Rin and Zuan

Part 1: Corromin

Chapter 1: This beautiful new world!

  Life is a game.

  So let's go to another level!

  A bright ray of sunlight fell on his face. "Did the cat climb on the windowsill again and pull back the curtain? No, it seems to be closed normally.... Damn it, and where is it blowing from? And the ocean is noisy. Didn't the TV turn off again?" Rin was lazily thinking, having woken up from a bright ray falling on her eyes. I tried to turn around..., it hurt in my side, sand and small stones were clearly felt under my ribs. One eye opened lazily. What the...? Rin abruptly opened her eyes and sat up.

  From the amazing azure-green morning sky, two rising luminaries looked at her: a huge blue giant and a golden brother modestly peeking out from behind it. The sky shimmered to match the luminaries with a delicate sparkling haze, like mother-of-pearl, a thin veil of clouds spread out in graceful feathery strokes and filled with delicate pink and gold shades under the rays of the suns. Rin herself was on the edge of a narrow ledge jutting out from the eggshell-smooth rock. Far below, the ocean lapped, crashing in foam waves against the foothills of the mountains and disappearing into a shimmering haze somewhere out there, far beyond the horizon. The morning fog was still covering the coast with its fluffy blanket, making it impossible to see the coast and the forest rising like a fortress wall near the coast more clearly. You don't need to be a giant of thought to come to the only correct conclusion, and no amount of skepticism can explain the two luminaries in the sky and the three moons arranged in an exquisite circle around the star pair. No matter what this "common sense" says, no matter what the mind, nurtured on distrust and the logic of a "purely scientific approach" dictates, but the eyes cannot deceive. This is an alien world. And its reality is indisputable and uncontroversial.

  Rin hugged her knees with her arms, silently looking at the ocean. I didn't want to move or think... But there was no desire to go home either. It was funny, but this world didn't seem completely alien. Rather, unfamiliar. It's a stupid idea, of course. But... There was something to it. Strangely, there was no panic, as if someone was supporting her, convincing her that everything was fine, everything was as it should be. Apparently, the craze for fiction and similar genres of literary and gaming creativity has affected. But, oddities are oddities, and it is necessary to go down. The morning has just come into its own and you can do a lot in a day. Something insistently told her that she needed to quickly descend from the mountainside and by nightfall have a safe and inaccessible shelter from the ground.

  The girl stood up, shook off the pebbles with fine sand from the sides, and looked down wistfully. It's at least twelve meters to the water. Upon closer examination, the narrow ledge turned out to be a banal rock outcrop, and its length was no more than four meters. The wind was blowing harder and harder, it was getting cold, and the rising stars did not give much warmth. Rin shivered. And the water is likely to be very cold. As always in the morning. However, there wasn't much choice, and Rin took a deep breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and jumped off the cliff.

  She had never been a good swimmer, much less a tower jumper. But someone's will forced her to change the position of her body in the fall, carefully enter the water and come to the surface. Rin was desperately afraid of deep water, but here the familiar state of panic did not come from childhood. Or rather, he was simply overwhelmed by someone else's will, forcing him to swim to the coastal rocks. Rin did not resist this intervention, just diligently kneaded the water with her hands and feet, gradually approaching the desired cobblestones. And it didn't seem like someone else's interference either. As if this was the way it should be, as if this someone had every right to interfere in her actions and give such intuitive orders.

  Rin was very cold, swallowed water that turned out to be only slightly brackish, and to top it all off, she tore the skin off her leg, slipping on algae clinging to a rock. The morning started amazingly.... Rin sat on top of a rock, hugged her knees with her arms and settled down to dry off under the rays of the sun, staring blindly at the darkening silhouettes of the mountain range.

* * *

  Chiinar removed the window. For several long seconds, he looked at me with piercing blue eyes, without saying a word, without moving. I knew that he was calculating his and my capabilities in a direct fight. I had a chance in a one-on-one fight. And he knew it.

