Web of light. Part 2. part 5

3.

What is encouraging is that it is not so easy to lay a Ferry-based manaprovod — it requires direct contact with the surface with at least some kind of limb. The maximum I could personally cover a perimeter of five meters was when I assisted Shizuka in the treatment of the Kashi group. After that, I fainted ingloriously, although I also had mano exhaustion... The fact is, following the line of force, we could reach its source relatively easily, especially since I didn't need to track a faint trickle of mana — I was guided by a clearly visible "Ferry". Every time I "see" a projection of lines inside a solid opaque object, like a wall or the ground, I get the feeling that I'm seeing through the object, but this feeling is false. Apparently, my eyes somehow "recalculate" my sense of the world into a "picture.".. Yeah, it sounds like nonsense. Moreover, by applying "ferry vision" to myself, I put my hand to my eyes. Self-deception? Aw, whatever. Now there is a more interesting task. In the sense that it is necessary to find where, more precisely, from where, the manaprovod leads and what feeds it. Kipling has a boring rhyme with a recitative, "we are walking through Africa." But we're walking along the e... no, no, the Russian landscape subject starting with "e" is still more severe. Well, the undergrowth. Well, it's wet in places. The ground sometimes slips underfoot — but nothing supernatural. I mean, the supernatural is flying around (or floating?), but not very active. By the way, it is also clearly decreasing in quantity. The landscape seems monotonous to the girls, I think because we are silent. Still, stomping up the slope, which is from ten to twenty degrees, is still a pleasure. Moreover, only I, Shizuka and Rinko feel cheerful — Kaya and Hiroe are trailing behind. Moreover, I'm from "cheating": I lay in the "ferry" bath — and I'm ready to move mountains! It's a useful thing, however, how regular use affects your health is anyone's guess. The girls and yokai got into the pool after me — and lasted about a minute the first — and about three minutes the second. "Prickly water," well, well.

Oh, yes, I was talking about the landscape — well, it couldn't seem monotonous to me: ferry lines dissected the mountainside singly and in patterns in different directions. Including at a depth of a couple of meters. By the way, if you see the rare "descents" — the points from which the technique was applied — then my father had an amazing impact radius. Maybe twenty-five meters? Training or innate? Or is there just a secret? Again, with my nose in my own inability, it doesn't even hurt anymore... SO, WHAT'S THIS?!

"This" turned out to be a protruding "step" about one and a half meters high, with an uneven cornice tracing the slope of the hill to the right and to the left. It was possible to move... It would have been possible if Dad hadn't drawn hieroglyphs directly on the stone with a Ferry. "IT'S DANGEROUS! THE PROTECTION SYSTEM IS WORKING! THE PASSAGE IS ON THE RIGHT!" The inscription was repeated along the barrier every twenty meters. However! It's a great way to store information — no one except genome carriers who can make "eyes" will be able to read it. And my dad was quite a pedant... or was he afraid that Grandfather would get inside without permission? Actually, this territory in the mountains was acquired by my father, with his name on the deed. In any case, he could only leave a message to his grandfather or me...

"What are we standing for, who are we waiting for?" the couple from the haircut and the brownie had caught up with our leading three and were now trying to figure out what kind of revelations I had read in the blank stone wall. Are we climbing further? The mana comes from there.

"No, we're bypassing it. There's a warning here."

"Where?"

"No one else will see it. By the way, Kaya. Don't you see anything familiar?"

yokai shook her head: her protective amulet was left in the hotel — in a "blinded" state of protection, she would not have seen anything "like that" anyway, she might not even visually recognize the place — yokai's perception, like humans, is complex. It can be difficult to recognize a place you've personally seen for a long time from a black-and-white photograph...

The protection system... It would be interesting to see her. Turn it off. Or better yet, diagrams and drawings. Even if I'm right, the three-dimensional Ferry lines for each user are probably visible in their own way... that's why daddy painted over the area (or rather, the volume) in the stone with lines — it's clearly visible from afar, but the inscription blurs up close. So, even if I'm right, you still need to draw a flowchart of the logic of this system — there are too many elements, even if they are all a "black box". We walk along the rocky ledge-fence. I was already beginning to think that this was a trace of some kind of magical technique, specially carried out to cut off the top of the mountain from possible curious "tourists" or competitors who looked "at the light" in the absence of the owners.

