Opening the character profile interface, Livien felt familiar excitement spread through her—that very feeling for which she'd prepared all these years. Her fingers trembled slightly as she moved her hand through the air, unfolding the semi-transparent window.

  Her heart beat faster—now she'd see for the first time the embodiment of all her efforts, all the training and sleepless nights spent studying instructions for obtaining Heritages in the Ether.

  With trepidation mixed with barely restrained impatience, Nemira began studying every line of her game profile in detail and methodically, unwilling to miss a single detail.

  [PLAYER PROFILE]

  [Basic Information:

  — Name: Nemira

  — Species: Troll

  — Gender: Female

  — Level: 0

  General Information:

  — Health: 75/75

  — Mana: 75/75

  — Vigor: 170/175

  Primary Attributes:

  — Strength: 15

  — Stamina: 5

  — Fortitude: 5

  — Reaction: 5

  — Agility: 5

  — Perception: 5

  — Intelligence: 5

  — Spirit: 5

  — Concentration: 5

  — Luck: 5

  Resistances:

  — Elements: 0%

  — Nature: 0%

  — Ether Manifestations: 0%

  — Forbidden Magic: 0%

  Skills:

  — "Athletics"

  Rank: F (Progress 39/100)

  — "Two-handed Polearm Proficiency"

  Rank: F (Progress 31/100)

  — "Two-handed Sword Proficiency"

  Rank: F (Progress 18/100)

  — "Knife Fighting"

  Rank: F (Progress 26/100)

  — "Unarmed Combat"

  Rank: F (Progress 11/100)

  — "Wrestling"

  Rank: F (Progress 11/100)

  — "Sprint"

  Rank: F (Progress 34/100)

  Abilities:

  — Sphere of Perception

  Passive ability

  An invisible sphere extends twenty metres in all directions from the body of each sentient being in Seratis. Within its limits, the world responds to will and abilities. The radius of coverage can be increased.

  — "Familiar with pain"

  — "Familiar with grief"

  — "Great Blood"

  — "Thirst for Vengeance"

  — "Determination"

  Achievements:

  — None

  Titles:

  — None

  Heritages:

  — "Prepared Recruit"

  You prepared for what lay ahead. You have received skills: "Athletics", "Two-handed Polearm Proficiency", "Two-handed Sword Proficiency", "Knife Fighting", "Unarmed Combat", "Wrestling" and "Sprint". Skill progress will be calculated automatically.

  — "Familiar with pain"

  Passive ability

  You have heard of pain, your resistance to negative effects is increased by 5%.

  — "Familiar with grief"

  Passive ability

  You have experienced grief that left scars on your soul. The pain of loss feeds the flame of your rage. You deal 2% more damage with physical attacks.

  — "Great Blood"

  Passive ability

  You are the thirteenth heir of an ancient dynasty of souls inhabiting troll bodies. Your blood overflows with the primordial might of twelve ancestors. Blood magic effectiveness increased by 5%.

  — "Thirst for Vengeance"

  Passive ability

  The thirst for retribution fills you. Every cell craves repayment from offenders. This need has tempered your will to the hardness of steel—you will endure any torment for revenge. Resistance to negative effects increased by 5%.

  — "Determination"

  Passive ability

  You have known since early childhood what you want. Your speed of gaining progress in skills and abilities is increased by 5%.]

  Joy at receiving unique Heritages and such impressive skill progress literally flooded the girl from within. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest, whilst triumphant warmth spread through her veins. She couldn't restrain herself—began jumping in place, waving her arms and issuing victory cries that echoed through the cave's vaults.

  The tension that had gripped her heart in steel vice all this time seemed suddenly to dissolve into air, vanishing without trace. Livien felt her chest expand, her shoulders straighten, and her breathing become deeper and freer—as though an invisible burden pressing down on her had finally been lifted.

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  "No, this is only the beginning!" she shouted loudly into the cave's emptiness, as though challenging fate itself.

  Having vented all the feelings that had accumulated recently—fear, despair, anger and hope—the girl gradually calmed. Her breathing evened out, her pulse slowed, and clarity of thought returned to her head. Euphoria gradually retreated, yielding to cold rationality.

  She inhaled deeply the cave's cool air and reminded herself of the main thing: yes, the Heritages were impressive, yes, the skills were good, but all this was merely tools. A long, dangerous path awaited ahead, full of uncertainty and hidden threats. She'd have to learn to apply the abilities received, master combat skills in practice, not simply in theory.

  Slowly circling the entire hall along its perimeter, attentively studying every protrusion and irregularity of the ancient walls, she managed to break off one of the stalactites—long, sharp, like a spear created by nature itself.