  Vladyka sighed. Straightening a lock of milky-white hair that had fallen over his eyes, he grumbled:

  "The girl is very interesting. The adaptation is the strongest. As far as I understand, she has already established contact with Azzar."

  "Undoubtedly."

  "Who is the second of the pair?"

  "I don't know."

  "You don't know?" Chiinar was surprised. "Did you put your Power on the line without knowing who was playing for you?"

  "I know the race. But I can't identify the identity."

  "Is he human?"

  "No. That's the whole point."

* * *

  It was not difficult to reach the shore by jumping over rocks or swimming across small gaps. The alien presence felt like a barely perceptible ringing thread, as if someone had pulled the thinnest wire and hung a tiny bell on it. It seemed like pull a string, pull it harder, and someone on the other side would answer. Rin shook her head. What kind of strange thoughts are these? If you follow the logic, the thoughts are really stupid. But... if you follow the same logic, then the alien world is just a figment of her sick imagination and the result of yesterday's protracted raid and games until morning for almost a month. However, this figment of a sick imagination bit painfully into a plump ass with sharp stones and blew a light breeze through a wet body.

  The most annoying thing in this situation is the banal lack of clothes. And, even worse, shoes. She was only wearing what she went to bed in yesterday. It was a good thing it was cold in the room, and she fell asleep in a long T-shirt. Besides, her watches and trinkets had moved with her-she'd forgotten to take them off. It's not interesting at all to climb around someone else's world naked. I had a nasty urge to cry. What's the use? The girl sighed. Wiping away an uninvited tear, Rin got off the rock and swam to the shore, which was densely overgrown with a pretty golden shrub.

  The trees in this forest were worth a separate description. Rin had never seen anything like this before. It seemed that even a gigantic sequoia would turn out to be a thin and stunted tree next to these gray giants. Each tree grew out of a veritable mound of blue moss, its trunk as smooth as a telegraph pole, and just as smooth. The first branch was barely visible, merging with the crown somewhere far away, in the gray-green haze of the crown. Rin estimated that the lowest branch she had seen began at the eighth or even ninth floor level. She couldn't even approximate the height of the tree itself. Fortunately, the trees were densely overgrown with vines and ivy, so it was difficult to climb if desired, but quite realistic. However, none of the trees she saw aroused a desire to settle on it, and Rin continued on her way to the side... The girl stopped. But actually, where is she slapping so cheerfully for the second hour? The answer surfaced by itself — to the river. Well, to the river, so to the river, although she did not see any signs of any other body of water besides the ocean — at least the sound of the surf gave it away. But the confidence was just unshakeable. There will be an exit from the forest and a river in half an hour ahead.

  The forest ended as abruptly as it had begun: the trees did not grow smaller at all, they simply did not grow beyond the invisible border, only the golden shrubbery pushed aside the various grasses of the plain, making their way in groups to the river. All the vegetation of this world that the girl encountered on her way had little in common with the plants of her native Land, although it was so similar that it did not cause a sense of alienness, creating a harmonious picture of another world untouched by civilization. Huge trees with smooth gray bark and delicate green round foliage, narrow light green grass with blue polka dots, in which small forest flowers grew abundantly, a diverse guard of vines and ivy from white to red contributed to the shimmering kaleidoscope of this strange forest. The shrub, confidently dominating the forest, had blue-black glossy twigs, so smooth and shiny, as if it had been carved from obsidian. It grew in extensive thickets of brown moss. The leaves grew only at the very tips of the branches, which made it seem as if a fluffy blanket of thousands of heart-shaped leaves had been thrown over the plant. In some places, the shrub bloomed with large black and red flowers, descending in lush clusters to the ground. With a certain madness of coloring, the forest produced a warm and pleasant impression, it looked completely healthy and exuded the power of a pristine, untouched intelligent race of nature. Perhaps there are no representatives of a civilization in this world at all that can leave its mark on the planet.

  But the same inexplicable certainty proved: there is a highly developed civilization here! Or its individual representatives. Or maybe she just wanted to believe it?

