Chapter 1-38: Different Roads

He considered that grimly. He wasn’t afraid, but he wasn’t stupid, either.

“This has to go out to the whole world on multiple vectors, all at once, or not at all. IMMENSE efforts will be undertaken to suppress knowledge of vivus, if they have a hope of succeeding.

“Be patient. When I hit Five, I can spread the use of vivus to every spellcaster alive at once, and then it’ll all be moot.

“Given the sheer numbers of undead, five minutes a day isn’t going to make a dent in them. Quietly harvest them, build your strength, and then, when it is time, I will make it explode across the world. By then, you’ll be in position to take advantage of it, and really start making a difference.”

“Building up strength before a battle in secret, so the enemy can’t come and take it.” He nodded slowly. “This is that important...”

“Anyone who talks about vivus and comes to the attention of the wrong person is going to die, and anyone else they think knows about it.” I looked at Helix again, who flushed. “Helix, I think you, Sir Pellier, and Father Bower should all agree to a mutual Lesser Geas to not speak of vivus or matters related to it until it becomes public knowledge. In the interest of not blabbing something when you are drunk, or showing off, or trying to seduce someone, or trying to show you know a secret and are important, and since I’m sure you don’t want to get dead fairly soon, I think you can agree to that, right?”

He winced and made a long face, and was definitely struggling with that kind of absolute promise.

“He does,” Sir Pellier said, looking right at him. Helix’s face fell, remembering that both the Paladin and the healer Priest were at the risk of his mouth, and glumly nodded agreement. “Are you going to need any of the things you were going to shop for, Miss Traveler?” he asked calmly.

I hooked a thumb at Master Fred. “Riding a bike means I am required to pack very light, indeed. I won’t need to do much. Stick some mirror shades and a hat on him, he just looks like a mean biker, doesn’t he?”

The two men couldn’t argue with that. I shook hands with both of them, gave Helix another warning glare, and not incidentally got their phone numbers for when I finally got another phone.

Among the information Gregorigori had gotten for Elrii had been her phone number. He’d even hacked the trace on it, but it was offline... last blipped on the other side of the New York Shroud, in New Jersey...

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I watched them drive off in Sir Pellier’s car. He tooted, I waved at them both as they drove off, heading back to the Long Island Wall to start the slow process of going Deep.

Helix would probably not be happy to learn that one of the things Sir Pellier was going to be doing was taking Levels in Sorcerer...

The easy way to break Eight involved taking a Secondary Caster Class to Four, using Theurgy to rank it up to the Primary Class at Six, and then using Human/2 to pop that Caster Class to virtua 7. As that exceeded the capability of the Primary Class, it would instantly allow the Primary Class to advance to Seven.

Once at Seven, they could take their Human/3, take another virtua advance to the Secondary Class, advancing it to virtua Eight, and their Primary Class would follow suit.

It was not the only way to do so ‘smoothly’, but it was the easiest, because it was a Racial Class benefit. You didn’t even need the proper Ability Scores to do it.

However, you HAD to wait until you took the Theurgic Levels. If you instead used the Racial Level on your Primary Class, you got the virtua Level, but you were still just a Six, and you’d never be able to take your third Racial Level and advance to Eight.

That was what humans were doing, and what Helix had done. He’d thought he was a Five, but he was just a Four with a fake Level.

If you used it on the Secondary Class before the Theurgic Level, that completely defeated the purpose. A Theurgic Level could raise your Caster Level to that of the Primary Class, no higher. It would see the fake Level, basically identical to what it did, and you wouldn’t get past Six, either.

By that standard, Elf/2 and Elf/3 had to grant Wizard Levels. There were no known Elves in any other magical Tradition who had beaten the cap, from what I’d been able to glean from Master Fred.

I imagined the elves had figured out the system, and simply not bothered to inform Humans of it or something. Mmm. It meant that Wizard was always a secondary Class to them, so their primary Class was likely to be Melee or Archer, or perhaps even Expert or Vizard if they wanted to appear like ‘true Wizards’ with lots of knowledge and skills.

I didn’t know how it would work with the Elven Class, because I didn’t have Levels in it. A True Elf/6 would basically be the equivalent of a 4/4 fighting Spellcaster. They could only take complementary Class Levels in things that would supplement True Elf, and couldn’t exceed them. So, an Elf/6 was like a 4/4, and could take Melee/2, Archer/2, and Wizard/2, bringing him to 6/6 in Attack Bonus and Caster Level, and stopping there. A True Elf couldn’t take the Elven Racial Levels, so they would only be able to exceed Six by dint of awesomeness... which didn’t seem to have happened.

Perhaps the Haze was a part of the problem, perhaps it was the existence of technology, or perhaps just enough time hadn’t gone by and the way forward wasn’t known.

Hells, maybe nobody knew that there was a Human/3 Level to be taken!

I was perfectly aware of how it worked on the human side. Deducing that was how I matched up the Elven side, and knowing how Theurgic and Racial Caster Levels were assigned.

Doing all that and getting someone to Nine or Ten required more complexity and patience, but was still totally possible...

