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

“What are you thinking?” I asked her, having my own ideas.

“There was no sign of conflict or combat with the mosswarts. But the mosswarts had their injuries, and were on a war footing. That reedshark lair I was in isn’t that far from their settlement, but it was to the north, and there was little foot traffic in that direction upstream. Their attention is focused south.

“Also, they look amphibious, scales or no. We always met Summons of them in wetter areas.”

“You think there’s something in the swamp,” I extrapolated.

“And I’m fairly sure the undead are opposed to whatever that influence is, too, and tolerate the mosswarts because of it.”

“The burun, then,” I nodded slowly. “They were obviously amphibious, also. We met the first Summons of them down here, and despite sharing a habitat, there were none living among the mosswarts.”

“They are opposed tribes contesting for the same territory. What their view is of the undead, we don’t know, but I’m betting it’s poor.”

“No bet,” I agreed, as the last Invisibility wore off, and she headed back in the direction we’d left our Wagon, in the middle of a thicket cluster nothing we’d seen would want to get into. Summons along the way were avoided, as the locals had likely marked what they were, and would be alert to any changes.

“Well, I imagine we’re going to be wandering into a skirmish zone, then. One I imagine the burun are winning, given the mosswarts are on the outskirts.”

“That would be my thinking, as well. We’ve no idea what side is doing what, either.”

“I’m seldom opposed to creatures that loathe the undead, but my feeling is everything involved is tribal and racial in mindset, and there are no friends, only not-food-right-now of convenience.”

Her canines gleamed in the moonlight. “Well, that does tend to simplify a lot of relationships, doesn’t it?”

I just sighed. “It does, indeed.”

-----

It was just several trees growing close together, with a high stand of reeds all around, but that meant perfect for us. Nobody was going to go into it for much reason, the frogs and snakes weren’t going to report us, and it made excellent camouflage material to work with for the magic hiding our wagon.

The princess was putting Bane to Mosswarts in Quaver’s Slaughter Slot, based purely on having to fight those old Mosswart Cynics in the future. Any edge was worthwhile for that.

On the flip side, we both knew that if the mosswarts had elders that powerful and were on the outside of the swamp, that meant whatever was holding the swamp was pretty damn tough.

Well, it was what it was. She had a lot of things to add to Quaver’s Slaughter in the end, and it was interfering with overall growth of her Blade, but there was nothing for it, except maybe to accumulate Baneskulls instead.

Said skulls of which I was accumulating, even if I wasn’t working on them.

Instead, she started working on a Shield to use, using the best of the salvaged steel there and having me Energize it all to Earth. Durasteel wasn’t adamantine, but you make do with what you have.

She probably would have made herself a suit of armor if speed and maneuverability weren’t so important. But dodging the local magic had taken on a higher level of meaning now, and she wasn’t going to sacrifice that readily, so she wasn’t going to go for anything short of skinplate right now, and we didn’t have the raw materials to make something like that.

Soon enough, soon enough.

I’d held off taking a Feat immediately, but I took them before and after Natural Renewal, along with the Class choice I’d held off. The only thing I’d taken was my Exemplar Surge’d spell, Camouflage.

Choices to make. I took the fatal step, and slotted in my Feat as Arcane Thesis: Shards, using the fact I was a faux Wizard/6 to justify it.

+2 to Caster Level of Shards, -1 cost to ALL Metas attached to Shards. Replaced Signature Spell/Shards, which did an inferior version of the same thing. The Mastery was Fury of the Zealot/3, which extended Zealotry to effects coming off Holy magic items I wielded... like the Holy I was adding to Crown right now.

Swapping a Feat gave me an extra one. I Selected my Class Level as Bard/1, which started my Heartsong Levels, and the Feat as Of the Invulnerable World, which would allow me to unleash magic without harming the environment.

As Renewal passed with the Salute to Aru, I doubled down on the choice, taking another Level in Bard, and backing it up with Extra Channeling/3 and Duskstopped Spell.

Two spells that could last all day and not be recast. I wanted my Shaping Stone always on hand, and now I had it, in addition to an always-active Shield spell!

As for the spell for Exemplar Surge, that was for utility, too...

-----

“Taking one of your Surges to grab a Summons so we don’t have to risk smoke or a fire being sensed. Nice,” Kris said, as we broke up our mutual efforts around noon for her to fry some reedshark again. She’d managed to grab some onions and leeks and even garlic while wandering around, while I’d managed to sniff out some comfrey and other herbs, and Sifting out some salt wasn’t hard at all. As a result, the rub on the steaks wasn’t half-bad, and we could indulge once we didn’t have to worry about being sniffed out.

The Summon Lesser Elemental spell wasn’t about getting a powerful companion, after all. Utility was often much more important in cases like this.

“Classes?” she asked, as her jet-black nails divided up her steak like monomolecular knives.

