, had acquired Torture skills no less than a master, and in Basil's case, a great master. Mental problems and the threat of desecration by Hell come with it. You ignorant fools, who would mess with such creations with unwashed hands? Yes, the test of the book is activated by willingly given blood, but not necessarily your own - you can't eat roasted sirloin with blood without normal knives and forks, and you should wipe your hands. Balyn-tyrtyryryn yh mogylyshche! A legendary artifact of the devil's essence shouldn't be touched with bare hands! Some people can only be fixed by the grave...

...a grave supposedly belonging to Ana'Terai himself, an ancient warlord of an extinct race that left behind only wild territories and a network of necropolises and burial grounds around the world, was uncovered by three diamond teams from the Adventurer's Guild with the support of Library specialists. Even the Second of Three wasn't lazy enough to get his fat ass off his legendary throne and lend support with personal artifacts. The artifacts, treasures, and, most importantly, books and personal diaries are still being evaluated by the sovereign's commission, but it is already clear that even war with Alishan will not prevent the use of the information obtained to open several more previously unknown tombs...

...tombs are not to be disturbed, even if you don't live near them, but someone from the Eternals is clearly working on a project, or so it would seem. The idea of returning an artifact useless to the Empire of the Ages to its true owners so they can increase their assault on Alishan from the Desert is a good idea, I could swear on my second breakfast! And the diplomat who'd managed to negotiate with the Tomb Kings and get an equally tentative agreement without being turned into a necro-construct was worth a pearl ribbon. He could swear to that even with his first dinner! Yes, if everything goes well, Alishan will be in for a huge surprise. With the return of the Scepter of the Extinguished Pharaoh, the undead onslaught will be multiplied. But now he, who had learned of this plan only by chance, was afraid to even fart too loudly - so many contracts of silence had been placed on him. Where were his brains...

... the brains of the Torshilan are dulled, but the masters of intelligence swear they can restore them. Why shouldn't they, when the Library pays for everything, and the Library charges the families of degenerate women who've failed to do so? Envy of intelligence and beauty, or rather, of their successful combination, makes them do stupid things. For three years already one of the teams of analysts has been without Torshilan like without hands. And it is not someone else's intrigue, not sabotage, but just envy and stupidity. Encyclopedic knowledge does not add intelligence, it is every librarian is beaten into the head with an iron stick, sometimes pushing the truth through the ass. He copy a mnemonic pattern from the brush of one long-dead artist-bimbomancer, and transfers it to the cover of the diary presented as a sign of reconciliation! At least her group was quick to notice before the black-skinned Kushitka started giggling and dumbfounded, but the damage had been done. Class vulnerability against such mind-affecting methods, no matter how one looked at it. For people, who didn't even know who the analyst assigned to their staff (on the lower level of the dossier) actually worked for, were executed the same month. And they didn't even have to help - there was a whole line of people willing to help them get punished, both in the Library and in the capital in general. Even the Third of the Three was said to have had a hand in it, but he was...

...was gone, as well as the money spent on it! The map was an original, but it was useless - the treasure had been found three hundred years ago, in the time of the Fortifier.

...the fortifier said it could be done, but it would cost as much gold as a palace. It is easier not to show off and move the ritual center to another place, or even through the sewer clever people to decide...

..decide to break a contract that was a perfectly workable contract. What did he ever hope for in his madness...

...the madness of rock grabbing. Fatal, despite the best efforts of the healers. Either a fool or someone deliberately set the newcomer up, but the walls of the Library drank him to the bottom. At first, he helped himself with potions, braced himself, and refused to answer questions about rest, but then he lost consciousness, fell into a coma, and was not even carried to the exit. His soul is now...

...now all that's left to do is finalize the calculation.....

... calculation Kondratiy did, and this grandfather does not know...

...knows about the secrecy...

...the secrecy has been pushed beyond all limits...

... limit of the accumulation of potential has not been found ...

I have noticed many times before that working with Dream through dreams or mirrors is one thing. But when you plunge into Dream as a whole, with your whole body falling into the looking glass like your Alice, that's when the fun begins. Even a simple stay in another plane, without taking into account personal bonuses, allowed you to strengthen your techniques by almost an order of magnitude. There were exactly two problems with this seemingly obvious option of pumping and just doing business through Dream.

