House among the stars hunchback fb2. Sergey Gorbonosdom among the stars

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Chapter 1

Removing the evil eye. Ancestral curse. Love spell, lapel and bells and whistles ... In our time, everyone who has more or less power lives just fine. And no matter how trite it may sound, but the weaker you are, the better. The special services will look, smile and leave them alone, but the people ... the people will have enough of those drops of power to show them a MIRACLE. And let it be only a light, a trembling of the air, the lightest sound - this is quite enough: the client is all yours and his money too.

Are there those who can really do something more serious than a farcical performance, are there those who could be called magicians? Quite enough, I tell you. The funniest thing is that the stronger we are, the worse. Constant government checks, suspicions, heaps of idiots who want to either "master the forbidden" or "punish the ungodly brats." By the way, yes, it is “we”, that is, me too.

Let me introduce myself Alexander von Gore. Russian with German roots on his father's side. Appearance: average height, average weight, black hair. The haircut is short ... it was, now it is a little overgrown. Some, however, say that when you look at me, you feel the breed - but that's what and where it is felt, so for many years I could not understand. This is where quite “standard” human traits end and non-standard ones begin. The first is the hands. My main tool of labor ... the second is an ax. In combat, I must be able to pass a large amount of energy through my hands and subtly control it, and then, if necessary, take an ax and finish what I did not have time to do, and then energy again and so on several times.

Therefore, thanks to the efforts of one magician of life, with whom I was a “guinea pig” for a while, my hands are strengthened so that I can bend horseshoes, and then play the piano, then bend horseshoes again, and then embroider with a cross - the magician was able to achieve phenomenal endurance muscles and ligaments. It is a pity, however, that the magician did not have enough strength for the whole body. Yes, and I didn’t see him later, however, some say, then guys from intelligence revolved around his house ... perhaps not even ours. Well, the second difference is the eyes. At birth, brown, and due to the constant current of energy close to neutral, with a dark color, they acquired a silver, metallic color and a slight glow in the dusk. I have been wearing contact lenses for as long as I can remember.

But as soon as I pick up only a mouse, set a dead cockroach on a living one - that's all. Period, we've arrived. Fear. After all, people in power are also people, they are also afraid of scary tales. They need comfort. My great-grandfather did not die a natural death, my grandfather also, my father performed a ritual of renunciation of strength ... In general, it is worth just a little "raise the tail", and even magic will become useless, one is not a warrior in the field, even if he is a necromancer.

But I don't want that, I want to find my place in the world. Where my work will be appreciated, where I will be needed and useful, where I will not have to hide and look around ...

Luck, chance, although, rather, the shadow of such came from an unexpected direction. One of the clients who usually shy away from me more than from the dead, who were asked to be disposed of, did me a favor. He showed me in a favorable light, assured me of my reliability in front of influential people. These people are an ancient order, very closed. The main goal is to protect a sacred place. I don’t know the details, I’ll find out at the meeting, which, in fact, I’m going to, but in short, their relic is some kind of ancient artifact “Wishmaster”. The principle of operation and the price are unknown, but the name ... inspires optimism.

I go to an expensive hotel for tourists. Here, in one of the rooms, a meeting with the client will take place. Getting in. I take the elevator. Here is the hidden door. Call. Expectation.

The door is opened by a fit middle-aged man, with gray hair already breaking through. Obviously not Russian, more English.

- Hello, I'm Alexander, I need Mr. Gillard, - and I enter, obeying the gesture of the man.

- Hello, have a seat. We have reviewed your dossier and believe that we can use your services, - the foreigner begins, treating me to coffee, and then, sitting down on one of the chairs. I'm on the second one. “We know that you are a professional and also able to ensure the confidentiality of information, therefore, considering the specifics of your “search”, we agree to provide you with a little ... more information than in any other case. So, our order belongs to the orders of guardians. Our goal is to protect the artifact, more on that later. Our method of protection looks like this: on the surface, on one of the islands in the sea, there is a castle, very old, but equipped with the latest technology. It's on the surface - there we have the first line of defense. Under the ground, we have a crypt. Servants of the order undergo a special ritual upon entry into the order. It does not affect life in any way, but after death ... The body of the adept is placed in the aforementioned crypt. Thanks to the ritual, it is not subject to decay. But this is not the main thing. As soon as the enemy breaks through the first line of defense, the second property of the ritual will immediately appear. The deceased members of the order will come to life with very strong dead. This is the second line of defense. Beneath the crypt is the last room, the room with the Wishmaster artifact. The name does not quite reflect its role, rather - the principle of action. Do you believe in the multi-structure of the universe, that we are not alone in the universe, and the universe, perhaps, is not alone?

“Did you just ask the light necromancer this?”