  Armed with an improvised stone spear, Livien noticeably brightened and already far more confidently, with straightened back and firm stride, headed for the cave's exit. There, where her killer awaited.

  "Wait for me, Delgrena, I'm coming for you!" Smiling, the girl quickened her pace.

  The sun's first rays had only touched the lagoon when the middle-aged troll was already scrambling up steep cliffs, gripping the rough stone's protrusions with his fingers. The ascent came easily to him—movements honed to automatism, as though his body itself knew where to reach, where to find support, how to distribute weight. He leapt from one stone to another without considering risk, without calculating distance—simply jumped, and always landed true.

  Muscles beneath skin rolled smoothly, without strain. When he needed to pull himself up, he did so on one arm—right or left, no difference—lifting his own weight so easily, as though it weighed nothing. His fingers found the tiniest cracks in stone, gripped irregularities that would seem insufficient to another. His breathing remained even, unfaltering, though the ascent grew ever steeper.

  The ocean at his back breathed evenly, like a sleeping beast, rolling unhurried waves against the coastal cliffs. The stone beneath his feet still retained night's coolness, rough and damp from morning dew, whilst the air was thick with salt and moisture settling on skin in a sticky film.

  Far behind him remained the village of Taviri'Naa, sprawling on the neighbouring mountain's slope. Houses, mainly built from coquina with thatched roofs, wisps of cookfire smoke, wide streets between dwellings, created a peaceful and cosy landscape. However, at this moment, it didn't interest the climber.

  He didn't look back. The rocky ridge ahead darkened, as though night itself didn't want to leave there. The ascent was steep: sharp stones, sparse bushes with thorns catching at fabric. But the troll maintained high pace. He feared being late.

  When the sun rose higher, sweat appeared on his brow, and his chest pounded dully—not from fatigue, from impatience. He wanted to finish his business as soon as possible, which had brought him to Maoru'Kai. He knew a cave awaited him at the top. Not simply a stone crevice, but a place where no paths led. A place where the boundary between worlds had thinned to the limit.

  "Perhaps I should have refused him?" The thought flickered in the troll's mind as he scrambled up the sheer wall, his fingers struggling to find another crack in the stone.

  He grimaced, imagining the consequences of refusal.

  "Refuse him, right… That would cost me dearly!" He immediately answered himself, drawing air through clenched teeth and pulling himself higher.

  Such mental grumbling accompanied his entire journey, interspersed with quiet muttering under his breath. His fingers found holds almost automatically, muscles worked habitually, but his head was occupied with entirely different matters.

  The main thing he regretted—that he hadn't gone hunting yesterday, as intuition had prompted. From the very morning of the previous day something had seemed to pull him towards the jungles, to distant trails where large beasts dwelt. The premonition had been clear, like the sea horizon after a storm.

  Instead he'd remained in his hut to repair the roof. It was triangular, gabled, covered with dense layers of fern that needed periodic renewal to prevent water seeping inside.

  The massive structure, with carefully carved ridge, crowned his dwelling. The tekoteko was his particular pride—he'd personally carved the image of his grandfather, Great Teoruk, spending nearly an entire month on it. Every facial feature, every line of pattern had been executed with love and respect, so that his grandfather would guard his grandson's house even after death, drive away evil spirits and bring good fortune.

  The roof's slopes were made quite steep, at a sharp angle, so rainwater would run off instantly, without lingering or seeping through the foliage. This was the correct, time-tested construction.

  And the rainy season was still far off—several months at least. The devil himself had prompted him to stay in the village instead of going hunting, as intuition commanded.

  Most annoying, even finishing the roof hadn't been allowed. Barely had he managed to replace several worn layers of fern with fresh ones when from behind the trees appeared a breathless messenger—a very young troll, judging by his size and uncertain movements, barely having passed the Mana'Kairi rite.

  The lad could barely catch his breath, had clearly run without stopping, and his message was brief and categorical: the priest demands immediate attendance.

  And refusing him, when he commanded rather than asked, even the elder of the largest village on the entire coast wouldn't dare. Let alone a solitary hunter, even if he was from the bloodcallers' line. The trouble was he lived far from settlement and had neither wife nor relatives who could support his authority.

  Having given the exhausted runner water from a clay jug and fed him dried meat and breadfruit, the bloodcaller gathered the essentials, and together they set off for Taviri'Naa. The journey took almost three hours of continuous running along familiar paths, skirting cliffs and crossing small streams. And this despite them never slowing to a walk and making not a single stop for rest, only occasionally slowing on steep ascents.

  The young troll pleased his more experienced brother with his endurance and persistence. Despite fatigue clearly making itself known—breathing faltered, and leg muscles trembled from strain after such long running—the lad didn't slacken pace for an instant. The entire way he kept literally at the bloodcaller's back, only sometimes falling several paces behind on particularly steep ascents, but immediately making up the lost distance on level sections of trail.