First: the consequences of long contact with Dream in distilled form. It's not even to infuse the shell with borrowed planar power, which causes the body to literally melt like hot wax. Now you yourself dive into what you used to scoop up and filter! Where before the body, mind, and essence were melting like hot wax in the sun, the closest analogy would be a lump of sugar in boiling water at full tumble. I'm really scared to imagine the degree of affinity with Dream the Weaver has, if it's hard for me, even with my class bonuses, to stay there longer than a couple of hours (in the case of a pre-prepared dive and precautions taken). And that shit floats there all the time while remaining relatively adequate, as adequate as an ancient creature can be. I can only console myself with the thought that he just "successfully" traded his humanity (or elvenness, or dwarvenness, or whatever he was when he was alive, if he wasn't born in Dream), and is not so superior to poor me.

The second reason: is the actual Weaver. In the real world, due to his nature, he is somewhat limited, weakened, and not so powerful. Yes, this "weakness" of his is extremely comparative, but still, in the real world, I have a chance to run away, hide my ass, or slip a decoy. But when I step into his territory, it's not so fun, or rather, it will be fun, but not for me. Once I was in his domain, in his element, it would be harder to hide my existence. So much more difficult that practically all the power freed from immersion in a favorable environment will have to be used for camouflage. Without pre-prepared barriers and deceptions, I have nothing to do in Dream because I will be weaker than outside it.

I have already learned to live with both risk factors, to work, and, if necessary, to overcome them. In this case, the room I created could be not only a radio tower but also a bathyscaphe for diving into the seabed or even a stealth fighter of the latest generation. I couldn't ignore the amplification from full immersion, so I decided not to trifle with trying to fit in more barriers and embodiments of stability, immutability that would protect me-sugar from the fate of sugar in a boiling pot. No, if you're going to play big, then play to the end!

And I played, dragging the entire mirror room into Dream. Outside, all that was left was the perfectly ordinary and phoneless frame of the warehouse, but inside, it was now a chasm in Dream. A sinkhole in which floated a beautiful and ugly at the same time mirror flower, surrounded by dozens of rings of mirror shards that swirled around it in bizarre orbits, like asteroids around a planet. Spinning, protecting, and helping me to imagine the little piece of the unreal as I wished it to be. And there is nothing more real in the unreal than the thoughts and desires of what resides there.

I had allotted myself two hours to rummage through Pypysh's memory, hoping to find what I needed at once. This hope, apparently as compensation for my initial luck, went down the drain along with my plans. It took me four and a half hours to somehow dig through the tangle of threads tangled in forty dimensions as his memory presented itself to me. The exact time, conceptually absent in Dream, I managed to find out thanks to the anchors prepared in advance in the dreams of several workers from the buildings neighboring the cursed territory. I quickly tapped into their brains and found out how much I spent.

I didn't panic only because under the current conditions, even the briefest loss of concentration threatened to make my mix of a planetoid and a spaceship on imaginary propulsion collapse into itself with me inside. The schedule is bearable, of course, but Misty's lifespan isn't eternal, and Tia's rituals are already coming apart at the seams. The obsessed librarian is still asleep and dreaming, but it's probably time for him to wake up if I'm going to get anything out of this idiocy.

The awakening went as usual, and then things moved on as expected. The chain of command, already tried and tested on Ollo, but only now, much more complicated, worked. I send my wish to the radio tower. The mirror structure itself encrypts this wish in the mirror labyrinth, making it practically unreadable madness (which can burn out brains if someone too curious intercepts it), and then sends it to one of the beacon-mirrors scattered around the city in advance, reflecting from randomly chosen deceptions three or four times before reaching Misty, who, in his turn, deciphers the received image, realizes it and makes the desire contained in it into the desire of Pypysh, who is in a light and indistinguishable trance.

It is possible to work even more subtly, sparing the Mist, but the delay between the order and its execution will be unacceptably long. It is also possible to speed it up, at the cost of traumas for the body, shells, and soul of Pypysh and threats of lightening on the sensors, up to repeating the trick from the story about saving elven tits, when you create a glove puppet, put it on, and through it, you create a game. But now I have to choose the golden mean, equally uncomfortable from all sides.

The halfling got this idea, and now he got to his feet, took and activated all the necessary amulets and passes, and then directed his footsteps to the portal from his personal spatial fold. Well, not only his, for there were also some of the offices where the office rats subordinate to him and his department were sitting, but still most of the fold was his chambers, offices, archive, kitchen, bathroom, and a small swimming pool! It was much cooler than his mansion in the nobility quarter and cooler than his palace, too!

