Asheron's Fall: The Power of Ten, Book Six

“I’m clueless,” Kris admitted.

We were looking at... some sort of floating tentacle-thing, hovering via some form of geo-magnetism out above the cold, dark river waters, a colorful spiral shell covering most of its body, multiple meter-long tentacles hanging down. It didn’t look that dangerous... except the Assay said it was a Twenty, and I could see the folds of magic around it indicating it was a Caster of some sort, and had a fairly sizable Mana Pool.

“It Assays as a Niffi, a young one, probably a freshwater form,” I murmured. “It’s an Aberrant,” I told her carefully, which earned a startled look. “Never seen one before, but it’s got the Aquatic trait, and it’s not a Beast. It’s fully sapient, although that one is a Summons.”

“So, it comes from the deeps-?” she guessed with me, regarding it.

“The only reason I could guess something like it would be here is if there’s a spawn in fresher waters...”

She studied it a moment longer. “So, it spawns inland, goes down to the sea to grow. Just how many of these things are in the seas, then?”

I had no answer for that. She just half-smiled and skated out to confront it. It turned and advanced toward her, bobbing along the waves with some pseudo-gravitational surges, and its four tentacles arose into what was clearly an attack pattern. I could see the gleam of crystalline barbs and something within those barbs on the rubbery flesh.

So could Kris, who obligingly chopped them off with flicks of Quaver, and her Null wiped away the varied blast-types of Force and Acid the thing tried to use on her.

The implications for the sea shores and deeper waters here were not good, either. It appeared nasty Shit in the Seas was true in other magical worlds...

------

At any rate, the miles went by energetically as I did slow and steady rep counts in the early dawn, until it was time for Natural Renewal and the first rays of the sun washed past us in the morning light. Kris turned as I did to celebrate the Salute to Aru , just as we had the Salutes to Sylune and Aethra.

“Dreams of the wind at dawn,

A new day has begun.

Light chases back the dark, and the future lays before us.

Will it be something bright and new?

Walk the road before you now, and leave the night behind,

Today is a new day, and the light comes to warm you all.

Let go the shadows, and behold the sun!

The Light has come, as ever it must.

Behold the new day!”

Time to assign Karma for the day!

---

Naming Karma to Mark. Naming Karma to Ring. Mira enthusiastically hitting all the levers on the Isparian side. Recast Dawnstopped Shield. Cast Extended Armor, because it cost nothing extra and would last eighteen hours now.

Chosen Class, Arcane Theurge/2. Valences II between Wizard and Sorcerer now usable with the other Class’s Slots. One Wizard Spell Known II transferred to Sorcerer... hey, it was time for Web to make a comeback! Which I promptly Wrote into my spellbook fully happy, just like I had Phantom Servant.

+1 more faux Level to Wizard, which made me a 3 (5) and opened up the III Valence Slots, even if it didn’t give me more Spells to fit in them.

It was fine. I could fit in single-cast Meta’d spells into the III Slots, although I really needed Exemplar Surge. That would have to wait for at least two days, if I decided to go vertical in growth instead of wide, gritting my teeth at the decision.

Long-term, it was a minor decision, especially if I got into a circumstance where I was earning lots of Karma. But if I wasn’t?...

Then again, square miles of Summons that seemed to get tougher and tougher the further we were away from settlements boded both well and grim for that thought...

Zeks, my Ring, finished basic Sacred Resistance, giving me a +1 Sacred Bonus to my Saves, boosted to +2 by Favored by Faith. I would need three more days to boost it to full Sacred Protection, which would include a +1 (2) Sacred bonus to Armor Class. Getting the unhittability up, that was me!

My Mark would need eight days total to grow to +2 (+3) Sacred bonus to Intellect. I could only put in the Karma and wait.

No Weapon, no Naming Karma to it. Kris waggled her nose at me as she happily fed Quaver, and I just rolled my eyes.

Bane to Shades was now part of her Weapon. She was pretty sure she could get all the other stuff we were running across individually. Olthoi were under Bugs and Vermin, which she also didn’t have. Shreth, Reedsharks, and Ursuin were under Animals, which she did. The Drudges and Banderlings would also have to qualify on their own, along with the Mites and Mosswarts. Constructs, for the Golums, she did have, as they existed back on Ispar. Aberrants for the Niffis were also something she had to take.

We now knew Undead existed, but there were necromancers back on Ispar, so she’d run into them before.

Summons were their own special category. Being made of ectoplasm made you uniquely vulnerable to your own form of Banefire.

They just didn’t have the same array of dire threats to people back on Ispar that they did here. The biggest threats back home were, unsurprisingly, other humans...

Slaughter also required having slain the creature within the last two days to pay for it with Naming Karma. So, she was going to have to retrace her steps and hunt down Summons of those types to fill in her Slaughter, but it was a good problem to have for her, it just meant longer before she had a full set of Banes for everything around here.

The Feat I took was Domain Focus (Good). As Sacred Spell was now free to my I’s, and the first Meta I was going to get for my II’s, it was another +1 Caster Level on the stack. With Sacred Spell, the bonus would eventually apply to all my spells, so it was a very good use of a Feat.

