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

The Salute to Aru was unmarred by anything like a horde of shades descending upon us, and as Renewal flowed past, we got to flip our levers, advance what we needed to, and apply Karma towards Classes and Stats and things once again.

The Mick pointedly was going for Pool Theurge, tied to his skill with Item Magic. To reach that, he needed to be a Three in something, and since he had the Monk Levels and needed the extra ki to do lots of things, that was what he was spending on.

As soon as he took a Pool Theurge Level, his Item Magic Caster Level would be his base Caster Level for his Arcane Fist standardized skills, but he needed to have the ki to support the boosts, too. What it would mean was seven die increases to his Longsword Bunita, taking it from a d8/d12 Weapon all the way up to 4-28/6-36, if he had the 6 ki needed to support the advances.

His Masteries were going to be spent on Extra Ki, because he also wanted the improved Lightfoot speed, the extra unarmored Dodge bonus, and the like. So, get to Arcane Fist/3 and take a Pool Theurge Level, and uberness awaited him, if he had all the ki in hand!

His Bonus Feat today was thus Profound Weapon, the Feat that would apply ki from unarmed strikes to any Weapon he had Weapon Focus with, which in his case was the sword. His Bonus Feat was Improved Armed Strike, so he could punish anything that fought him without using a Weapon of their own, something I imagined happened a lot in this world.

Tomorrow would be Versatile Unarmed Strike, which would translate over to Versatile Armed Strike, and then he’d doubtless start down the Power-Attack and One-Strike lines, of which there were so many fun things to learn.

I was still limited on how many spells I could call on at any one time. Unlike the Isparian System, the Matrix System of Power of Ten required you to keep your Spells in variable Rune Engrams if you were a prepared Caster, or set Spell Engrams if you were a fixed Caster. The better spells were at the higher Valences, which I didn’t have access to yet, and was seriously debating heading for in order to grab early…

But I had so many horizontal Levels to grab, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. The Karmic waste was just going to be too high, and the Levels I was going to be grabbing later were going to need the immense foundation of more Matrix Levels, especially as many spells as I could reach on the fly.

That was especially true if I had to go down the rabbit hole of Save-or-Die spells to be viable here, which was extremely annoying.

On the other hand, the natives plainly weren’t adapted to dealing with them directly, given the nature of their racial defenses. Massive loads of Health and spellcasting to buttress it meant they were prepared for impressive amounts of spell damage, no doubt delivered on the wings of Vulnerability spells for double and triple damage and the like, and not to spells that brainlocked you, turned you to stone, wrapped you up like a pinata, turned you into a chicken, or the like.

In the Power of Ten, people optimized to beat the band to stop those kind of things from working. SOD’s were generally not very useful because of it, as nobody wanted to die from the first spell Cast on them, and so the Sun Saves, the Feats that allowed you to sub a Concentration check for a Saving Throw, were hugely popular.

It wasn’t hard at all to get a Concentration check to +20 and higher, Skill Mastery meant you could take 10 on the check and never ‘roll low’ on the number, and so beating Saves that required 30 and more was routinely and completely possible at Ten.

So that was what I was taking today, the second of the Sun Saves, Moment of Perfect Action, also called Action before Thought. Substitute a Concentration skill check for a Reflex Save.

The weak side of the Sun Saves is that you needed to be in a state of Focus to use the skill. A savvy person would target you with multiple Saves, so you either had to refocus very quickly, be able to discharge multiple times, or you better have a damn good base Saving Throw to back yourself up with.

I had inherited Aelryinth’s Talent for Concentration as Naturally Focused, and invested in it heavily already, for just this reason.

Bane Weapon had not been important with Invisibility, the Baneflames would just have given away our positions. In addition, it was a Divine spell, and so I hadn’t needed to Surge for it, instead grabbing for the Emerald Shard of Paralysis.

Today I was doing a few things.

Exemplar Surging with Lyric Theurge/1, the Class Caster Bonus going to Bard, because it was my backdoor to Druidic Magic through the Heartsong, had gotten me Emerald Shard. I’d taken the Sublime Chord/0 basic Mastery, Song of Power, which gave Caster Level bonuses to those in range of the user. Additional Levels in the Mastery unlocked the Elemental Songs which weaponized Bardic Music something fiercely.

With a Lyric Theurge Level came an Extra Spell Known for my Spontaneous Caster Level, which was Minstrel, taking a Bardic spell as a permanent Minstrel Spell Known. It was only a Cantrip for now, but permanent Bloom was going to be useful at almost any level. All it did was create flowers, but the reason to create flowers never really changed.

I’d also taken the second Sun Save.

Today was the follow-up to that. My second Lyric Theurge level, another Minstrel Extra Spell Known, this time Valence I; the Feat for the third Sun Save, Moment of Perfect Will; and Sublime Chord Mastery/1, the Chorus of Unmaking, which did a d8 damage per Perform Rank to all Constructs and similar items within 30 feet, if I could make the Perform base check of 20, which I totally could.

Only six Ranks in Song for the moment, so the damage was, ahem, unimpressive, to say the least. However, if tied to a Shout, it could be impressive, indeed.

