World of Karik: A Game of Villains 43 Arcobaleno

"Dmitri," while we were moving, I decided to ask the blacksmith a couple of questions. "Petrovich traded a hundred attributes for this potion, and he wasn't afraid that the merchants could simply take everything by force? A hundred, and he could have lost everything."

To be honest, this question has been bothering me from the very first meeting with the Jones. No one would risk their reputation even for the sake of a couple or even a dozen points, but why not risk for a big jackpot?

"They can't do it," the redhead smiled. "Each of them had taken a geas; they have to trade honestly, otherwise they would not have been allowed here. Can you imagine what they could do under any other circumstances? The status of a neutral territory allows these starting bases to provide at least some semblance of freedom for the newbies."

"Geas?" It was quite interesting to learn more about the neutral territory and those who could order the merchants around, of course, but it would be much more interesting to get some new information on the things that were capable of limiting the freedom of will.

"Right, you don't know…" Oh, that condescending tone. However, I'd ignore it if that meant getting information. "In this world you can find special stones which grant you some additional skills, but which, at the same time, impose certain restrictions. The Trade Monolith is one such stone."

"What are the merchant's abilities?" As expected, everything was not as simple as it seemed at first glance. Geases... The man who first found the stone was probably an Irishman, they used to call this "the soldiers' vows". Unless, of course, something got lost in the translation in the fantastic detective story I used to read in the evenings.

"Ask me another," the redhead laughed. "You don't think they've told anyone, do you? But the geas... You can't hide it, everyone can see it. You break the vow, and all of your skills and abilities will instantly reset no matter what level you are."

In the meantime, we reached the place where the prisoners were caught, and the Major asked them to show us the way to the base. They could only wave a stump that was once a hand in its direction. Petrovich suddenly interrupted the gathering of intelligence data.

"We can go from here. No need to postpone. Everyone remembers what to do?"

"Yes," Innokenty answered for everyone once more. No wonder he managed to persuade them. "You kill us, we resurrect, ask them to let us out, tell the horrors about your base, and then rush into battle. Lina and Ravshana will go past the defense in the meantime and let you in. Did I miss anything?"

"Nothing," Petrovich cut off his head with one blow, and then, as if commencing a slaughter, did the same with the others. I don't know if my eyes were playing tricks on me or what, but part of the blood from their wounds was absorbed by his lancer. I wondered if it could be "fed" for future use.

"That way!" Dmitri took out a steel plate with notches, looked at it and indicated the way. No doubt that our prisoners had pointed in the opposite direction.

Thanks to his blacksmithing skills, the redhead managed to put some sort of a mark on them, and now, even if no one was going to lead us, we could get to their base. After fifteen minutes of slow running, and a few corrected movements, we finally ran into an invisible wall. To be honest, at first we had a desire to turn away, but once we fought against it, we ran into the wall. So that's how protection works.

"Attack!" the Major shouted fiercely and started chopping the air in front of him with his sword. Almost immediately, Semyon joined him, followed by everyone else. Sound waves spread through the forest, just like those that woke us up that morning, and then a group of people jumped out of a tree trunk near us.

"What do you want?" Wow, their leader is a woman… An attractive one, even. Vlada, level eighteen. I couldn't help but notice.

"Cat, keep them back," Petrovich had no intention of distracting them. He sent me to stop five, almost level twenty, players on my own. I doubted that he trusted me so much. He probably wanted to get the most out of the situation if I succeed, I would be the newbies' worst nightmare; if not, my reputation as Igor's follower would come to an end. And without magic, my chances were not that high.

"Look out, he's very dangerous!" A high-pitched, girlish squeak came from behind the invisible barrier. One of the captives might have recognized me and decided to warn her squad.

"Like we don't know," muttered a guy standing next to Vlada. Right, that was one of the guards that I had killed yesterday. He remembered me. But how could I use that to my advantage?

"Perhaps you've heard of Reapers, too?" I took a step forward, effectively lowering the scythe and putting on the bandage I had made last night. Come and fear me! The longer you wait, the more chances we get to break down the wall."To hell with all of this!" said the other mentor that we had killed yesterday. I did not expect this, to be honest. "He deals with Reapers! Who are we to mess with him?!"

Deception: +3,000

You have reached Deception level 5.

You have synchronized your external and profile levels.

Skill acquired: Deception Mode

"No, we can't retreat," Vlada decided in the meantime. "He's alone, kill him."

But I wasn't really listening to what was going on around me, as I was too focused on reading the description of the skill.

Deception Mode — Arcobaleno

Others do not see your actions for the next 30 seconds. You will not disappear, but no one will understand what you are doing, and everyone will see only what they think you are doing.

Logs are unavailable while the skill is active.

Cooldown: 1 hour

Chapter end