It also meant my base Caster Level for Shards was 15, which was eight Shards base, since Delimit Spell was also free to my I’s. Add one Shard for Shardcaster, add one for Touch variant, and lo, ten Shards on the table, rotating through ROYGBIVBlWGy.

The Mastery I took was Artifice Mastery/1, Create Wondrous Item. Among other things, it would allow me to start making Baneskulls as I needed them. I just needed to kill real things, and not Summons.

In the meantime, some protective Amulets and Necklaces were not out of the question...

------

The new day had a lot of drudges in it.

We were standing at the edge of the river in the brush, looking out over the grassy field leading up to the hillside behind us, a hill the river ran about before emptying into a large lake, its slope gentler than further upstream and easier to wander down to.

There was a former human city ahead of us, and many scattered and fallen farmer’s homes, orchards, and fields everywhere about us. We could see a bunch of ruined buildings in the distance, me more keenly with my Mask down and enhancing my forward vision some.

They looked like Aluvian buildings, but the only living beings I was seeing were drudges.

All of the landscape spawns... were drudges. For a good mile at least, in every direction around that city, dotting the white snow with tans and browns and yellows close to us.

It was one of the most blatant displays of ownership and dominance you could declare.

Kris was thumbing Quaver, looking at all of that, wondering what kind of a hornet’s nest we’d stir up if we started butchering all those Summons and real stuff came at us. Especially that drudge from yesterday.

There were a lot of the real drudges coming down out of that town now, threading in between the unmoving Summons, heading for the river and the lake, presumably to go fishing, maybe hunting, wrapped in some crude furs on feet and waist, but mostly letting their thin fur do the job for them.

“Anything interesting?” Kris asked shortly, and I just fed her a look out my eyes. The drudges seemed to be color-coded, the darker ones clearly exerting dominance over those of lighter skin hue around them. I glanced west, and noted there was a significant increase in alternate and darker colors in that direction... away from the town, and closer to the true center of power?

There were also obvious warbands heading straight away from the city in all directions, shaking their crude weapons to give themselves confidence.

“They are going to challenge and kill the non-drudge Summons,” I hypothesized calmly. “They are farming them for Karma, just like you and I.”

Kris inhaled deeply. “I have no problems killing Summons, they are just shaped ectoplasm. I am uncertain of how to address the problem of living creatures, but...” she frowned as my eyes focused in on the town, “that looks like it used to be another Aluvian city, as do the homes around it and along the shore that we can see... all of which seem to now have drudges living in them.”

“We’ve got coms. I can go invisible, sneak into the city, and see what is to be seen there.”

Kris eyed the warbands moving along the shore of the shallow river on well-trampled, partially frozen paths, obviously heading north on both banks, looking for some excitement. “That’s a good idea. I’ll pull back and wait, see what is developing.”

“Something else weird is going on,” I told her, shifting my eyes towards the lake. “Why is there a Ward out along the shoreline of the lake?”

She blinked at it through my eyes, then the sheer scale of it, almost domelike as it rose into the sky and extended off to the south, clearly not allowing something in the center of the lake to get out... or those from the shores to move out there.

My words about the Niffis formed a yawning abyss before us.

“Another massive waste of magical power?” she asked rhetorically, the warrior in her identifying a defensive effect when she saw one.

“That’s a Hell of a waste... if something isn’t out there in the water,” I murmured in reply. Nobody would waste that much power for no reason. Would they?

“Well, don’t go into the water, although if you want to investigate the shoreline, I doubt you’ll find anything other than drudges nearby. Beyond that... maybe some clues?”

“Keep the Disk with you.” I shoved it at her, and she tied it off with a tap to Quaver, who could lock it more easily than she could.

I murmured an Invisibility spell, which would last until I broke it with violent action or Natural Renewal, and then I moved into a trot for the city.

------

Devra hadn’t had any real focus on physical ability at all, but I was putting Karma into all the Stats, not just the mental ones, so I had significantly more endurance than she had, and furthermore had Arcane Fist Levels. Monk Levels were always about being idealized in mind, body, and soul.

Unable to see me, and with my scent tamped far down by my Cold Creature status, I ran past the scattered Summons, who did not acknowledge me in the slightest as I moved through the frozen grass and snow, Levitating to get over drifts and obstructions with otherwise impossible leaps. The outgoing drudge groups were likewise ignored by the Summons as they moved out in warbands gathered around certain leaders with stronger power.

Drudge Raiders, Lurkers, and Stalkers, with Levels around 50ish, dominated the warbands, their body paint bright among the lesser Drudges around them, taller and more vividly furred. Drudge packs in the distance, however, seemed to be mostly made up of those who were the leaders here, with more powerful Drudges in even brighter colors and warpaints leading them.

It was an ominous sight, for all that they traveled more like a horde than disciplined soldiers. It was plain they had no training, and were simply moving like instinctive hunting parties. Furthermore, their clothing was nothing more than leathers and furs, although some of them were artful and done with care, and maybe had scraps of bone, metal, and jewelry on them.

I noticed some of them did indeed carry heavy staves. Liberating one of them should not be too much of an inconvenience...