  Rin froze in place. Was it just my imagination? The movement was barely perceptible at the limit of vision, as if ripples had passed through a dense blanket of leaves. Maybe it's just the wind? The girl crouched down and glared at the bush, as if it were the most important and valuable thing in her life at the moment.

* * *

  The magic screen flickered: the fading decay was still disrupting the tracking systems. The red-haired girl walked briskly through the forest, not paying the slightest attention to the animals around her. However, the animals posed no danger. At first glance, everything was fine: the transfer was successful, the girl adapted and had already discovered a connection with Azzar. But... She's more vulnerable than ever.

  According to the rules of rin"agarumm, I have the right to interfere in the course of the game three times. Usually, these priceless three interventions were reserved for the most extreme case... and they lost. It was precisely because of the rigidity of the rules and the high probability of failure that rin"agarum was not popular and was considered a step of desperation. I've thought about this strange circumstance many times. It seems that all the conditions are favorable: the opportunity to choose strong figures with almost no restrictions, full protection from interference from the opposite side, the right of the wards to use any forces and artifacts that they can get... everything is good and beautiful. But almost always the side that demanded rin"agarumm lost. Perhaps it's not the rin "agarum" itself, but the misunderstanding of it? Perhaps you should do something else? Should we intervene now, at a time when the Tandem is at its most vulnerable and fragile? While they still can't and can't do anything? Perhaps it's not worth waiting for the moment when things will go so far that the personal intervention of the Master will be required for the survival of the Tandem? This idea interested me. But what if...

  This should work!

  I turned my gaze to the pretty girl who was so helpfully shown on the screen. It is useless to search for Azzar — the search may be erroneous or damage him. But it's worth working with istaya. The girl is talented, that's for sure. But what is her talent? I didn't know that, and it's impossible to determine the quality of the force now. Her gift is not even activated, buried under layers of genetic seals and moral prohibitions. But what if all these layers are removed and she gets access to her reserves and potential? What will happen then? Give her a quick start while the world is new and unfamiliar to her, rather than letting her development take its course. No wonder my father told me: "That which does not sink floats by itself."..

  In any case, it's hard to imagine a situation that could be worse for me than defeat. Unless it's disembodied. But the Great City accepted them and allowed them to bring together a Tandem, which means that the Tribunal of the Ages did not threaten me. Of course, I could have been wrong to bet on the wrong ones. I could have lost tritely by putting an untrained Tandem into the meat grinder of the Game. They can be killed before entering the First Gate.

  I dismissed such thoughts. This is not going to happen. I did not have precise knowledge: the Lords do not have, and never will have, the gift of foresight, so I could only rely on my intuition and the long-standing prediction of an old fortune teller, given to me during my human life. Stupid? Undoubtedly. But the very idea of a man becoming a Ruler was stupid and insane. And yet.

  Perhaps it's for the best that the reset of reality exposed my boundaries and provoked a neighbor's attack. Now I have a chance to initiate my Tandem in front of everyone, and even do it legally and with the approval of the Eternal City. And I took this chance.

  Well, baby, let's see what kind of monster I'll release from the depths of your soul.

  Funnily enough, initiation is an easy and instantaneous process. I just touched it, breaking the blocks and seals, giving freedom to the raging golden ocean of power. At the last moment, I was confused by the color and activity of her power, but it was too late to change anything and I had to wait for the result.

* * *

  Bush. A big beautiful bush. Rin had been staring at him for half an hour now. Twirling a lock of red hair around her finger, she sat silently, almost motionless, on the grass under the shrubbery. Finally, a bunch of leaves trembled and flowed, wrapping around a large red and black flower. There was something so special about these leaves... some kind of shape was hidden in this shapeless bundle. Something like that ... The elusive! A gust of wind shook the branch, the leaves fell down in a golden shower, revealing a chiseled head on a thin flexible neck. The animal squeaked, fluttered, thin webbed wings opened, and a tiny, barely palm-long dragon flew into the air. After scurrying for a minute, the animal dug into the leaves, quickly tearing them off the branch until it completely disappeared into a pile of leaves, merging with the crown of the bush.