Notably, the Song of Unmaking was specifically considered a supernatural effect, and could affect Constructs normally immune to magic. That was important if it was your only way to take out a True Golem.

The Bard spell to be applied to my Minstrel list was Entangle, a Druidic staple and useful spell for trapping and slowing down enemies. I needed alternate options, and it was a safe one.

The Exemplar Surge spell I fetched was Shatter. If these things wanted to be reliant on Weapons, then I was going to have a way to break those Weapons, probably shocking the heck out of the bastards, and I informed both the Mick and Princess Kristie of that.

Sword beats Fist was going to be the Feat of the Day for the Mick, I had no doubts whatsoever.

There were so many things I wanted to get into place and could not. My personal spreadsheet for advances was getting a bit dim as I wrestled with what I wanted to have happen, the reams of spells I needed and was copying into my spellbook, and the simple fact that I couldn’t have all the spells, all the time.

Well, I could, it would just get REALLY expensive.

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We put the Mick to work empowering the Baneskull. Kris didn’t need it, I technically didn’t need it since it was mostly designed to work with Weapons and I could Banespell on the fly to one specific type of opponent, so he was going to get the first one.

It was a powerful opponent, so it was going to empower itself up to the normal level, and he’d only have to pay for the Greater boost, which we all appreciated.

Oh, and he didn’t take another Arcane Fist Level, since he wanted to Awaken his Sword. He took Soul Warrior, swore a black streak for an hour after Kris opened his Hand and Feet Chakras, and two Soul Essence to his Soulbound Sword later, Bunita flared with a Yellow-Orange Light gleaming around its edge.

He looked at the Light around Bunita, the hard Electrum around Crown, and the gleaming Gold on Quaver, and realized he was lacking something somewhere. “Not as strong an enchantment?” he hazarded, eyeing the difference in our Weapons.

“No, Master Mick. The Soulfire is an indicator of the Color of your soul, no more, no less. The magic upon your Blade is just as strong as ours. The Soulfire indicates dedication and commitment by its hue. Those who have not committed themselves to a personal code of belief have softer Colors than those that have.

“By your tales and style, I do not take you for a religious man, nor one to dwell on matters of honor, right and wrong, and the like. You have lines that you won’t step across… maybe. You know that if you are pushed, you will likely step across them quickly, because you don’t see any real, pragmatic reason why you should not. Airy words and beliefs don’t put food in the belly or gold in the hand, and you watch them and keep your own counsel on who to trust, who not to, and who to screw right over sharply, and damn the laws and mores of others that might condemn you for doing so, they can kiss your ass because you don’t need them.”

His face was a bit long as I related all of that, glancing at his Sword, where the Light very deliberately went out. “Tell all that from the Color o’ me soul, aye?” he asked softly.

“Yes. Someone who is good at reading such Colors, and I am, can tell where you stand on practically any moral or ethical question put before you, just by the depths and shades of those Colors.

“And no, you can’t change the Colors to fake it, save with some external magic or illusions, which can be seen through like anything else if you know what to look for.”

He crossed his arms, looking at me and glancing at Kristie, who was sitting over there Investing up her Bracers, while he and I were over here Imbuing up the Necklace for her and the Baneskull. “This… makes me very resentful and suspicious of ye,” he admitted.

“Why? Paranoia, or you feel you’re giving something away you should keep concealed?” I asked calmly.

“Well, ye said ye can tell all manner of things about me, things I’d like as not have anyone know!” he half-spluttered.

“It’s true that Soulfire exposes a great deal when it ignites, and people used to lying and bluffing their way through the world don’t like to be revealed by something as pure and uncaring as Soulfire,” I nodded at him, remembering literally thousands of conversations about this topic. “For instance, if that Soulfire came up Black, what do you think would have happened to you?”

He stared at me, at his Blade, and licked his lips. “Ye’d have tried to kill me?” he asked softly.

“If not, we’d have driven you off for certain,” I confirmed to him. “Because Black means you are cruel, destructive, heartless, uncaring, and you’ve done horrible and sinister deeds in the past, and you have no compunctions whatsoever of doing the same or worse ones in the future. A Black soul is a mad dog waiting to be put down… and naturally they don’t want anyone to know they are mad dogs, and hate being revealed for what they are. The only time they like to use Soulfire is if they know it will make their opponents feel afraid.

“By the way, that was exactly the hue of your soul in the Markspace, too. So, you now know what you look like to us there.”

He blinked, realized the hues on our Weapons did indeed match what he’d seen in the Markspace. After a moment, the Light winked back on, and he stared at it, wondering what it said about him.

“There are nine major and two minor Colors,” I began before he asked. “The Alignments indicate the existence of four great fundamental forces, more essential than Light or Gravity, defining Earth and Air, Fire and Water, and all the other Laws and Rules of reality between them. Time bows to them, as does Luck, and Magic is just one of the minor powers spun off from them, as is Space, and thought and souls and all the wonders of Creation. They all exist because of the interaction of the Alignments.

“You do not determine the Alignments, Master Mick. You only determine where you stand in relation to them and what they do by exercise of your Free Will.”