For long or short... Ugh, damn it! Anyway, after another hour of walking around the mountain counterclockwise, we finally arrived. Visually, the place was no different from what was left behind us, and, apparently, the rest was the same, only with the inscription "Here are the hades, here are the hades, right?" I'm sorry, it's my stupid sarcasm again. Because the terrain was different after all. The ferry covered a decent area in a complex pattern, and the inscriptions in the stone under the soil were the most peaceful: "RECREATION AREA", "CARGO TERMINAL" and "TERMINAL A." Apparently, there was also a "terminal B" nearby — only the mountainside in this place was destroyed two meters deep, the trees did not grow, only bushes like hazel trees grew out, slightly masking this area. And the bark on the trees is all around...

"There was a fire here." Shizuka picked at the bark with her finger and sniffed. "About ten years ago."

"Have you come?" Rinko asked me uncertainly, coming out from behind me. "Here?"

"No, here. I pointed to the center of a multipath star in a circle visible only to me. Get up here. Girls, you too."

"There is a monolithic stone below us..." Kaya drawled a little uncertainly. "And I... nothing like that at all..."

Only Hiroe, with the air of a seasoned tracker, looked around, at my direction, also located inside Terminal A.

"And what now? "Say 'friend' and come in"?" Kanami had the same idea as me. The allusion is obvious. One problem is that I didn't see any cracks in the nearby wall ahead... and anyway, there aren't even any inscriptions there — an empty dark stone, in some places covered with withered vines of wild grapes. Probably grapes.

"Terminal-terminal, do you accept cash?". And in what sense is "terminal"? No, it is clear that the "cargo terminal" implies the shipment of goods. It is logical that Terminal A should send people. The problem is that there is not a drop of magic in the whole system. Either that's how it should be (because it's a disguise), or the system is "de-energized" after something happened here. One thing pleases — it was a long time ago... However, the external recharge of the Amakawa bathhouse tells us that some part of the systems is at least working... Well, that's interesting!

In the relatively central part of the zvezda terminal, there was an area almost free of the Ferry. And in it, only the silhouette of a human arm, elbow-deep, was filled in with lines. Got the hint, Dad! Come on... I squatted down first, then on all fours. I thought about it. He took off his jacket, then rolled up his shirt sleeve. And he put it on the damp, cold ground. And... nothing? When the second minute of my stay in this world began in the butt-off position, the girls around me, who had been watching all this "sacrament" almost without breathing, "it's obvious that the shaman is doing terrible witchcraft," now began to show signs... so to speak, "some distrust."

"Yuto, please tell me, are you sure this will work?" Hiroe formulated the question as correctly as possible, exchanging glances with the others.

"I think so. It has an intuitive interface."

"Perhaps you need to perform another intuitive action?" Rinko muttered behind my back. "Otherwise, it's completely understandable to me. Intuitive!"

What does she mean by that? Not what I thought, I hope?!

"Rinko!"

I didn't have time to finish. It must have been beautiful-a flying blue wave of ever-thickening magic-and flying, characteristically, from all directions. The problem is that this wave "appeared" for me at forty meters, which is the limit for glasses, and I managed to get scared, but I couldn't do anything anymore. The obediently extended time only gave me the opportunity to meet the magic blow without standing on all fours...

..It's as if the world itself has been punched in the jaw, and it falls, turning over in the air...

...The stunner in my hand was looking at a concrete wall, a semicircle enclosing a flat concrete area with the inscription — this time... more precisely, on this side, it's quite ordinary red paint. "TERMINAL A". The fact that we were somewhere not where we were just a moment ago screamed about itself — the sky was a rich BLUE color, like the sea poured out somewhere there, from above. Against the background of the sky, one could see some regular structures — either a dome or a network with very large cells.

"We've arrived," I stated the obvious, changing my position to a more relaxed one. It looks like we're where we wanted to go. Welcome to the Amakawa base, or something.

