Top Game

57

The further path was marked by the passage of a dozen more traps. And finally, in front of me is the wall of the secret passage. The hope of getting out outside the city was not destined to come true, gently opening the sash, I slipped out in invisibility right behind the zombies. Moreover, the zombies stood in a tight wall, shoulder to shoulder, and so far as the gaze spread. In order to inspect everything, I carefully climbed the wall to the roof, fortunately, my stealth skills have already taken a big step forward, and I'm not talking about the level of invisibility, but about understanding how to put a foot, how to move silently, which side to enter , so as not to impersonate any third-party factor.

The view from the roof amazed me. All the streets were densely packed with standing zombies, they stood everywhere, on every free heel of space, all the floors of each of the buildings were occupied, where there was an exit to the roof, they stood on the roof, and all this without a single movement. There were no survivors left in the city, the hatches of the basements were torn out, the rubble was pulled away, and the corpses of the victims lay right there at the feet of the killers, silently looking into the void. We cannot escape from such a siege, at least not by conventional means, but while I was reading everything about the undead, I had an idea formed, it remains only to look for the possibility of its implementation. To begin with, I went to look for a warehouse of magic weapons, given the panic and haste that was going to be evacuated, I have good reason to believe that it was not taken out. Unfortunately, I did not know the city, but I assumed the main structure. Since the magicians are as close as possible to power, it means that their storage is somewhere near the town hall. In addition to all other inputs, the need to move on rooftops greatly slowed down.

It took about four hours to jump through the streets filled with enemies until I reached the main square, and then I faced a dilemma of how to get through the area filled with dense undead. The exit was found literally by itself. On the building where I settled, a huge stone ball was carved, such balls were decorated with banks of a notorious company. My assumption was based on reading the legend, then, when a detachment broke into the city, the undead stood and did not pay attention to their own destruction until the destruction exceeded a critical level. I would have ventured down and hacked my way through with my trusty swords, but it was scary. Lich was very close, who was reasonable, the stone itself could fall from the general devastation, but the miserable little man at the very heart is not an accident.

Therefore, I looked for something similar to a crowbar, initially I just wanted to hit the mount with a sword, but it’s a pity, although they are indestructible, this is barbarism. I found a crowbar on the same roof, it was a forged lightning rod, the gnomes did not waste time on things for themselves. Carefully removing it from the mount, he went up to the ball and split the leg with three clear blows, it remains only to push it. But how should you collide? So that it rolls exactly in the direction that I need, even though the area had a slope in the direction I needed, but if you set the wrong trajectory initially, then the work will be in vain, there will be no second chance. Therefore, he tensed up and with one jerk pushed the ball towards the vault. Surprisingly, the idea worked one hundred and ten percent, the ball not only made me an ideal path to the doors, but also discharged the traps, accepting columns of flame and lightning,

I have no right to wait and think further, there are crystals of decent size, the drives of which will charge the spells in exactly five minutes. Therefore, I make a dash in invisibility and seep through the crack in the sash, formed after the ball hit. The fire scrolls are the first in line, I found them, I take a whole box, the scrolls are not so heavy, the box is heavier than them, but more on that later, three minutes are left, then household scrolls, firemen in the common people, it was easier to find them, the box with them was red color with a white stripe, one and a half minutes left. Further ampoules with mana, here they are only of the best quality, as they are intended to restore mana to magicians who are engaged in active hostilities, but you don’t have to choose. We'll have to waste those forty seconds. Already moving towards the exit, I saw a number of scrolls that were not in a box, but in separate tubes, it meant only one thing - these are scrolls of the highest order. Usually they are covered by an additional force screen, but the stone drained the spell pool too quickly, due to which the barrier was not there. I couldn’t get past this, the toad strangled me, I sharply swept everything I could reach into a spatial pocket and jumped out of the door. At the same second, an arc discharge closes behind me, crushing the stone, the amount of energy made the hairs all over my body stand on end, and I instantly sweated, imagining what would happen to me if I lingered for a second. I quickly make my way to the roof, now overloading has become my problem, for a start I took out boxes of gold, opened everything with the same crowbar and poured it into my pocket just like that, leaving the boxes. They are, of course, cool, but the advantage will not allow me to enjoy them in dignity. Further boxes of scrolls, with the only difference that he bandaged the firefighters with a belt from a misericord. I didn’t get the scrolls out of the tubes, you never know what’s in them. It seems to feel better, in any case, there is no advantage.

The next point of my plan is the warehouse of the guards of the outer perimeter, I got there without incident, by the already familiar tactics - on the roofs. The warehouses of the guards were not protected in the same way as the magical ones, they implied protection by an armed detachment, but only there were no living defenders left. Therefore, there were no problems with the penetration, he entered through the window above the gate. Fortunately, there was no one inside, the undead did not break the gate, and I could safely proceed with the second stage of my plan.

Fire scrolls were not used on the battlefield, but were used only to extinguish the fire, the main factor that played such a thing with them was the inability to contain liquid for a long time, a maximum of three days. Yes, they held a huge amount of liquid, yes, it was convenient to control the outgoing moisture, it formed into clouds that obeyed a mental command, but the storage time was decisive. Usually the scrolls were filled in the nearest large body of water, to extinguish large fires, right there.

After pulling out the scrolls and mana potions, I began to fill them from tanks in which resin was stored for defensive purposes, some kind of component was added to it, which made it fluid, almost like water. I had to revel in potions for mana, as it poured into the scroll along with filling, but then it was not required for activation. In total, it turned out to fill ten scrolls, this should have been enough, but I decided to play it safe and went towards the merchant district, recently a caravan arrived here with barrels in which oil was stored. It was with them that I filled the remaining scrolls, now I could cover everything with a margin.

The preparatory stage was completed, I spent almost twelve hours on everything, I had to return to the people, otherwise they were probably worried, and I was seriously afraid that suddenly someone would decide that I had abandoned them and spoil my plan with their actions.

The way back was already simple, like a walk, climbed into the underground passage and, having passed three traps, began to neutralize the rest. With my skill level "See the Invisible" it was quite simple, where to block the stove, where to pull out the energy crystal that feeds the trap, in a couple of places I had to cut the fishing line and carefully remove the places of its fastenings. So he slowly reached the shelter, fortunately, the worst assumptions did not materialize. People were worried, but no one committed rash acts. I asked Dmitry to organize the transfer of food to the room I found, upon the fact of fulfilling the mission - "Survive in spite of", this is necessary, otherwise we will die. He put up a guard, not reaching the undefeated traps, warning everyone about the danger. I left the traps on purpose so that nothing would be ruined and climbed out without permission.

During the trip, I got very hungry, so I had a snack and took four hours to sleep - I was very tired, and before the decisive stage of the plan I need to rest, otherwise you can make a mistake and ruin not only your life, but also the lives of people who trusted me.

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