The Way of the Clan 8

by Dem Mikhaylov

  To hell with the Great Navigator! We ourselves could find it! Yes, we may not break through the ancient spell, but at least we will swim around it, dive below it, build floating bases and settlements, properly settle down and wait calmly for the moment when hundreds of sails of the leading fleet appear on the horizon, the fleet under the leadership of the Great stupid Navigator, imagining himself a pioneer. But he just saw the ground on the horizon, and we already fried shish kebabs and met the girls and played bowling and celebrated the second anniversary of the drift around Zar'Graad. And you have only just arrived, asshole, we are tired of waiting for you...

  To prevent such atrocities, the mainland was reliably hidden.

  They justified it in the following way: there was a special magic canopy around the ancient mysterious continent. At the same time, the space itself is mysteriously distorted, collapsed, crumpled and generally deformed and compressed. It is like if they took a piece of linoleum of the "mainland" lying on the floor, rolled it up, folded it five times, dropped it from above, twisted it like a wet rag, folded it again, tied it with a string and threw the resulting ugly bundle into the farthest and darkest closet, and then they locked the door and threw the keys away. To put it in a simpler way - a piece of paper crumpled, rolled into a tiny ball, and covered with a canopy of powerful magic, which could only be removed with the help of a unique key.

  And I had found this key. Together with the "tag" hanging on it, on which the route leading to the hidden mainland was printed. But in no straight line. A broken route was provided for us, at least at the very beginning of the journey. And no one knew what happened next. But it was advised to assume the worst, and then multiply the result by three.

  In some ways it played in favor of the Navy with the Navigator - no one would be able to arrange an ambush ahead of us with full confidence of success. Even if super-fast ships overtook us, there was a possibility that the fleet would dramatically change course. But there was also a lack of freedom of action - the commander of the fleet must always blindly follow the amber ray. He has the freedom to maneuver, but he must always return to the course sooner or later. Even I understood that these conditions had pros and cons for all participants of the Great Voyage.

  The immortals had done everything possible to make the trip into a hassle.

  I finished reading two hours later. All that time, the operational meeting was running full blast. Many ships received new orders, and began to change courses, take other positions. And not without accidents. One happened right before my eyes.

  I was standing in the corner, leaning my elbows on the railing calmly reading. Flipping through the page, I glanced at the sea and was shocked - seeing two ships converging at a steep angle. On each of them were running sailors, shouting something, waving flags, beating the gong, ... but this did not help. The two ships crashed into each other horribly. One of the ships stood on end and began to sink, the broken nose rising above the deck of the other ship and crashing down like the ax of the executioner. The masts began to fall; the sails covered the resulting chaos like a sad shroud. But before the wreckage sunk, a fierce fire flared up, instantly fluttering to the very tips of the surviving masts. Soon, the two ships, clinging together in a posthumous embrace, were left behind — slowly drifting eastward. One of the captains had misunderstood the order. And here was the result...

  There were at least twenty of such cases – and these were only those I noticed. But fortunately they were smaller in scale, and not so fatal. The ships cut each other, collided with their sides, snagged and tore their rigging, managed to drop an anchor at full speed, tried to swim closer to the flagship or to get ahead. They were overcome with excitement. At all, digital hearts often beat hard, and adrenaline goes off beyond all reasonable limits. And the Baroness understood this. She spared no one, none of those who had to be scolded, sobered, and morally beat on the cheeks and physically kicked in the ass. But all this was done with understanding, and without excessive zeal. It would only take time. A few more hours and the giant armada would begin to calm down. People would understand that this was only the beginning of a long, long journey, and that they should not peer so hard into the horizon - The lost continent would appear on it only much later.

  At the third hour, a ship approached the Black Queen. A handsome one. Tightly inflated snow-white sails that seemed to hover above the waves. A body with smooth contours, which cut the water, like a knife through butter. Two boats were lowered and the ship raced ahead, easily overtaking the giant flagship.