- Well, yes, I'm sorry. So, this artifact is a teleportation arch capable of sending people to any coordinates of the universe and, perhaps, but these are only our suspicions that its power is not limited to one universe, one world. "Wishmaster" is the name associated with the principle of its action. This is how you imagine coordination in an infinite number of worlds, well, really, don’t assign numbers to them, and even not just coordination, but in such a way as to get to a certain point in this world. In general, its principle of operation is the desire of the individual to get "somewhere". Imagine your home - he sends you there. Imagine that you want to go to a place with a certain set of characteristics - imagine them all, and the portal adjusts, looking for such a place and sending you there. What you need, isn't it? Our order protects it until the case when there will no longer be a “safe place” on the planet - this is the point of evacuation of mankind.

The portal takes energy passively from the Earth's mantle. This is where the main problem lies. He absorbs it all the time. This artifact is designed for permanent use. We can’t afford this, there is no one to repair it if something happens. Therefore, apparently, thanks to the security system, the artifact, having accumulated a certain amount of energy, throws it into the environment. This is a regular process and does not cause harm ... until this moment it did not. This is the first time we've encountered this. The ejection was extremely strong. He reacted with the ritual inflicted on the dead, causing them to rise.

We would like a gentle settlement of this issue from you. Still, these are our former brothers and sisters, and we would not want to torment even their dead bodies with machine guns, and then shoot them with napalm. Give them peace, and we will give you the opportunity to use the artifact, because that's what you wanted - to find your place away from everyone.

- Guarantees…

- The method of using the teleporter will be given to you before entering the crypt. In other words, you enter, no one leaves.

- OK, how can I get to you?

- What are you, what are you. We are an order with very generous funding. Many people, especially now, when every year is the end of the world, want to have a kind of emergency exit. Therefore, I am waiting for you on the roof of the hotel in the evening, I will warn the staff. A helicopter will be waiting for us there.

Coming home. In fact, there is almost nothing to add up. But here is the special equipment you should grab. On the body a special protection made of polymer alloys, not so strong anymore, but due to my constant running through it, the forces have become many times stronger, now the kinetics will rather smear me on the walls of the protection than break through it itself. A backpack with a lot of little things and a whole bag of quartz crystals. This mineral is surprisingly fully capable of storing any energy. And over the years, I filled them in such a way that if I sold them on the black market, I could buy a decent island on the sea, with a small mansion of about five floors, but who will give ... The accumulated energy is able to restore energy and physical strength, in fact, while the crystals are in available, I can fight non-stop without needing food or water. Although the latter is also worth grabbing. I’ll take this wonderful katana from a weapon ... yeah, schaz, roll up your lips, it’s the last thing to compete with the dead in fencing, so I don’t know how to control swords at all, I take what I know perfectly - a two-handed ax and a morning star on my belt. Camouflage cloak, enchanted by one witch, will also be in the court. Still, if everything works out, I plan to get into a fantasy world. Yeah, I haven't grown up since childhood. And last but not least, the library. No matter how much you would like to take it with you, it is still impossible. More precisely, it is impossible to take away the paper, I will take the information. More precisely - already taken. I once had a mage-researcher. If we take a comparison with the same fantasy, then its strength is similar to the strength of gnomes - runists. Very fluid and hardly changeable energy. But just as weakly weathered and very resistant. At one time, we performed an interesting ritual with him. It consisted of the following. I have been increasing the magical background of the library for several weeks, filling the room with as much and dense mass of my energy as possible. Well, then the runist simply passed his energy through the books with all the speed possible in his case. His stable, poorly corrosive energy created something like informational casts of books, which I, due to my quick and malleable energy, were able to enclose in a diamond. He didn't even spare money for it. So we got a kind of magical digitization. Now you don’t even need to read, it’s enough to mentally turn - and the energy itself will find the way to the necessary information on the diamond. I take the diamond. Well, now the library is not only useless, but even dangerous. I have fulfilled my sacred duty in preserving information and therefore I take a couple of the most valuable books - I will mail them to friends, the rest ... eh ... A sharp push of energy with a clear dark color, and most of the books are unreadable. It is necessary to take them in hand, and they are showered with ashes. Hmmm, after such a dark ejection, they won’t leave me behind ... I’ll sit down on the path.

Preparations are over. On the already beaten path I head towards the hotel. I go up to the roof. Indeed a helicopter.

- Hello, Alexander, please, sit down comfortably, the road will not be close. - This is my employer.

Well then. As requested, we are doing it, that is, we sit down and by all means get more comfortable ... Well, we flew.

