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

Princess Kristie’s eyes roved over the entire place thoughtfully. “The olthoi came from here, we can strike most of this quadrant.” She cleared away the northeast. “The floaters came from the west, as did the shadows and undead up in Cragstone.” She wiped away that section of the map as well. “That huge monuga is traipsing around the place, and retreated west towards the inland sea. Humans would just be munchies to something that size, so there’s no chance of them being in that area. Really, the only thing that could hold something of that size at bay is the Shoreward, and even that was not truly effective.”

“But, we’ve only seen the inland Ward, not that about the larger bodies of water. Might the reason it is hunting here be that it can’t get through the one along the ocean?”

“Or that the stuff in the ocean is too strong for it?” she replied, and I had to acknowledge that point, too. “We’re assuming that they had some manner of egress to those islands. Special boats, perhaps, that could punch the Ward?”

“They used dimensional magic a LOT,” I reminded her. “Site-to-site teleportation is the high-end use of dimensional magic, like Portals.”

“But the Veil hardened and cut all that shit off,” she reminded me, frowning at the map. “You even pointed out a couple places that might have been standing Portal sites and had been fried, and even our own arrival point was a displaced dimensional pocket.”

“We’d have to assume they had your ships, OR they could get up a Portal fast enough to vacate everyone with combined magic of some survivors, as there would have to be some strong enough who survived the event. I’m leaning towards the latter, with the prevalence of ancient magic here. If someone really adept in Portal Magic could tap the extra energy in the ley lines, they could either reinforce an existing Portal or make a temporary one along the path of one that was closed down.”

“Then I pick here.” She pointed southeast, at a maze-like cluster of islands. “There’s hills, so its above the waterline to be safe from storms in places. It’s painted green, so it’s verdant and likely forested and well-watered. Importantly, there’s water in all directions which means access to fish, even if they have to stay near the shores due to existing Wards. The coloration about the shores seems to indicate they are all within wading or quick boating distance of one another, too, so there’s magical influences at work.

“Evacuate here, either ground the boats or Seal the Portals, energetically clear or contain all the Summons, use the forest to rebuild, and pray those floating bastards can’t levitate across the waves in pursuit, and whatever is out in the oceans can’t come to shore,” she declared firmly.

“I’m of the impression that naval technology would be horrid here,” I added after further thought. “They probably can’t get past chest-deep in the waters anywhere. Nobody is going to be building massive evacuation ships after a couple generations of barely needing canoes or rafts. They’ll be lucky if they learn how to swim!”

Kris inclined her head, and nodded once. “Okay, that’s logical,” she conceded.

“Any reason not to pick here, here, or here?” I indicated the sole island off to the southwest, and both the isolated green island and the half-frozen cluster of islands up to the north-west.

“Climate, availability, and the native hostiles. The undead, shades, and floaters all came from the west. All the settlements in the west seem to have military connotations to their names, meaning they are frontier settlements and the area is dangerous. That southwest island has rigid patterns drawn on it for terrain, evidence of geomancy and thus highly magical. I doubt anyone would want to go there.

“Likewise, we are in the east, with most of the Isparian towns, and the enemy is coming from the north and west. Thus, we would be pushed in this direction, and would flee this way to gain more distance, not head into the teeth of the enemy.” She swept her hands down over the landscape from northwest to the southeast. “Granted, any dimensional transport magic could make a fool of me, and incidentally, means they don’t have to be on this map at all. They could be off somewhere on the rest of the planet. But I like the idea of fleeing to somewhere you know, controlling any means of egress, and the terrain is organic, if convoluted. I’d take my chances.”

“Good enough for me. We have a potential destination. Last question, can you punch the Shoreward?”

She lifted her eyebrows thoughtfully, staring at the various waters on the map. “I remember you saying you could Fly now, but you’re obviously sure that the Ward goes high enough to stop aerial infiltration, since those nautiloid niffi things can float.”

“That’s correct.”

“I didn’t test it, but I can, once we reach open water again.”

“I’m sure that some things out there might find the fact fascinating, but without access to a Portal, out over the ocean is the only way we’re going to make it there,” I warned her.

“Ho, and we’re going to make a floating wagon...” she smiled, her eyes sparking. “Do I work on stretching out my legs, or do you have another method?”

“Gust of Wind, sustained with concentration, can fill a lot of sail. Or you can drag us, whatever works with the active Disks carrying the wagon.”

“While it would be fun to get a catamaran out of a floating wagon, I should probably concentrate on sprinting the distance. It’s only a few miles off the shore.”

“Yeah, only we don’t know what’s waiting in between, so work on that speed, then.”

“I will!” she nodded seriously. “Ranthas do some of our best work inside the bellies of big things, but Mom said the experience still sucks. It’s kind of humiliating, getting swallowed whole and all.”

Well, that was one way to look at things...

-------

All in all, we took five days at the place, assembling the pieces of the wagon inside as Kris worked them over with obsessive care for the QL, taking crude but precise into elegant and fine. In between, she would flit off to cover the landscape, while I flipped over advancement levers, accrued skill points and more Masteries in arrears, grabbed more Feats, and generally kept laying my foundation down.

Also, getting in a lot of Rep Counts as I accumulated more Metas and spells.