  The sky above us was no longer blue and boundless. Some forty dragons soared above us. And you could not count the other creatures. Eagles, dragons, phoenixes, seagulls and others — this variety provided a guarantee that we would not run into any nasty surprise, like a hidden magic canopy or a rock right on our course. And that we would not hit right into it. As stated by the Baroness – we categorically refuse the laurels of the Titanic.

  And the boats quickly arrived. The passengers boarded the flagship. I recognized only one passenger. Storm. Dressed in a canvas jacket and trousers without frills, and strong sailor boots. Well, well…

  “Uh,” I turned to the Baroness. She had decided to take a breather and have some coffee. “That half-orc with the name of Storm…”

  “Our special guest,” the Baroness shrugged her shoulders. “So what? It seems that our contract did not have a clause stating that I should ask you for permission to receive guests on board the flagship. Right, Ros?” She looked at me, her eyes filled with humor she did not bother hiding.

  “No,” I had to confess. “Hrm…”

  “Mhm…”

  “Good morning,” one of the staff greeted a passenger of the boat — the first one who climbed onto the bridge, and stepped immediately to the Baroness. An elf, her level sky-high, and her chest is very, very luxurious. Apparently, some magic class, not for fighting or attacking type. This was something from the support category. Her game nickname incomprehensible. Fidelis Fish.

  The girl with the chest in real life? Seems very much so ... but I did not dare to stare. I tried to delve deeper into reading, although the appearance of my father had distracted me. What did he have to join the virtual maritime campaign? Did he not have enough of that in real life?

  “Ros,” after talking with the girl elf, the Baroness stepped toward me, and quietly asked: “The info that Malice gave me, about the effect "The Living Blood of the Great." Is it still active?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great. A sudden gift of fate. Here. Try on these clothes.”

  A large box of dark-blue stone was brought over the bridge, dotted with protective sparkling runes and entangled in silver and copper chains.

  "Open the chest and dress. There are three items.”

  “Wait a minute...” I hesitated. “I know those runes. Are these not, by chance, the runes placed on chests and boxes containing damned objects?”

  "You guessed it," the Baroness shone. "Cursed equipment. Cursed by a god.”

  "Any chance cursed by Gravital?" I blurted.

  “No. Why Gravital?”

  “No reason… Do you really want me to wear a god-cursed outfit? There are terrible penalties for sure. And I am ninety percent sure that I will not be able to remove these myself. Only through a temple and through powerful ritual. And you yourself know this.”

  “I know. The curse is powerful. Highly. But why should you be afraid?” The girl stared at me in surprise.

  “Oh!” I realized at last, remembering one of the features of the effect of "The Living Blood of the Great."

  “Open it,” ordered the head of the Sleepless, and two players took off the chain and flipped the lid, immediately stepping aside. From the open box came a black, smoking cloud, pierced with golden and purple flares. What the ... it is a very powerful curse...

  However, temporarily I did not care about divine curses.

  The Baroness seemed to read my thoughts and, seeing my indecision, added:

/>   “Ros, we had the opportunity to ask for a powerful blessing of mana and wisdom from one bright deity. But after you got immunity, the whole thing was snuffed. And the blessing should have given you an additional fifteen percent of mana and a hundred points of wisdom for exactly one day. How else can I make up for the losses? A merry naked dance around the flagship's mast accompanied by the enchanting sounds of a pearl harp?”

  I wanted to blurt out: "It would be nice to look at it," but I bit my tongue in time, and shut my mouth. God forbid that Kira would have heard it ... and then the big question would be who exactly would be running around the mast naked in a frenzied dance...

  “Immunity will not allow you to receive blessings from the priests, either - they too are tied to divine magic. What did you want me to do?”

  “Got it,” I nodded, stepping to the box. “But please do not forget that I am not the one making this decision. This is in case you try to start a sentence with "you are to blame for everything"…”

  “I understand. By the way, why did you get such an effect? Something to do with the Clan of the Dead Sands?” The gypsy gaze tried to burn a hole in my forehead, did not succeed, and slipped lower, to my fingers, but did not spy a ring. The bone ring given to me by Alishana was already stored in an extremely safe place.