The flight was not memorable at all. Out of habit, I was terribly seasick, and I, spitting on all the safety precautions and precautions, fell asleep corny. Mr. Gillard woke me up and said that we were flying to our destination. Indeed, in the distance one could see a decent-sized island with a castle in the center.

After landing, we were met by ordinary people, in casual clothes, and taken to the dining room. They are relaxed here, although there is nothing to fear on the island - there is solid water around, yet in our age it is not so easy to sneak up on such a “lonely poplar”. Although I still slander, the guards were still there and quite a large number.

After dinner, I was instructed, then press it, pull the pimpochka, slam on the shmorgalka - and the door will open. In theory, now I know how to use the teleport, it remains only to reach it.

I change clothes. I grab my things and head for the doors to the crypt.

M-yes, just a Swiss bank with a thick door. I go in and start down the stairs. Nevertheless, these are not ancient forgotten tombs, everything is pretty decently illuminated by lamps. Reaching the bottom, I feel kinship… Necroenergy. Yes, there are definitely not dead here. I go into the room and see that the first corpse is turning in my direction. The state of the body is excellent, but the energy is terrible. The tenants were wrong. The seal did not raise the dead, it only served as a guide - they are just stupid zombies, self-raising as it is. Ha, this will be easier than I thought. Okay, employers need beautiful carcasses, they will be whole and beautiful.

- Peace! - I say and point to the dead man. A slight distortion, as if from heated air, breaks from his hands and flies in his direction. He, heading towards me, takes another step and just falls, no howling, foam and other special effects. In fact, I could without words, but I don’t know what lies ahead for me, and words increase concentration, help to create the image of the necessary spell more easily, save energy with one word. The simplest spell of rest - just a bunch of high-speed power - washes necro-energy from the dead, destroys energy bundles. The client asked for a beautiful body - it will not be touched, but the energy body is destroyed, burned out by excess energy to a state of impossibility to rise again.

I walk, periodically throwing "peace" at the slowly weaving dead, in my left hand a snack from a sandwich; Dozens of bodies have already been laid to rest. The work is not dusty enough, although dreary. I was definitely lucky that the customer overestimated the degree of danger. A small ritual would be enough here. He passed it over the amulet, threw it into the tunnel, and in a week everything was clean and calm. But I don't have to complain.

Wow. Looks like the dead are gone. I listen. Indeed, there is no active energy in the background, only remnants of passive energy. I approach another massive door. I remove the key card from my neck. There is an activation. Nevertheless, serious people did not deceive - it pleases.

Behind the door was a small room. The main exhibit is a huge block of stone, similar to a monolithic fortress wall. Dozens of symbols and signs stretch across the entire surface. I take out a piece of paper with a sketched sequence of signs from my pocket and activate each of this drawing with a small drain of energy.

Eat. The remaining signs began to move and began to glow a little blue light - a sign of successful activation.

Now the most responsible and pleasant thing - I present in detail the criteria for the place where I want to be, so that without our government, without persecution, a place where my work is needed, useful, a place where there will be no contempt for my strength.

Signs circling horizontally begin to accelerate and deviate from the trajectory of movement. More and more, the picture of the signs begins to resemble an arch, in the center of which the same blue radiance is born, as in the symbols.

Another splash and the signs stop, some burning especially brightly. And in the center of the blue glow of the transition arch. All. I have to go. Well, with God.

Feeling a good kick in the chest. But it did not last long, just a moment, and now I find myself in a strange room, everywhere the room is dimly lit by small lamps, similar to "daylight". One thing is for sure - the fantasy world does not threaten me. But do not despair, you need to look around. And then I stop dead in my tracks. A lot of necro energy fills this, judging by the sensations, huge room, which means a lot of undead. Have I been thrown into some ancient tomb? We need to find a way out. I move towards a large arch, similar to the arch of a door. Closed, but next to a small remote. A weak injection of energy - and it shorted out. The plates closing the door diverge, and one thing becomes clear - this is not a door, this is a window, or rather, a porthole. And in the porthole, what makes my heart go cold, like in a battle with the first dead man. Some debris floats in it, and a sand-like planet is visible in the distance. This is not a tomb - this is a spaceship, and I'm in space!

- Yes ... went for bread!

Chapter 2. Commander

Inhale.

Swear a little.

Exhalation.

Inhale.

Swear a little.

Exhalation.

Wow. It seems that the ancient Russian breathing exercises help, and calmness returns to me. What we have? The ship, space, judging by the energy, there are a lot of non-dead people around or something related to them. "We're all going to die!!!" with full tolerance for hysteria and self-pity… Okay. Gathered. The plan is at least or “a finger to the sky” - to find the nearest source of necro-energy, read - a dead person, and try to count the residual memory, since it helped law enforcement agencies a couple of dozen times in such matters.

