Chapter 1-24: Road Trips

“Thank you. Father Bower spoke to you?” I asked calmly.

He nodded slowly. “And more. He’s already secured my release to serve as your escort until you don’t need my services.” His dark eyes flashed. “That vivic fire can cause some almighty waves, I was told...”

“Yes. It might even be best if I did my Leveling in another location that didn’t involve undead.” I frowned. “The Shroud is frazzing my memories, and really wants me to stay here and really shoot everything.”

“Your performance yesterday was extraordinary. If what I earned in those few minutes was any indication, you earned enough to send you straight to Six with all the wraiths and shadows you sent away forever.” He seemed pretty thoughtful. “You’re really good at killing them. Going elsewhere may not work as well...”

“Unfortunately, I don’t seem to have any control over the direction I’m Leveling in, which is very annoying. Do you know another place that might be worthwhile?”

He frowned, thinking about something, and nodded slowly. “There’s plenty of necropolises around. Other places... well, America definitely has one of the big ones.” I lifted an eyebrow. “Yellowstone.”

Ah. Something in common with Terra-Luna... “Fire elementals and that lot,” I said thoughtfully. “Just have to be kitted out with cold weapons, and we’re pretty good...”

“Easier for some than others,” he noted aloud, and I had to smile. Having the perfect Weapon was one of the harder things for the bash-them crowd. “But yes, undead won’t be as common there. The Druids from the local tribes like to say the rise of the firelands there is a result of the undead infecting the world, but I don’t know...”

“As common?” I repeated calmly. “If there’s undead there at all, that’s a clear indicator of pyric undead in control somewhere. More likely there’s a magmawight down in the supervolcano, and was woken up by the coming of the Shroud.”

He stared at me like I was raining on his parade. “What,” he had to ask, in the tones of someone who didn’t want to know, “is a magmawight?”

“A fire-based undead of great power, ranging in strength from a Fifteen to post-Twenty. Fully capable of messing around with a volcano. I imagine it very much wants to remain hidden, and is deeply afraid of the source of the Shroud, as the Dark Hierophant can definitely suppress it.”

He gave me that hairy eyeball again. “The things you know are deeply upsetting, Miss Traveler. Wherever did you learn such things?”

“The magmawight is an informed guess, not knowledge. Undead don’t survive in firelands unless the local Lord wants them around for some reason. You didn’t mention any kind of a pyric undead boss aboveground, which means belowground. Below means in the supervolcano. There’s not many undead who can survive in one of those, and control it into an actual fireland.” I steepled my fingers, looking elsewhere. “Consider me to have a self-preserving morbid curiosity about insanely overpowered dead things that might want to kill everything.

“More to the point, does Yellowstone have a Shroud? I can’t recall...”

His face fell, and he looked west. “It does...”

“Those things only form above a Dark Minister or higher Class of undead. If there hasn’t been one seen above ground...” I trailed off, and he followed the train of thought, then nodded. “It also means any Firebound or Fire aspect Druids in the neighborhood are actually serving an unholy power, probably...”

His face twisted again. “Damnation, girl. I’m going to have to ask you to stop thinking about things, aren’t I?”

“There is no such thing as cheap power. You always pay, one way or another.” I glanced past him. “Here comes Helix.”

The Paladin turned to face the powder-blue-haired Stormblood ambling free of care towards us, and Helix looked a little uncertain as he saw the two of us... and the Paladin not in full uniform. “Uh, hello? You ready to go, Trav?” he asked uncertainly.

I wondered when I’d graduated to a flippant nickname. “I am. Sir Pellier offered to drive, he’s got business in Riverhead Father Bower asked him to run. I accepted.” I ignored the way Helix’s face kind of fell as he looked at the solid figure of the holy knight. “Let’s go!” I continued before he could refuse, reaching out and grabbing his arm.

He didn’t have much choice but to go along with it. Sir Pellier smiled as he led the way to the lot with his car.

------

Prestidigitation cut Helix’s staff down to half-size (such a useful Cantrip) and I shoved him up front with Sir Pellier, to his consternation, noting that they were my chauffeurs, and were going to act the part!

I certainly didn’t want him continuously bugging me from behind if I sat up front, and I wasn’t going to put up with his constant chatter if he sat back here.

I looked out the windows as I studied the landscape, and Detect Location drew a map in my mind of where I had been, storing it in my Visual File.

There wasn’t a lot of traffic, but there was some, a lot of it trucks bringing supplies back and forth from the camp. Since the Wall stretched the length of the peninsula, there were thousands of people there, and they did have to eat.

Not me, but that was because I’d taken steps for it.

Homes were rare, but there were plenty of farms. As nobody really wanted to pile in and live so close to the undead, that left lots of open land to work, even if it was in the shadow of the undead. It just meant you had to be ready to run away.