Pypysh talked to the workers, for the Eternal Library never sleeps but only changes shifts, answered a couple of people who came to him with questions not directly related to him and said hello to a few friends and relatively close subordinates. Some, or rather many, noted the extremely uncharacteristic waking hours for a hobbit who valued his routine, for only something very serious, important, or dangerous, or even all of these together, could make him work after hours.

Testing, more testing. Half an hour of waiting for all seventy-nine of the seventy-nine different types of screen scanners at the portal door to the central, most secure areas of the Library to work. A few more badge checks, the obligatory identity check for foreign influence (I got a little nervous here, but the Misty worked as it was designed to), and then another series of scanning screens and fields. Toward the end, I had to sever my connection to the construct and tighten my cloak and defenses, which almost cost me serious injury and guaranteed to cost me an even worse migraine. But I had no other option but to expose the essence of Pypysh with the bare minimum of disguise and only that which covered Misty. The feeling of someone's gaze, already familiar and distinguishable even through the whole chain of transmitters, made me glad for the first time that I was in Dream - it was much harder to shit here.

I'll admit it. I was ready at that very moment to cut the connection and run away from the transmitter, blowing it the fuck up. Because that thing, whatever it was, could only let Misty through by sheer luck. I wasn't expecting the kind of horror I'd seen at the entrance to the Library to be even more scrutinized inside. The possessed man's memory only got in the way because he reasonably stayed away from the subject of what they were looking at at times. And those moments he did know were not detailed and specific enough in terms of magical concepts. Pypysh was an organizer and master of working with information flows, not a classic mage. Nevertheless, having burned half of Misty's cloaking elements from overload, I managed to get that look... No, not to distract or obscure it, but to hide a part of the whole from the whole picture, hiding a piece of the canvas with the help of mirror reflections.

Honestly, it seemed to me for a brief moment as if this something was not looking as intently as it could have. Now, from the venerable Popyatchev's memory, I know that when checking applicants at the entrance to one of the outer portals, the entity was barely awakened from its unshakable slumber. But here and now, it sort of had to be more collected, awakened. And even though this is also a guess based on a previous mistake, I can't afford to ignore my intuition.

Either I got lucky, just lucky, no tricks.

Either I was let in here on purpose, hoping to learn more about the infiltrators of the sacred shrines.

But neither I nor my construction can detect any attention, any premonition of danger, and there are so many reassurances that even Weaver or someone of comparable caliber can't deceive them completely. I'm inexcusably slow, spreading my strength and trying to spot danger in the real world while signaling the entire group to be on high alert. Tia, as a seer, was given a separate assignment and began methodically and continuously sifting through the surrounding attention vectors, trying to discern among them false and disguised ones under which an ambush or assault group was hidden. Most of the good sightings or circles she "knows," so it's highly likely she'll spot something.

But.

I do not believe that the creature who looked at me would go to such a trick as to pretend not to see anything. Not because it is not clever enough but because it is far above such games and has no need to interrupt its immense renunciation of all things for the sake of any cunning plans. No, it would simply strike the supposed spy at the same time raising the alarm in the unlikely event that the intruders who called for his attention dared to outlast that attention.

But.

It let Misty and me through too easily, and I didn't care about all my precautions, disguises, and defenses. If Pypysh had been virtually untouched, as was his mental defense. If Misty had been in a fully coiled state, and if I hadn't been near the construct I'd created, then the odds would have been almost a hundred percent. But I was in a hurry. I made a mess. I miscalculated my strength, and, as Tia had warned me, I relied on blind Fate, and that's why I was in deep shit.

But.

I've been missed. Everything here is too wrong, or the opposite is too right. I don't see any sense. I don't see any reason to play this strange game with me. And that just makes me uncomfortable. What's going on right now? Has my paranoia finally turned from a faithful assistant into a normal mental disorder that complicates life rather than making it easier? Am I getting myself worked up where there is no reason to be worked up? Or am I calming myself down, writing off the desperate cries of my intuition squeezed by confined fields and evil, ancient will on my overstressed and panic-stricken imagination?

Stupid situation.

Stupid world.

Stupid isekai.

Stupid me.