Command cabin of the ship

“Commander, let me speak.

“Y-yes, I s-listen to y-you, Zeo.”

“Commander, based on the readings from the ship's internal scanners, an outsider has infiltrated our side.

– Zhi…howl w-man?

- That's right, you are twice right, the commander is a man and ... alive.

“A scavenger…a scavenger, a pirate?”

- No, Commander. Now ten percent of the computing power is thrown by me on the comprehension of this phenomenon - a person just appeared on board. There were no ships in the vicinity. Energy bursts were not recorded. It's like he's always been here. What will be your next orders?

“I’m tired…a…al, Zeo… I’m so tired… Here’s my order – give the alien the status of “conditionally neutral.” Display… ty on the holoscreen of his movement. Enemy ... debny d ... do not take action. If he's strong enough to survive here, bring him to me. If not, they will become his executioners. And t-now leave me nya… I’m tired…

How good it is that with energy bursts it turns out to open the doors here. I move to the next room, but here it is. Source of necro energy. Very weak - I'm better. A man is standing at the far wall of the room, or rather what he once was.

Amazing integrity for a zombie - if I didn't feel the energy emanating from him, I would just think that increased pallor and lethargy is associated with some kind of disease. Oh felt me. The man, apparently, in an analogue of the form, the clothes were very similar to her - neat, functional, gray, turned in my direction and at the speed of a “light walking step”, hobbled a little unevenly, moved towards me. Heh, it could have been earlier. So, the rank… I think it’s medium, that is, one on one with an ordinary person can easily cope, with a couple… perhaps with a group of people – he won’t master it. Anyway. There is no government, no church, I can not restrain myself and use all the knowledge of the family.

– Kara! It's still better to save energy. I continue to duplicate spells with words.

I put in the least effort. The spell "punishment" is considered combat and serves for the point passage of indigestible energy through the body. The caster quickly prepares "raw" energy, which, guided by his hand, rushes into the body of the victim. There, depending on its energy conductivity, it begins to behave like a bullet with a displaced center of gravity, looking for areas that are more conductive for energy, therefore, constantly moving through the body, it crushes it. It is not applicable for stronger necrocreatures - their body saturated with necroenergy will not let you wander around it, working like armor. But for such - just right. Precisely something to take the goal "alive". Cheap and cheerful, so to speak.

A small black ray flies out of the hand, immediately being drawn into the body of the zombie in the area of \u200b\u200bthe leg. It immediately breaks, and he falls to the floor. I apply a couple more times "punishment", neutralizing my hands. The client is packed and hungry for consensus. I quickly walk over and put my hand on his head. There is contact, not much, but there is a whole memory. This body was a mechanic on the Imperial battleship Destroyer.

The last mission of the ship is an official meeting with the elves. 1
Alva- a humanoid race that has followed the path of biological perfection. He has an extremely negative attitude towards technologies and very rarely uses them, replacing them with his “live” counterparts. Alf ships are also living beings. In terms of territory they occupy, they are the largest non-human race. People are treated with caution and neutrality due to past conflicts. They are extremely reluctant to contact with other races, including people ( here and below - note. author).

To eliminate a common threat. Next is a broken section ... Aha, here it is. The last memory is the appearance in the zone of contact with the elves of unknown black ships, completely covered with futuristic spikes. Beams shoot out of them and hit allied ships, then a flash and darkness. I don't understand, if they were shot at, why they "rose". Okay, the goal and plan are now becoming clearer - to move towards the command cabin of this battleship and try to read the knowledge of one of the officers, ideally the captain, since the mechanic remembered the ship’s scheme better than his name.

- Peace! - And still the twitching body at my feet calms down, and I stop my aimless wanderings and turn around in the direction of the passages leading to the wheelhouse.

* * *

Another room, another transition. Another medium-strength zombie runs with another idea to eat me. It just kind of got boring. Fortunately, there were only a couple of transitions left before the command cabin. It's strange, but the closer I get to her, the concentration of zombies grows. They were supposed to just scatter around the ship, why are they crowding here?

- Hello…

- SLOW!!! I yell out the spell, launching it behind my back, at the sound, even faster than I could even understand what had happened.