“Bard/1 and /2,” I admitted, raising her eyebrows. “I don’t think I can take Druid Levels here. If there’s Primal magic, it’s being completely overwhelmed by the ley line network here, and the Land is suppressed. However, I can access the full Druid List without any problem via Bard’s Heartsong-related magic, so there’s a workaround... and I want the Sublime Chord.”

“Ah, of course,” she nodded wisely. “Perform Skills of choice?”

“Song, Dance. If I have extra, I usually spend them on Whistling and Piano.” I craned my neck around. “Behold, my performance chamber! I’m sure a Steinway will be materializing soon...”

“I’m sure it will,” she laughed as she munched on reedshark with me. “Now I know what you were groaning about there! How did it feel to have six Ranks of Dance forced into you?” Her eyes twinkled as she recalled my face and misery as I stretched out on a Disk.

“Exactly as miserable as you might think, especially since I couldn’t go through forms to help offset the insta-conditioning.” Thousands of hours of practice driven into muscles that hadn’t ever done anything like that was truly a miserable experience, and that included my throat and vocal cords. I actually sounded rather hoarse at the moment.

“Aaand now I know why you wanted a triple steak, and could actually eat it all.” She watched me devouring my share with aplomb, as being Sustained didn’t do jack-all for building body mass. I had just gotten a huge amount of muscle toning and stretching by the backdoor method, and my body was screaming at me for some building blocks to make it all official.

“Yes, am very hungry right now,” I confessed around my chewing. “I also have to do a lot of vocal scales, and actually get familiar with my own Singing Voice, as opposed to just recalling a bunch of Ranks of what to do and applying them without having done them.” Happily, Quaver’s Sound Bubble took care of making sure nobody heard us.

“I’d offer to partner up on the dance portion, but we are missing a proper hall, and I don’t want to rob the boys of their pleasure.” Her eyes twinkled merrily at the thought.

I rolled my eyes slightly. “Night Rose ranks already?” I had to ask, and the twinkle in her eyes became a bit of a hard glitter.

“Of course! I’m a princess, I have to master the social scene, too, and you know we aren’t going to do anything half-ass. Mom went out on the dance floor, with those hips and legs, and it didn’t matter if her face was scarred. All the men were tripping over themselves for a dance with the Empress!”

“Now, now. No hiding that envy of your Mom for having your dad around.” I wagged my fork at her, and she grimaced slightly.

“I don’t have any desire for my dad, thank Mithar, but, oh, do I want a Briggs for my own!” she admitted without the slightest guilt, her face lighting up with a serene, dark beauty that her Curse Brand could only attempt to hide. “Getting spun around the dance floor by Dad was wonderful! He never had a problem with partners, either, as you might imagine.”

“Briggs always had a way with the girls back on Terra-Luna. Most of the Amazons on the planet were directly inspired by him, and are in love with him as a result. Sama alternates between beating them off with a stick and inviting them in for threesomes.”

“That sounds so like Mom,” Kris admitted. “They were very good about keeping it tight while we were kids, but now they take breaks from one another, and everyone expects it, so nobody says anything, and between them they seduce half the nobles in the Empire with ridiculous ease.”

“I can’t say that surprises me in the least, and I imagine you and your siblings find it funny as heck.”

“Oh, those poor saps who think they run the world have no idea how helpless they are in front of two Night Rose Masters like the folks,” she nodded along.

“Like you weren’t indulging, too,” I sniffed, looking her over. “You DO know you had a reputation for going through the brawny men, right?”

Her return smile was sweet death for those gossips. “Well, I did go through the brawny men, mainly because they were very fragile and return engagements might have broken them permanently, and totally ruined them for anyone who came after me. I DID try to restrain myself, and I can proudly say that none of them will ever forget me, and none of them want to repeat the experience.” She even leaned forward and whispered, “I was directly responsible for sixteen marriage proposals and weddings, I’ll have you know.”

“Chased them right into proper fidelity?” I was scandalized. “What did you do, tell them you didn’t sleep with married men?”

“Why, yes! And since they weren’t engaged, I’d be coming back for them! It was magical. Within two weeks they all found the courage to propose to the loves of their lives, and wedding bells all around.” Her shit-eating smile was quite smug. “You should have seen the way they clutched their wives whenever I was around. Verrrrry satisfying.”

I could only laugh softly. “What about getting a bondmage? Did that never occur to you?”

She tilted her head in thought. “Welllll,” she drawled, “there’s a problem in that I’m really not attracted to the slender intellectual type, the pretty boytoy, or the charismatic mastermind. Me and my sisters are foundationally like Mom, you know? We want our own Briggs, not a spellflinger. We are also, uh, not impressed with Isparian Casters, for the most part, as the magic we remember is a lot more useful and versatile. We can respect them and their skills, but we’re just not attracted to them.”

“And you intimidated them so badly as Nulls they probably don’t really want to be around you, and that’s before you threw them over a house for the first time.”

“Odd that a lot of men really aren’t attracted to physically capable women. Like they like feeling physically superior and useful that way. Odd, huh?” She just shrugged, being it was what it was.