My choice of Class Levels were Alchemist/1, mostly for the double-speed chemistry and alchemical stuff; Artificer/1; Pool Theurge/3; Arcane Theurge/3; and Mystic Theurge/3, finishing up what I took yesterday. This kept me up to speed on my Theurgies across the board.

The Masteries I took started with Holy Spell/3, Blessed Spell, which was a +I Meta that did +50% base damage to Evil creatures, -50% to Neutrals, and 0 damage to Good people. However, my Zealotry Mastery could treat Neutrals as Evil for such purposes, non-Good being the new qualifier, so it would work plenty fine against the uncaring and beasts who had no Alignment if I needed it to.

Raise Spell formally powered up certain spells that increased in strength as they went up in Valence, especially the bog standard Cure, Healing, and Vigor spells. Most other spells just increased in Save DC and general effectiveness. It meant saving on Spells Known and Spells Prepared or even needed in my Spellbook, as I could just Cast a lower spell from higher Valence as needed. It was the gateway for improved versions of spells when Cast from high Valences.

Raise Spell Mastery/2, Improved Raise, allowed Meta’d spells to count as spells of their new Valence, and allowed other spells to enjoy the expanded damage caps of higher Valences.

Spell Penetration Mastery/3, Greater Spell Penetration, improved the basic Spell Penetration to +4, or to +30 on the Isparian side.

The last one was Artificer/2, Exceptional Artisan, which reduced the amount of goldweight consumed when Infusing Artifice. Given limited resources (albeit receiving another nice infusion about now), it was a good thing to have.

On the Feats side of things, there was Sacred Healing, Imbued Healing, Lightning Reserve, Thunder Reserve, and Extra Discovery.

Sacred Healing was a booster using clerical Channeling. I only had enough Channeling to do a Dawnstopped spell, so I had uses floating. Sacred Healing gave a flat bonus to Healing skill checks and +2/die to Healing spells for the rest of the round if you Channelled. That was a horribly nasty combination to use against undead.

When that dovetailed with Vivic Spell, well, another sudden +2/die of damage was a NICE little power-up!

Imbued Healing was an effect that allowed the magic of a Divine Domain to affect your Healing spells. Silver Magic, for instance, gave anyone Healed a +2 Sacred save against magic from Evil creatures for a number of minutes equal to my Caster Level.

Good, on the other hand, gave them a number of temporary hit points, like extra Soak, equal to the Caster Level for rounds = Caster level. However, that only applied to allies. When combined with Zealotry, Holiness, and like effects, when used on Undead and Fiends, that same Healing spell did +1 damage per Caster Level to them!... and given we now knew undead were about the place, it was another timely and very useful addition to the arsenal.

I did a lot of rep counts over those days, Shardcasting enabling me to fit in the Elemental reps for both the Thunder Reserve and the Lightning Reserve. Given that Born of Two Thunders let me apply the Thunder and Lightning descriptors to ANY spell... they meant more Caster Level boosts to ALL of my magic.

The fact Thunder Reserve gave me a mighty and deafening palm slap for damage if I had a Thunder Spell in memory (I did not) and Lightning Reserve gave me an infinitely repeatable short range electrical bolt if I had a Lightning spell in memory (la la la...) was incidental. The one Feat plus rep counts made the Feats basically a blanket +2 Caster Level to ALL my Valences below III soon enough.

Extra Discovery was in the Alchemical Field, and the ubiquitous selection of Preserve Organs was a no-brainer, changing around my internal chemistry, organ arrangements, and vital points to make it much harder to land a critical blow, creating redundancies and internal reinforcements to circumvent the tactic of striking at vital areas. It went all the way up to III/75% Crit Protection, so future Alchemist Levels were spoken for.

Other than rounding out some of my Skill Ranks to Use Magical Device and a couple of my Crafting skills to help with the wagon-making, there wasn’t all that much more for me. I was, however, very ready to engage in combat with anything that came raiding, as being able to work out three thousand rep counts over ten hours of practice was helping me rank my Practicals and Efficients all up quickly, restricted only by my active Valences.

I also basically had a blanket +8 to my Caster Levels now, with that rising to +15 for my Shards. Given I was Casting at a Six because of my Wizard/3 (6) Levels, that meant a 21... I was going to hit anything coming in at me like I was an archmage, and that applied on my Isparian side, too...

-----

Kris came swinging over the balcony, followed by two Disks with dead reedsharks on them. I’d told her I needed the body fat to make more tapers, as I’d been out Sifting stuff and then filtering and distilling raw elements needed to make the little candles... but I still needed paraffin, and the best source of that was fat.

She was happy to spit them and broast them slowly down, gathering up the fat in a nice liquid mess for me to work with and add tinctures to... and if the things made surprisingly good steaks, then that was only a nice side benefit to it.

It took me two full days to set up dozens of each of the new tapers. Thankfully, No Comps meant I wasn’t actively burning the tapers, but I still needed them to find my Bloodline, and the testing process tended to burn a lot of them.

Then it was just a case of linking to what gold scarabs I had, and trying to find the right combination.

“That looks extremely annoying,” Kris nodded wisely, watching me curiously as I arranged the tapers in a pattern.

“You’ve heard of the Father, his seven Wives, and their dozen-dozen children, right?”

She tilted her head. “Vaguely, something about Item Magic?”