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Coming home. In fact, there is almost nothing to add up. But here is the special equipment you should grab. On the body a special protection made of polymer alloys, not so strong anymore, but due to my constant running through it, the force has become many times stronger, now the kinetics will rather smear me on the walls of the protection than break through it itself. A backpack with a lot of little things and a whole bag of quartz crystals. This mineral is surprisingly fully capable of storing any energy. And for many years I filled them in such a way that if I sold on the black market I could buy a decent island on the sea, with a small mansion of about five floors, but who will give ... The accumulated energy is able to restore energy and physical strength, in fact, as long as the crystals are in I can fight without interruption without needing food or water. Although the latter is also worth grabbing. I’ll take this wonderful katana from a weapon ... yeah, right now, roll up your lips, competing with the dead in fencing is the last thing, so I don’t know how to control swords at all, I take what I know perfectly - a two-handed ax and a morning star on my belt. A camouflage cloak enchanted by one witch will also be in the court. Still, if everything works out, I plan to get into a fantasy world. Yeah, I haven't grown up since childhood. And last but not least, the library. No matter how much you would like to take it with you, it is still impossible. More precisely, it is impossible to pick up the paper, then I will take the information. More precisely, he already took it. I once had a mage-researcher. If we take a comparison with the same fantasy, then its strength is similar to the strength of gnomes - runists. Very fluid and hardly changeable energy. But just as weakly "weathered" and very resistant. At one time, we performed an interesting ritual with him. It consisted of the following. I have been increasing the magical background of the library for several weeks, filling the room with as much and dense mass of my energy as possible. Well, then the runist simply passed his energy through the books with all the speed possible in his case. His stable, poorly corrosive energy created something like informational casts of books, which I, due to my quick and malleable energy, were able to enclose in a diamond. He didn't even spare money for it. So we got a kind of magical digitization. You don’t even need to read now, it’s enough to mentally turn and the energy itself will find the way to the necessary information on the diamond. I take the diamond. What now the library is not only useless, but even dangerous. I fulfilled my sacred duty in preserving information and therefore I take a couple of the most valuable books - I will drop them by mail to friends, the rest. .. eh... A sharp burst of energy with a clear dark color and most of the books are unreadable. It is necessary to take them in hand, and they are showered with ashes. Hmm, after such a dark ejection, they won’t leave me alone ... I’ll sit down on the path.

Sergei Gorbonos

House among the stars

Chapter 1

Let me introduce myself Alexander von Gore. Russian with German roots on his father's side. Appearance: average height, average weight, black hair. The haircut is short ... it was, now it is a little overgrown. True, some say that when looking at me, one feels the breed - but that's what and where it is felt, so for many years I could not understand. This is where quite “standard” human traits end and non-standard ones begin. The first is the hands. My main tool of labor ... the second is an ax. In combat, I must be able to pass a large amount of energy through my hands and subtly control it, and then, if necessary, take an ax and finish what I did not have time to do, and then energy again and so on several times.

Therefore, thanks to the efforts of one magician of life, with whom I spent a little time as a “guinea pig”, my hands are strengthened so that I can bend horseshoes, and then play the piano, then bend horseshoes again, and then embroider with a cross - the magician was able to achieve phenomenal endurance muscles and ligaments. It is a pity, however, that the magician did not have enough strength for the whole body. Yes, and I didn’t see him later, however, some say, then guys from intelligence revolved around his house ... perhaps not even ours. Well, the second difference is the eyes. At birth, brown, and due to the constant current of energy close to neutral, with a dark color, they acquired a silver, metallic color and a slight glow in the dusk. I have been wearing contact lenses for as long as I can remember.

I'm on the list of tribal magicians. Magic has been passed down from generation to generation in my family. What's the magic? Hehe, necromancy. Whether a smile of fate, or evil fate, but I am part of a family of bright necromancers. What is the difference? Nothing, except behavior. All my work is mainly to give peace to the suddenly risen dead, to remove curses from cemeteries. No, of course, I am quite capable of raising the inanimate, moreover, due to the nobleness of my strength, I am one of the strongest in our country, and I am not deprived of knowledge - the family library has accumulated enough over the centuries. But as soon as I pick up only a mouse, set a dead cockroach on a living one - that's all. Period, we've arrived. Fear. After all, people in power are also people, they are also afraid of scary tales. They need comfort. My great-grandfather did not die a natural death, my grandfather also, my father performed a ritual of renunciation of strength ... In general, it only takes a little "raise the tail", and even magic will become useless, one is not a warrior in the field, even if he is a necromancer.

But I don't want that, I want to find my place in the world. Where my work will be appreciated, where I will be needed and useful, where I will not have to hide and look around ...

Luck, chance, although, rather, the shadow of such came from an unexpected direction. One of the clients who usually shy away from me more than from the dead, who were asked to be disposed of, did me a favor. He showed me in a favorable light, assured me of my reliability in front of influential people. These people are an ancient order, quite closed. The main goal is to protect a sacred place. I don’t know the details, I’ll find out at the meeting, which, in fact, I’m heading to, but in short, their relic is some kind of ancient artifact “Wishmaster”. The principle of operation and the price are unknown, but the name ... inspires optimism.

