The Power of Ten

“You can do it?” I raised an eyebrow at Briggs’ question. “You can raise the Haze? Break the Shrouds?” Briggs continued.

“Once I Level and get Geared, yes.”

“You’re certain?”

“There’s no goddamn way just they can stop me, yes.”

His big fists popped, and he looked at Master Fred, who had a similarly grimly expectant look on his face. “HOT DAMN. Getting an experienced PoT gamer with magic is going to make such a goddamn difference. I swore I’d find some way to bring down the Haze and the Shrouds, and I think I just did!”

His Sun swirled around me and past, and I suddenly had the distinct impression that I had been guided here by an external force... the Oath of a Source!

Well, wow. It had been a long time since I’d been blatantly manipulated like that. I was both impressed, and hated being a One. I hadn’t sensed anything...

“I take it you’ve had problems Leveling?” I asked him.

“You have no goddamn idea. Without vivus, there’s no way to perma-kill the undead. With vivus, you’re painting a target on your back from every Dark Warlock, Vampire, Ghoul, loose Fiend, Aberrant, and necromancer alive. The amount of money you need to get proper Gear is so damn hard to earn, and the wealthy naturally conscript all the Smiths they can for themselves. Plus, the Rank limit is basically Six, Eight for the Elves and Dwarves, so there’s severe restrictions on what can be made. For some reason scraping twenty-eight goldweight together so some elf who might not even know the spell can make something with Death Ward so the incorps don’t just gang-drain you is not easy.”

I sat back, frowning. It was naturally a money issue. Gold and the precious metals had value in being burned for making magic items. Naturally this would instantly cause scarcity, even as magic would be recondensing the metals in new veins to be recycled constantly. Said veins would still need to be found and mined, and there was no doubt the thirst for making magic items would make the metals scarce, indeed.

The Power Comps industry that found stuff to serve as supplements or replacements for precious metals was not well-developed, as a lot of it depended on profound timing, natural chances coming together, or the existence of magical beings or objects. Harvesting the last leaf to fall from a tree before Darkmoon on Midwinter’s Eve was worth a gold coin, 1/500 goldweight, towards anything enchanted of wood, or for necromancy. However, you had to catch it before it hit the ground, by hand or magic, not a tool... so no spreading nets, or something.

Such things were ways to make money, if you knew what you were doing, and what such objects could be used for. But you had to know what could and couldn’t be done.

Normally, the fastest way to learn all that was to Call in Soulborn and bargain for common magical knowledge. Celestials would generally be quick to disseminate common knowledge among Good people, so as to help them defend themselves, while other Soulborn would demand prices...

But average Celestials weren’t fonts of arcane knowledge any more than the average soldier would be, and so any that happened to be around and trapped under the Shroud likely wouldn’t have that level of knowledge available.

What had existed before the Shroud... well now, if that was involved with the like of Leng ghouls, that stuff would be maddening to learn and execute...

“What Level are you at?” I asked Briggs directly. While this was a ‘private inquiry’ in the normal world, instantly placing someone in a hierarchy, I was asking as a gamer, not to pigeonhole him.

“Six Expert and Melee, Four Archer, Monk, and...” he trailed off... “Do you have any idea what a Briggs Hagspawn Level is?”

I blinked. “No?” I had to reply. “I remember Sama was working on advancing along some Evolved Levels, she’s the only Hagchild Ael knew... You’re an Ancient, not a Hagspawn, right?” I didn’t see any skin coloration around him to indicate such a thing.

He pulled a Slate out of his pack, spat on it, and the Board glowed. He slid it across to me, and I picked it up with interest.

“Mithar and Sylune?!?” were my first words as I looked at that. I pointed at the Slate, jaw working a little bit. “Oh my freaking Shards, what kind of bullshit Racial Class is that?”

His grin was a little sheepish. “I know, right? But guess how much it costs to advance...”

I looked at the array of things tied to his Racial Levels. Ability modifiers, Natural Armor Class, Speed, Damage Reduction, Energy Resistances and Immunities, Fast Healing, Skill Points, Attack Bonus... and Source Matrix formation for Mana Retention. He got double Cha-based Matrixes as a part of his Racial Class!

And this was on top of his Source Inherent Bonuses!

I stared at the mess of crap he was getting. The goldweight value of it... damn, he only had four Levels in it, and he was getting so much stuff. It was unreal!

“You have a 33 walk-around Strength, double lifting capacity due to size.” Master Fred had to raise an eyebrow at that. He was also unnaturally strong, due to his Angel Weight training, but Briggs’ pure Strength was equal to his high-G Might. They could lift the same amount, but Briggs could throw it twice as far. “And you’re a Six?”

“I will totally say that without the Fast Healing of that Racial Class, I would be dead now after some of the stuff I did to make Six,” he said firmly. “All of those racial bonuses all have to be paid for by Karma. I don’t think you need to think much to realize just how much Karma it takes to advance those.”

I looked at the bonuses. Frak, he already had +8 to his Strength... as a Four! Sure, Ancients got +4 for their build, but that was +1 per Racial Level, and his Con and Dex bonuses were actually keeping pace! That was better than Amazons!