The Haze cut down on the sunlight, but didn’t do away with it. The crops looked stunted and small because of it, and I imagine food problems were magnified. On the other hand, divine magic could certainly bless crops for a greater yield, so I imagine the best fields were overflowing despite the lack of sunlight... if they could get a Priest to come out and spend a III on them.

It was probably not a bad time to be a farmer, as the demand for food would be pretty constant. I imagined that greenhouses with full magical sunlight raising premium food fetched a really good price, too...

Sir Pellier was playing country music, despite Helix’s obvious revulsion, although I couldn’t identify any of the tunes. With the change in world circumstances, most of the famous artists from back home probably never existed or got their breaks, so the musical situation was obviously different from then.

There was a strong martial, patriotic, yet sad element to all of it, and Sir Pellier was singing along on a couple of the tunes. Even Helix joined in, despite himself, on a song called “I Want to See the Sun” by a gravel-voiced fellow who turned out to be Burl Ives, whose longing shook you right to the bones...

I kind of hummed along, appreciating the tune. The quality of the music was much higher than I remembered from our past, because the best musicians were naturally much higher Level than those from back home. Levels, Masteries, Feats, and Stat points, let alone Class abilities, would make a huge difference in the quality that people could put out.

I was going to have be memorizing the lyrics to pretty much every damn song I heard, because it was going to be assumed that I’d heard them all before.

I was sure Helix was in on the music scene, because he had a headset and personal music player with him, and would probably rave about all his favorite bands at the drop of a hat.

Bards and Minstrels still had power. I watched him as he was singing along to the country songs, and nodded to myself as I did.

Bardic heartsong was built from the ground up, with druidic roots, ties to the land, ancient traditions, drives, and motives. Crying, laughing, loving, and leaving was definitely the heart and soul of Bardic music, and remembering those who had gone before was a huge part of it.

Minstrelry came from the dreams down. It was about the now and the future, not the past, and its power source was closer to arcane. He could undertake Minstrelry as easily as Sorcery, no doubt, but it would have given him next to nothing magically, as Minstrels were medium Spontaneous Casters, worse than Sorcerers, only with a different range of spells they could pick.

He had two Levels in Bard, and despite himself, his magic was now attuning him to the tenor of the older style of music. He was probably going to start downloading a whole bunch of old music he could appreciate now, and feel and maybe understand the motivations behind it all.

Chaotic Good had its strong points, but frivolity was not one of them. Helix’s Intellect was 8 and his Wisdom was 10, while his Charisma was 14. He got along on positive attitude and staying focused on himself, only exacerbated by his Sorcery, which catered to individualists.

Prepared Casters realized there were many greater forces and powers out there, and that picking and choosing what they might need required forethought, about why he might want them and what he might want to do. There was nothing wrong with being an independent thinker, but he needed to live beyond the moment...

---

The number of buildings picked up as we came in on Riverhead, obviously a center of commerce of some sort, probably the first place people had fled to when escaping the undead that the corpses hadn’t reached. There were new buildings, built lower and more solid than the older, abandoned ones I’d passed, people were out and about, and I actually saw some kids playing here and there.

Undead catastrophe? Life goes on.

However, there were a lot of weapons in evidence. Nobody thought it was odd to carry a kukri, which seemed to be the weapon of choice. Kind of an axe-knife, it was fully capable of taking off a zombie’s head with a full-power swing. Other people were using moonhammers – crescent axes with a hammer backing, good for both meaty and bony undead, as needed, and, well, they could drive a nail if needed.

Rather more people were wearing shoulder holsters than should have been tolerated in a peaceable community; pistol on one side, hand weapon on the other. It seemed to be an accepted type of garb now... only the children weren’t armed with something edged, although a lot of them carried sticks.

I had tons of questions about this society: how they arranged schools, what kind of tech level they had, how the sudden introduction of the gods had affected the old religions, and so forth. Of course, that was all shit that I should already know, so asking about it was going to be a wee mite suspicious.

Better to play the aloof highborn intellectualist. I grimaced a bit as I realized I was indeed going to be relying on this girl’s financial status... and that meant I was going to have to know more about her life.

Wonderful. Inherit someone’s Bloodline, and all the complications that come with it. Well, hopefully that wouldn’t be too much of a bloody mess.

The nostalgia hit hard as we pulled into the town, and saw cars, stop signs, signs on shops, blinking stoplights, people walking along sidewalks, and the like.

There were differences, of course, but still, they’d managed to keep more of their lives than Terra-Luna had. Not getting 95% of the planet killed straight off was definitely part of it. The difference in font styles alone...

I painted unfamiliar car models and types into my Visual File, and saw my first flashy sports car type, painted a bright red for everyone to appreciate, with flames on it and everything. Even if someone keyed it, magic could restore it instantly, so it was definitely a Caster in there... or they had one on retainer.

I noted Helix following the sight of it hungrily, too...