I go to an expensive hotel for tourists. Here, in one of the rooms, a meeting with the client will take place. Getting in. I take the elevator. Here is the hidden door. Call. Expectation.

The door is opened by a fit middle-aged man, with gray hair already breaking through. Obviously not Russian, more English.

Hello, I am Alexander, I need Mr. Gillard, - and I enter, obeying the gesture of a man.

Hello, have a seat. We have reviewed your dossier and believe that we can use your services, - the foreigner begins, treating me to coffee, and then, sitting down on one of the chairs. I'm on the second one. - We know that you are a professional and also capable of ensuring the confidentiality of information, therefore, considering the specifics of your "search", we agree to provide you with a little ... more information than in any other case. So, our order belongs to the orders of guardians. Our goal is to protect the artifact, more on that later. Our method of protection looks like this: on the surface, on one of the islands in the sea, there is a castle, very old, but equipped with the latest technology. It is on the surface - there we have the first line of defense. Under the ground, we have a crypt. Servants of the order undergo a special ritual upon entry into the order. It does not affect life in any way, but after death ... The body of the adept is placed in the aforementioned crypt. Thanks to the ritual, it is not subject to decay. But this is not the main thing. As soon as the enemy breaks through the first line of defense, the second property of the ritual will immediately appear. The deceased members of the order will come to life with very strong dead. This is the second line of defense. Beneath the crypt is the last room, the room with the Wishmaster artifact. The name does not quite reflect its role, rather - the principle of action. Do you believe in the multi-structure of the universe, that we are not alone in the universe, and the universe, perhaps, is not alone?

Have you asked the light necromancer now?

And yes, sorry. So, this artifact is a teleportation arch capable of sending people to any coordinates of the universe and, perhaps, but these are only our suspicions that its power is not limited to one universe, one world. "Wishmaster" is the name associated with the principle of its action. This is how you imagine coordination in an infinite number of worlds, well, really, don’t assign numbers to them, and even not just coordination, but in such a way as to get to a certain point in this world. In general, its principle of operation is the desire of the individual to get "somewhere". Imagine your home - he sends you there. Imagine that you want to go to a place with a certain set of characteristics - imagine them all, and the portal adjusts, looking for such a place and sending you there. What you need, isn't it? Our order, however, protects it until the case when there will no longer be a “safe place” on the planet - this is the point of evacuation of mankind.

Guarantees…

The method of using the teleporter will be given to you before entering the crypt. In other words, you enter, no one leaves.

OK, how can I get to you?

What are you, what are you. We are an order with very generous funding. Many people, especially now, when every year is the end of the world, want to have a kind of emergency exit. Therefore, I am waiting for you on the roof of the hotel in the evening, I will warn the staff. A helicopter will be waiting for us there.

Coming home. In fact, there is almost nothing to add up. But here is the special equipment you should grab. On the body a special protection made of polymer alloys, not so strong anymore, but due to my constant running through it, the forces have become many times stronger, now the kinetics will rather smear me on the walls of the protection than break through it itself. A backpack with a lot of little things and a whole bag of quartz crystals. This mineral is surprisingly fully capable of storing any energy. And over the years, I filled them in such a way that if I sold them on the black market, I could buy a decent island on the sea, with a small mansion of about five floors, but who will give ... The accumulated energy is able to restore energy and physical strength, in fact, while the crystals are in available, I can fight non-stop without needing food or water. Although the latter is also worth grabbing. I’ll take this wonderful katana from a weapon ... yeah, schaz, roll up your lips, competing in fencing with the dead is the last thing, so I don’t know how to control swords at all, I take what I know perfectly - a two-handed ax and a morning star on my belt. Camouflage cloak, enchanted by one witch, will also be in the court. Still, if everything works out, I plan to get into a fantasy world. Yeah, I haven't grown up since childhood. And last but not least, the library. No matter how much you would like to take it with you, it is still impossible. More precisely - it is impossible to pick up the paper, I will take the information. More precisely - already taken. I once had a mage-researcher. If we take a comparison with the same fantasy, then its strength is similar to the strength of gnomes - runists. Very fluid and hardly changeable energy. But just as weakly weathered and very resistant. At one time, we performed an interesting ritual with him. It consisted of the following. I have been increasing the magical background of the library for several weeks, filling the room with as much and dense mass of my energy as possible. Well, then the runist simply passed his energy through the books with all the speed possible in his case. His stable, poorly corrosive energy created something like informational casts of books, which I, due to my quick and malleable energy, were able to enclose in a diamond. He didn't even spare money for it. So we got a kind of magical digitization. Now you don’t even need to read, it’s enough to mentally turn - and the energy itself will find the way to the necessary information on the diamond. I take the diamond. Well, now the library is not only useless, but even dangerous. I have fulfilled my sacred duty in preserving information and therefore I take a couple of the most valuable books - I will mail them to friends, the rest ... eh ... A sharp push of energy with a clear dark color, and most of the books are unreadable. It is necessary to take them in hand, and they are showered with ashes. Hmmm, after such a dark ejection, they won’t leave me behind ... I’ll sit down on the path.