"...You know." Mizuchi absorbed the excess water, restoring her disguise. "Impressive."

Rinko, who also managed to grab a stunner, looked around in disbelief — it seemed that the color of the sky caused her particular distrust.

"Where are we?"

"This is a separate space, something like a "Mystical House,"" the snake beat me to it.

"Kaya?" I went up to the frozen brownie, staring steadily at the sky. "Kaya! Do you recognize anything?"

"I remember a sky like that... I've seen him before..." Zashiki-varashi looked confused and scared "I..."

Damn it! A meaningful expression appeared in Kaya's eyes only after I put my arm around her shoulders and hugged her to me. After that, the brownie stopped whispering and just kept close to my back all the time, despite the fact that she couldn't remember what was scaring her about "these blue skies." Rinko and Hiroe were also quite uneasy — Shizuka alone looked almost calm.

"It's a strange smell, you know." She commented as I headed for the right of the two staircases, with concrete steps rising up and away from the terminal area. There was no concreting behind the transport area, and there was a rocky slope rising without a single blade of grass. Apparently, the site is on some kind of hill — and, apparently, I specifically underestimated my ancestors, expecting to see a house hidden in the "hidden", well, at most, an estate. And not a hefty piece of reality — the dome structures were more than twenty meters away. What is the whole zone of the "hidden"? However, I saw the answer when I came out from behind the concrete monolith that covered Terminal A. It was indeed located on a slope, but not mountains, but depressions — about thirty meters from the conventional plane of the bottom — the "floor" of the base... laboratories? Spatial technology? Whatever it is...

...At first, the brain refused to accept the picture of a gigantic stone bowl under the dome — it was at least three or four kilometers to the opposite end of the "Mystical House". In some places, greenery was visible, and water glistened... strange stone structures of unknown purpose... straight arrows of roads that once connected the center of the "base" and the surrounding area... black shiny areas, some kind of metal structures... then my eyes caught on a green-gray, recognizable silhouette... a tank, and everything fell into place.

Once upon a time, the Amakawa Laboratory was a real village — with a fairly regular layout, several rings of two— and three-story houses, green lawns and some metal structures — perhaps they were banal metal containers or quick-assembly structures, or maybe some kind of equipment located directly under the open sky. I doubt it will rain inside the hidden one. And then in the center of this village... Something happened. Flame... Rather, even the plasma that had melted the stone radiated out in uneven lines around it, leaving streaks of continuous destruction — from here, from above, it was especially noticeable. And it wasn't an explosion-it was something like shelling. Of the buildings that received direct hits, only concrete fragments and charred foundations remained. Looking back at the concrete wall in front of the terminal, I realized that it had played the role of a shield: three plasma spits, one after the other, bit into and partially shattered, partially melted a thick monolith of artificial stone, but did not go through half the thickness. Oh my God, what was going on here?

A staircase along the slope (the same one was on the opposite side of the concrete protection of the terminal) descended in wide steps to "ground level", then continued with a wide concrete strip of road, a straight thread that once rested on the now-destroyed center of the "settlement". What was there? From the height of our position, only shapeless fragments were visible— and a crater, a funnel. Or maybe it was just a hole in the place of a sagging basement — an explosion that left such a crater would have demolished all the buildings in the village — and there would have been no need to shell them... Whoever was shooting with whatever. Another virtual "brain click" — and I realized that the uneven spots of different colors scattered here and there were what was left of the residents and defenders of the territory. There were definitely defenders — the tank, which turned the turret with its cannon to the center, hinted at this very well. By the way, the car looked completely intact in this chaos of destruction.

"We need to go down and look around a bit." my voice seemed strange to me — hoarse croaking words broke the silence of the eternal peace of this place. It looks like there's no one to ask, we'll have to figure it out ourselves. The girls, who had been staring at the panorama in fascination, apparently, like me at the beginning, unable to comprehend what they saw, twitched. Now all four of them, despite their different ages, life experiences, views, and intelligence, looked exactly the same. It's just that the frightened women, unlike me, immediately felt the terrible "aura" of this place.

"M-can we just go back?" Rinko stared at her feet, unable to look up at me. "It doesn't feel right here..."