But the problem was that this wasn’t a video game, with endless spawns of stuff to slaughter, and endless monster drops of increasingly better Gear. Without using vivus, popping undead was miniscule Karma, maybe enough to make Four or Five. He had places to put absolute rivers of Karma with this Racial Class... but he couldn’t make the Karma to do so!

“Is it doubling the cost of your Class Levels, too, like an Amazon?” I had to ask.

“There’s definitely something going on, and my base Stats are, well, pretty damn high, especially for an Ancient, most of whom aren’t too bright.”

I nodded. Back on Terra-Luna, the primary people who’d ended up Sources were people with Down’s Syndrome or similar genetic problems. Cleaned up by the coming of magic, they became the neandrathalic Ancients, still not too bright, but big, strong, and with forceful personalities, if simple drives.

His base mental scores were 15/14/16 Intellect/Wisdom/Charisma. Combined with an 18 base Strength, 16 Con, and 12 Dex, his point-buy was extremely unrealistic. Nature didn’t cough up people so high up on the curves.

Of course, mine weren’t any better. He was an experienced and savvy, gifted fellow impressed onto a truly superior physical specimen. Double point-buy wasn’t out of line in such situations.

“How have you been Leveling? Forging?” I had to ask, noting his Natural Smith Talent and its buy-off, Can’t Sing, were both in place on the Assay Slate. While it was arguable that such a broad and powerful Talent was worth not being able to do Performance checks, it basically shut down a lot of social options and alternate abilities as a result.

“Recently, yes. Once I got my Smithing up to where I could do a magic Weapon a day with the right materials and gold, the Church has been bending over backwards to help me find clients and arm their people. They can’t pay me what my productivity is actually worth, but the Karma is the biggest reward, anyways. I do a lot of commission work, but I’ve a lot of competition in that arena, as you might imagine, and I still only have six Ranks, so I’m limited in what I can actually offer.”

Meaning the Dwarves and even the Elves could potentially do a higher quality Level, and use magic to do it just as fast...

“Have you got your Smithing Set-up?” I had to ask.

“Yes... but only at +3, naturally.” He sighed. “And the Forge is the property of the temple, so I can’t bring it with me if I choose to go.”

I nodded slightly. “Start using your coin to make a Floating Forge spare, naturally. It should probably be your biggest priority. The big thing now is my ability to Level, which keeps getting deflected sideways by my Shroudborn bloodline. I don’t know how long it will take me to Level properly... but I came here with the Karma of a straight Ten, at a minimum. Getting to Deep Six will not be difficult at all. Passing the First Ceiling will be simplicity, and once I do, I will call for you, we will Fellow up, and we will go drinking at the Karmic river.”

“Oh, getting a right proper grind... the closest thing I got to it was the last invasion of the city here, and I ran out of Sahaug all too quickly.” He glanced at Master Fred. “Some additional excitement is always appreciated, sir.”

Master Fred nodded. SPLIT FORCES TO TAKE OUT BOTH SITES?, he asked professionally.

“Aye, they’ll probably alert the other one. It’ll give the people a better idea of what to look for.”

“Innsmouth folk a thing here?”

“Yes, in very isolated communities. However, they are getting hunted down.” He eyed the stack of books among my stuff. “Getting some background on the changes?” he asked calmly.

“I seem to be lacking a lot of basic education typical of a native of this world for some reason.”

“I’ve got a decent library of some stuff, you’re welcome to browse through it all. How much of a hurry are you in?”

“I would like to maintain Naming Karma a day, twice that if possible.” I indicated my shrunken Staff, flexed my Ring finger. “If that can be maintained, there is no issue. I’ve plenty of Karma in Reserve for now.”

“There’s minor money to be made dumping spells for Alchemy, Wands, and Scrolls all the time, naturally enough.” I just shook my head and sighed at his words. “Nothing? Damn, you stripped it pretty clean to not have anything...”

“Survive to tomorrow is more important than having Potion-making Slots if you survive.”

“Got it.” He glanced at Master Fred. “I have no idea of the kind of stuff you might have to do in Baltimore, sorry. It’s got its factions and problems, of course, but this isn’t Chicago.”

THE CITY PROBABLY HAS A FEW OTHER MINOR PROBLEMS FOR ME, he acknowledged.

“Well, then, you do what you have to do. A few months isn’t going to change anything for me, so I’ll start doing some prep work to move on when it’s time. Last thing... you have any idea on how to contact Sama Rantha, if that’s actually her? Having a kickass Null bitch like her around would be totally brass.”

“Imprus has a bounty on her. That wouldn’t stay around without some powerful people backing it. Check to see if any of the other Churches are backing it, or the civilian government. If not, that means this is a religious issue of some sort.”

“So, we just have to find out what she is doing...” Briggs mused. “Okay, I’ll get right on that. I am dying to know how a ten million bounty didn’t make the news, or I would have known about her a long time ago...”

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And tomorrow, we start the process of finding out just that...