🐙 Planet Aberat, Kingdom of Selya-Mira 🐙

There was a localization error! Cultist is an outdated name for the Godspeaker profession. The level grants +5 stat points and is also a requirement for upgrading skill tiers and magic. More precisely, both are learned for a price in special locations, but you need to have the corresponding level. Sometimes, passive abilities and skills take the level into account.

And Saki remembers that you can only attack from the left, right, below, and above. But you can move diagonally at double the cost and provide support through flanking. One might think that the path of the guard, Derevos, to his duty would also be strewn with corpses in cloaks, hidden chests, and unexpected battles, but, alas, this is not the case. However, the brave law enforcer still cannot simply reach his destination. Soon, around the corner, he is stopped by Captain Gortrich Akoren, the current head of the Akoren clan, who, in the glorious Selia-Mir tradition, has controlled the capital city guard for three centuries.

– Derevos! I've been looking for you! The results of the investigation regarding the criminal outcasts you interrogated over the past two weeks have arrived. And something very strange has emerged... – as was his old habit, and as was his custom, Captain Gortrich didn't even bother to greet him: he immediately bombarded his subordinate with endless information: – As I mentioned earlier, low-level criminals like the last one brought to the fortress are rare. Usually, they are descendants of those smart guys who decided to settle in the swamps, far from civilization, ignoring all warnings. Oh, sorry. You're one of them. But... that's even better: you don't have any problems with manners or intelligence. But these individuals, who disgrace both our kingdom and our race, are found in a ratio of one to ten compared to spies, assassins, thieves, cultists, demonologists, and other types we usually deal with. These are degenerates who have lost the most valuable things: brains and collectivism. Give the next one of these wretches a beating on my behalf, Derevos! I hate working with them... But I digress. I already said: there used to be few of them, usually criminals are as smart as us and have a clear goal. And this month, you caught forty-four of these individuals. In the capital! And they all have one thing in common: they came to the capital from Eastern Aldrick. Yes, it's a wretched place, although it can be worse, and the Brown Banner recently staged another raid there... but where did they come from? Why? We are Kaishi, not those... what are they called, ah, humans, who are written about in the old books from the time of ancient Aldrick. To bring us down to the level of an animal is not an easy task. And these criminals are exactly like that. What am I missing in this scheme... My intuition tells me that the answer lies right in front of us... You're a smart one, Derevos, do you have any ideas?

Much connects Derevos with Gortrich Akoren: it was the captain of the guard who once accepted into the ranks of law enforcers a troubled fellow, battered by life, and who knows how long he had survived where other Kaishi usually die. There is nothing surprising that this happened: Derevos could not help but make an impression of a man with an unwavering character. Strong, tested by difficult trials, and quite intelligent, a worthy man. Exactly what the capital guard needs. And also... he is a mage. For Derevos, Gortrich risked asking Ohran Visnord himself, the master of the Selia-Mir Academy, not to take the Blood Gift bearer away from the guard. And only thanks to the debt accumulated before the guards over the years, Visnord agreed.

– I will gladly watch how the guard will learn to train a mage, – that smirk of the master still haunts Gortrich from time to time.

In any case, with some stretch, the captain and Derevos could be called friends: they often stood shoulder to shoulder, challenging crime on the streets of the royal capital, and then feasted in the name of law and order in Selia-Mir.