Sergei Gorbonos

House among the stars

Chapter 1

I'm on the list of tribal magicians. Magic has been passed down from generation to generation in my family. What's the magic? Hehe, necromancy. Whether a smile of fate, or evil fate, but I am part of a family of bright necromancers. What is the difference? Nothing, except behavior. All my work is mainly to give peace to the suddenly risen dead, to remove curses from cemeteries. No, of course, I am quite capable of raising the inanimate, despite the fact that due to the generosity of strength I am one of the strongest in our country, and I am not deprived of knowledge - the family library has accumulated enough over the centuries. But as soon as I pick up only a mouse, set a dead cockroach on a living one - that's all. Period, we've arrived. Fear. After all, people in power are also people, they are also afraid of scary tales. They need comfort. My great-grandfather did not die a natural death, my grandfather also, my father performed a ritual of renunciation of strength ... In general, it is worth just a little "raise the tail", and even magic will become useless, one is not a warrior in the field, even if he is a necromancer.

But I don't want that, I want to find my place in the world. Where my work will be appreciated, where I will be needed and useful, where I will not have to hide and look around ...

The door is opened by a fit middle-aged man, with gray hair already breaking through. Obviously not Russian, more English.

- Hello, I'm Alexander, I need Mr. Gillard, - and I enter, obeying the gesture of the man.

“Did you just ask the light necromancer this?”

- Guarantees…

- The method of using the teleporter will be given to you before entering the crypt. In other words, you enter, no one leaves.

- OK, how can I get to you?

Preparations are over. On the already beaten path I head towards the hotel. I go up to the roof. Indeed a helicopter.

- Hello, Alexander, please, sit down comfortably, the road will not be close. - This is my employer.

Well then. As requested, we are doing it, that is, we sit down and by all means get more comfortable ... Well, we flew.

After dinner, I was instructed, then press it, pull the pimpochka, slam on the shmorgalka - and the door will open. In theory, now I know how to use the teleport, it remains only to reach it.

I change clothes. I grab my things and head for the doors to the crypt.

Eat. The remaining signs began to move and began to glow a little blue light - a sign of successful activation.

Another splash and the signs stop, some burning especially brightly. And in the center of the blue glow of the transition arch. All. I have to go. Well, with God.

- Yes ... went for bread!

Chapter 2. Commander

Inhale.

Swear a little.

Exhalation.

Inhale.

Swear a little.

Exhalation.

Command cabin of the ship

“Commander, let me speak.

“Y-yes, I s-listen to y-you, Zeo.”

“Commander, based on the readings from the ship's internal scanners, an outsider has infiltrated our side.

– Zhi…howl w-man?

- That's right, you are twice right, the commander is a man and ... alive.

“A scavenger…a scavenger, a pirate?”

– Kara! It's still better to save energy. I continue to duplicate spells with words.

The last mission of the ship is an official meeting with the elves to eliminate the common threat. Next is a broken section ... Aha, here it is. The last memory is the appearance in the zone of contact with the elves of unknown black ships, completely covered with futuristic spikes. Beams shoot out of them and hit allied ships, then a flash and darkness. I don't understand, if they were shot at, why they "rose". Okay, the goal and plan are now becoming clearer - to move towards the command cabin of this battleship and try to read the knowledge of one of the officers, ideally the captain, since the mechanic remembered the ship’s scheme better than his name.

- Peace! - And still the twitching body at my feet calms down, and I stop my aimless wanderings and turn around in the direction of the passages leading to the wheelhouse.

* * *

- Hello…

- SLOW!!! I yell out the spell, launching it behind my back, at the sound, even faster than I could even understand what had happened.

I turn around, expecting to see a pile of dust in my soul, but a man is standing behind me. Middle-aged, with gray hair, strong-willed face, back "like a stake driven" - a typical military man. Stands, looks and smiles. And I am in a panic, I do not feel anything alive around, there is no dead either. This is not a ghost and, moreover, not a living person. In fact, it's an empty room.

- Marvelous. I have devoted another one percent of my capacity to understanding these phenomena. Air analyzes show that for a fraction of a moment, before the air environment averaged, everything that was in the path of the energy clot that flew out of your hand underwent changes. Everything that this energy mass encountered underwent instant aging and decomposition into simpler, already inorganic compounds. At the same time, the inorganic matter did not undergo any changes. Marvelous!