  “With the Clan of the Dead Sands?” I asked. “Well, no. Malice said something about the movements of my bare buttocks in the sunbeams. So all sorts of starry perverts flocked to see me ... By the way, you will have to talk to Malice, tell him to keep on a leash his deeply-buried erotic fantasies.”

  Examining the box, I continued to speak, paying no attention to the players who were standing on the bridge.

  "You put yourself in my place. Imagine, we are going through abandoned ancient ruins, where you can scream, but no one will come to your aid. Then suddenly he says in a hoarse whisper - "Undress and dance, catch beams with your butt! Well, at least, then he added that it was necessary to catch “sun” beams... I heard it, I felt so heartbroken and I wanted to say that he had me all wrong, that I did not want the mana ...”

  At this point in my speech, about five advisers sank to the floor in convulsions, and the Baroness leaned her hand against the powerful oak table covered with cards and instruments, and covered her face with her palm. I bitterly continued to pour out my soul:

  “Then he said that if I would not undress, they would drowned me in the quicksand. And the paladin added something about chorus farting!”

  “Here I got really frightened. I had not imagined my death in the desert to be like this ... one thing to be at the mercy of the hands of the nomads, but like this? To die in the quicksand with butt naked ... do I need it? What kind of death is this? What kind of honor? Guys, do you have a couple of drops of sedative? Huh?”

  The answer was a stifled bleating — someone tried to crawl off the bridge, and the others froze in tense poses and grunted convulsively, unsuccessfully trying to contain their laughter.

  “Life is hard for the Navigator ...”

  “Oh, Ros,” the BB shook her head, covering face with hands. “Oh ... oh ... why are you so... Malice is in trouble now... nobody would let him pass... everybody would be interested with his deep-hidden erotic fantasies...”

  "That desert has forever been etched into my soul," I sighed heavily.

  “Oh ...”

  “So,” I said, in a completely different tone — taking from the box the first thing. “A shirt… rags ...”

  I was pretty much holding a rag. Once, it was a good, white silk shirt with a dark blue collar. But the years had taken their toll. It seemed that, immediately after buying the shirt, the wearer did not take it off for a very long time. He slept in it, ate in it, swam in the swamps, too, in it, and took some acid baths, swimming breaststroke in lakes of fire and diving into hordes of skunks. There were mud stains, and the patches of shirt were joined together with stitches of multi-colored threads, and where the holes were too large, there were patches. Eventually, it seemed, the owner of the shirt had died a terrible bloody death and died in this shirt, which was then removed from the corpse.

  "And so this is how you decided to dress the Great Navigator?" I asked. “Are you not ashamed?”

  “Take a look at the properties,” softly advised the girl.

  Heeding her words, I looked. And was very surprised. Wow...

  Shirt of Gigrederassis the Sinner.

  Type: equipment.

  The minimum level is 100.

  Description: Cut out and sewn in times immemorial, for many years it served as a garment for eternal prisoner Gigrederassis the Sinner, doomed to terrible agony in the smoky crypts of the Peak of Dolloron. The shirt is old and torn, but it is clearly visible that it was left in the hands of a great tailor.

  Class of the subject: extremely rare!

  Effects:

  + 6% of the mana.

  +40 Wisdom.

  + 4 appearance.

  + 5 protection

  Additionally:

  Mana regeneration increased by 7%.

  Strength increased by 25%.

  Attention!

  The item is cursed!

  A curse in the world Valdira is a very bad thing!

  Exercise caution when dealing with damned objects!

  The best policy of behavior is to avoid any contact!

  Attention!

  There is a divine curse laying on the item!

  Often, the violent curses of Valdira's deities cause the unprecedented rage of the gods...

  Items with a divine curse are extremely dangerous! Avoid them!

  The Shirt of Gigrederassis the Sinner is cursed by the light goddess Velrona the Cloudy.

  Effects of the divine curse:

  You cannot remove the item!