  When they finally reached the entrance to the village temple, which stood above the entire village on the slope, the bloodcaller stopped and turned to his young companion. Placing his massive palm on the breathless youth's shoulder, he squeezed it approvingly in a firm but friendly gesture.

  "When you return home, give my greetings to your father, and be sure to tell him from me that he's raised a truly good warrior for our tribe," he spoke this with sincere respect in his voice, looking the lad straight in the eyes.

  After this he clapped the youth's shoulder once more and, turning, resolutely headed for the temple entrance, leaving the messenger pleased with praise behind.

  Externally the temple was a circular structure of quite impressive dimensions, whose architecture was typical for sacred places not only of trolls, but of all sentient beings blessed by the Twelve. Thick stone walls, built from volcanic basalt, formed a perfect circle, symbolising eternity and the cyclical nature of existence. The only entrance to the sanctuary was on the eastern side—there, where every morning the sun rises, illuminating with its first rays the threshold of the sacred place.

  Crossing the temple's threshold, the troll immediately noticed the priest standing in the centre of the circular hall, right by the Reincarnation Stele—that very sacred artefact that linked mortals with the eternal cycle of rebirth. The massive Stele was installed directly opposite the entrance, as though meeting each entrant with its silent but majestic presence.

  On both sides of the central Stele, along the curved stone walls of the temple, rose twelve impressive statues of deities, mounted on massive pedestals from the same volcanic stone as the walls themselves. Six images stood on each side, forming a symmetrical semicircle around the sacred centre. Each statue, skilfully and lovingly hewn by ancient masters, held in its stone hands one torch.

  Even now the torches remained lit—the Gods always illuminated everything around with light, such was their mercy. Though this wasn't necessary, since the daylight that generously poured through the narrow rectangular windows beneath the temple's very dome was more than sufficient for illuminating the sacred space. Sunlight fell from above in slanting columns, filling the circular hall with soft, almost mystical radiance.

  Nothing else existed in the spacious temple—no altars, no benches, no sacrificial stones. Only bare stone walls, twelve silent guardian-statues, the eternal Stele in the centre and the priest himself, frozen in waiting.

  "Greetings, Vaaro, may light be with you."

  The priest proved to be human—a representative of the species that had inhabited these lands as long as the trolls themselves. Though in height he yielded to trolls, if at all, only when they fully straightened to their full impressive height. In their usual stooped posture, characteristic of all trolls, the difference wasn't so noticeable.

  The priest's dark, almost bronze body was generously covered with numerous intricate tattoos—sacred signs and symbols that wound across his bare arms, shoulders, chest and even legs like living patterns. These dark inscriptions sharply and expressively contrasted with the immaculately white sleeveless chlamys that fell from his shoulders almost to his knees. Simple clothing, devoid of any ornaments, only emphasised the spiritual status of its wearer—here there was no place for ostentatious luxury, only the purity of service to the deities.

  "Greetings, Lord Tavarek. My light is your light," the bloodcaller spoke, bowing his head in respectful greeting. His voice sounded calm and respectful, without excessive solemnity, but with that degree of courtesy required by the priest's status.

  Vaaro slowly, with obvious unhurriedness, brought the fingertips of his right hand first to his forehead—there, where according to beliefs, dwelt wisdom and reason—then to his chest, to the very heart, vessel of spirit and life force. After this, in a smooth, almost ritualistic movement, he turned his palm as though sending an invisible gift towards the priest.

  This standard greeting between those who follow the gods' will, an ancient gesture of greeting and blessing passed from generation to generation amongst those who honoured the Saviours.

  "You called me, and I have come," the troll added, straightening and looking attentively at the man in the snow-white chlamys.

  "You'll have to go to Maoru'Kai in my stead and meet the new soul," Tavarek pronounced in his usual straightforward tone, seeing no point in lengthy circumlocutions and preambles. The priest spoke as he was accustomed—clearly, without unnecessary words, immediately getting to the heart of the matter.

  Tavarek didn't elaborate on why he himself couldn't leave the temple's confines. In recent days the Gods had for some reason required all the strength of their servants—priests, bishops, and even apostles. No one had deigned to explain to Tavarek the true reasons for this sudden summons, but he wouldn't have dared ask.

  The will of the Saviours was absolute and needed no justification before mortals. Disobey the Supreme Ones' command the priest would never dare—even the thought seemed sacrilegious, unthinkable for one who'd dedicated his life to serving the pantheon. Moreover, he wouldn't discuss the will of the Twelve with his flock.

  "She is already near and will arrive tomorrow at noon. You know what must be done..."