- May I know who you are? - and I note to myself that the portal came out albeit obliquely, but it deprived me of the problem of the language barrier, and I normally understand the guest.

- Oh, where are my manners, call me Zeo. For now, this will be enough. If the commander deems it necessary, he will provide all the necessary information, including about me. By the way, I'm here to take you to a meeting with him. You are still a guest, and an uninvited one, if I were you, I would take advantage of the offer.

- As far as I could understand, I was already moving in the right direction.

- Indeed, based on the analysis of your route, it is, but after the invitation, all security systems will be turned off. Except for the infected part of the team. You will have to deal with them yourself. Please follow me.

So we went. I went through the corridors, which now did not need to be hacked - they themselves let me through further. Zombies didn't react to Zeo at all. I suspect he's more of a hologram or something. Not alive, that's for sure. When there was nothing left before the command cabin, I ran into a problem. The concentration of zombies did not allow performing a single rest. There are about twenty of them. The jokes are over, the evening ceases to be languid. Here you need something from a more serious arsenal. Energy flows in the hand, gathering into an apple-sized ball, glowing dimly dark green. I once learned this technique myself, by accident.

- Tlen! - And the ball breaks from my hand, but I do not lose the connection with the spell, and behind it a light, almost invisible thread stretches from me.

The ball flies to a group of zombies. I make a surge of power along the thread, and the ball destabilizes. There is a defocusing, and the "decay" is torn, working on all targets, as long as there is enough energy. Twenty bodies stop, only to begin to crumble to ashes in a moment, to burn out like a cigarette. A couple more heartbeats and that's it. All around is dust. Yes, for using this spell even for a demonstration at home, I would have gotten ... mmm ... well, if they hadn’t been killed right away, I think with three life sentences - for sure.

The massive door to the command room opens, and a very unpleasant picture appears, even for me. A man is sitting in the commander's seat, although it is difficult to call him such - a solid skeleton covered with leather. Behind him lies a large chamber, like a coffin. Resuscitation chamber - the mechanic's memory suggests. It is all torn apart, a lot of wires stretch out of it, directly implanted into the body of the commander. In terms of energy, the beat of life is very weak. The man is clearly infected with necro-energy. Apparently, the machine is constantly pumping blood through his body, cleansing it - a very, very painful way to move the edge of the curse, the necro-energy simply does not have time to completely fill the body. But the price is high - terrible suffering.

“Well, guest, I’m glad to see you on my ship,” the commander said clearly without stammering. By the way, "mine" was said clearly with a mockery. - Appeared unexpectedly, you walk, walk around the ship as if in your own way, hehe, where did you come from, can you tell me?

- Failure during movement, further information will not give you anything, I can only say that I ended up here by accident.

– It’s not by chance, but your skills are very, very interesting. Zeo has already eaten all the baldness, comparing you with psions, but you, such a bad person, well, you don’t climb into the template, heh. Okay, joke and that's enough. I have very little time, more precisely about an hour. And I have a very good offer for you. In short - I give you the opportunity to get to any planet inhabited, and in return you do some work for me. You can't do it in an hour, so I guarantee an advance, heh, I would even say - a full prepayment. What do you say?

– You see my situation, I don’t see options.

- That's good, I confess, too ... I see no options. But, perhaps, it is worth starting from afar. From your behavior, I see that you are a very distant guest, it is curious, of course, but time is running out. So, as a distant guest, let me clarify some of the events that took place here a very long time ago. What should I start with? Ha, let me start at the beginning.

Once upon a time there was quite a contented and self-sufficient space empire. It had a commonwealth of states in its neighbors, which, in fact, were a collection of various corporations on a planetary scale - they had long received a cap from us and preferred trade relations. And the Union of Free Baronies, an entity that bordered on piracy, included a number of planets and stations that gathered everything from pirate rabble to exiles and adventurers of various races. Education is so small that they were afraid to bark at us. In general, the neighbors are very sincere. But there was also a fourth side: the closest intelligent race to us is the elves. No, of course, now in the spaceports of many planets the presence of representatives of a dozen different races is not uncommon, but the elves ... they were just ... mmm ... neighbors. The people are very proud. Something like the old aristocracy. A lot of ambition and a bunch of manners. And although we did not converge on the banks, there were still no wars - everyone was smart enough to understand that if we started a war, this would only lead to the decline of both, well, then distant neighbors would pull up to our ashes. As a result, "armed neutrality" with a kind of "friendly color". From the foregoing, it can be seen that the empire lived quite well for itself and did not know grief. Until a certain point. Apparently, the focus on the external “possible” threat was to blame for everything ... the security services looked so zealously into the distance that they missed the threat literally under their noses.