  Destroying the object is impossible!

  The truncated health of the prisoner: - 45% of points of life.

  Dissolved in the cry of reason: - 50% of intelligence.

  The sick legs of the prisoner: the speed of walking is reduced by 50%.

  The broken back of the prisoner: - 80% of the carrying capacity.

  The great weakness of the prisoner: - 80% of the strength.

  The great stiffness of the prisoner: - 80% of dexterity.

  Smoky creatures of Dolloron.

  Smoky shroud of Dolloron.

  The howling cry of the penitent.

  I did not know the unfortunate sinner with the unpronounceable name. But I had heard about the Peak of Dolloron, or the Peak of Fire Purification, many times. A half-kilometer rock looking like a giant, insect-eaten eggplant stuck out in the midst of a boiling lake of lava. Inside the cliff, there was a prison. Smoky and dirty. Delivery of new prisoners arrived only by air. Sometimes the level of the lava lake began to rise sharply. The lava rose to the lowest levels of the prison and its prisoners immediately fried. It turned out that Gigrederassis the sinner had stayed for a long period in one of the prison cages. Wearing a silk shirt. And the prisoner was cursed by a deity - extremely weakened so that he could not escape from the prison. Who was this sinner? The terminator?

  Smoky creatures of Dolloron – according to the description, sometimes horrible monsters appeared from thin air around the wearer of the shirt, and did their best to intimidate the prisoner to a state of absolute madness.

  The smoky shroud - vision is weakened by seventy-five percent. Damn! That is almost complete blindness!

  A howling cry - every half hour the bearer of a shirt made the wild, loud cry of a madman. Interesting.

  "I do not want to dress this terribly," I admitted, holding the rag, which was still emanating smoke.

  “But it is necessary,” sniffed the head of Sleepless. “The extra percent of mana and wisdom are no joke.”

  “True,” I had to agree. I pulled the accursed shirt over myself, and found that, within a couple of seconds, the half-orc was over a dozen meters away from me. The BB remained in place and shook her head contritely:

  "Come
back, you fugitive. This curse is aimed at the carrier. Well, how about it, Ros? Are there bonuses?”

  "Oh yes," I answered, fascinated as the mana points began to creep up. "My energy pool has reached the size of a small lake. However, if protection from divine curses subsides, I will instantly turn into drooling maniac.

  "Try to take it off," suggested the Baroness.

  Nodding, I easily pulled off the shirt. It worked…

  “Great!” - brightened the girl. “Look at the contents of the box, check out the items. Then fold everything back and keep the box with you. Study the items. Some of those curses have strange effects. They would not affect you, but as for others… I would not want to giggle insanely, giving repeated orders for ramming, if you understand what I mean ... the clan members must believe in the infallibility of my genius and the full sanity of reason.”

  “Agreed,” I said, putting my shirt in the box. “I will be careful.”

  “Oh,” I was surprised, having noticed a rectangular glass casket lying separately, filled up to the top with some kind of red matter ... I was surprised because, the red fabric looked alive. Wait ... this was not a fabric. It was a red, bubbling liquid...

  "You forgot some boiling blood in the box, right?" I asked the Baroness kindly.

  "Don’t worry,” she waved from far away. "I will be back soon!"

  The head of the Sleepless accelerated to the state of blurry shadow and sort of vanished from the captain’s bridge. The only I could understand that she moved toward the nose of the gigantic flagship. Same direction went my dad recently, completely ignoring me. My ancestor did not ask me to be more serious. That is a wonder.…

  "Too far to run" I remarked. "What is there on the nose?"

  “On the nose? Well, that is the question!” The player began. “There is the whole city! There are lots of things! But the BB went to the assault bridge, as I understand it. That one is a backup in case this one is busted. And yes – so far, have to move foot or there is an alternative - half-orc pointed his hand and I saw how from one deck to another, at a distance of twenty meters, literally threw the player holding a large box. The thrower was a clam in a strange tubular shell. Most of all he was like a living gun.