But the Morningsun family had hit Nine. That could only mean that a Halvyr Level had a Caster Level assigned to it... at /2 or /3, I didn’t know, and wouldn’t until I was eligible to take it.

Halvyr being able to reach Nine easily was a huge thing. They were the only people who could Cast 5’s. More to the point, they were the only ones who might be able to learn how to do so in any Casting Class, no Wizard required...

Jalaez Morningfire seemed to be a Favored of Nuava and a Sorceress, riding Charisma to Nine. Her daughter Morningflame was probably a Vizard-cross, given how famous she was for her fire magic, and the Feats needed to use it. Morninglight was definitely a Bard/Sorceress, while Morningwind was a Cleric/Wizard, going to be very gifted mentally.

Highsun was definitely a Melee/Wizard, a classic Battlemad, and one of the most famous swordsmen in the world, as a Nine. He might not have had the staying power of a Dragon Warrior, but he definitely had far more versatility.

They were going up one or the other side of the racial tree, taking Elven or Human Racial Levels to complement their own.

They weren’t taking both, like I had... maybe because they couldn’t? After all, I couldn’t be denied a Human Level; it was taking back something I had inherited, for all intents and purposes...

That meant I potentially could gain FIVE virtua Caster Levels... well, Wizard Levels – two from Elf, two from Human, and one from Halvyr.

That would automatically enable me to push to Eleven, with no tricks.

I had to say, that sounded pretty good to me. Halvyr were indeed a blessedly powerful race. Drawing on both halves of their heritage, indeed...

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Master Fred, knowing what had happened to Elrii, was as amused as I was when Sleipner had no problems with me riding in the seat he suddenly morphed into existence behind Fred.

I suppose I could be considered a ‘child’ of Aelryinth, and I had definitely gone through a reincarnation. Although Elrii was definitely not a virgin, I had definitely not done anything like that since my ‘birth’, so, knowledge and physical evidence aside, I was totally eligible to ride a unicorn.

That Master Fred could... was something of a downer all its own. Maybe it didn’t apply to dead motorcycle-possessing unicorns.

As all the supplies and things I’d need were waiting in Baltimore, I didn’t need to go shopping here, and so, I basically hopped on Sleipner, fit on the magical helmet that auto-fit when I put it on, and basically held on as he sat down, Sleipner turned himself on, and the bike took off.

I noted the GDS on the dash, and how it actually led across the water to get to land outside the radius of the Shroud. I said nothing as we pulled out into traffic, and virtually vanished.

It was kind of surreal. Fred wasn’t actually driving, leaning back and letting Sleipner take care of things. With his Stormpact, he wasn’t affected by winds, so his hair wasn’t fluttering at all in the wash, unlike me. However, I could see the faint light of Runes glowing under his skin, so I knew he was channeling Wrath for the bike to use.

After a few minutes of us moving at easily twice any speed limit through the roads, heading for the inlet to the south, he informed me that since becoming a motorcycle, Sleipner’s natural unicorn nature had changed to match the vehicle he was tied to. He could move through urban environments in absolute silence, near-invisibility, and with great speed. He could read the buildings and streets around him as easily as he once could a forest, and so was impossible to surprise while in such an environment, meaning he could race on through traffic and crossroads, avoiding all other traffic effortlessly as he did so.

It didn’t matter how many stops and crossways we came to, the unicorn bike didn’t even slow down, slashing between cars as if they were shadows and not multi-ton hunks of metal, and keeping on his way, the lord of his domain.

This power lasted as long as he was on paved roads, was reduced on dirt roads, and absent on natural trails or terrain, where he was basically just a motorcycle being guided by an intelligence. It didn’t mean he couldn’t be sneaky, but he wasn’t magically stealthy anymore.

This naturally annoyed the unicorn to no end, although he didn’t seem to mind being able to whiz around in crowded cities with complete aplomb, far faster than any person had a right to.

“Can you power his Unicorn Flicker with your Wrath?” I had to ask. “And can he drive along the Veil?”

YES AND YES, Fred affirmed, flaming letters rising up, going down. HE CAN ONLY RIDE ALONG THE VEIL ALONG ROADS NOW, HOWEVER. HIS HORN CAN STORE SEVERAL USES OF WRATH FOR SPECIFIC EFFECTS, AS NEEDED, AND I CAN RECHARGE IT EASILY ENOUGH.

Clutch abilities for the unicorn, I noted. “The water?” I had to ask.

ANGEL WALK, he replied, and I nodded. The second tier allowed walking on water. HOWEVER, WE USUALLY WARD-RIDE, AS IT IS FASTER.

I lifted an eyebrow. “I admit that’s a new one. No, no, don’t explain it, I’ll figure it out when I see it.”

Again that faint smile, a ghost of amusement, passing and gone.

---

We didn’t get quite to the seashore before I saw what a Ward Ride was. Fred reached out and put his hands on the handlebars, and golden light glowed gently about them. The front and back tires both lit up.

We were coming up on a T-section cross-street, with the sea visible down on the other side of the road ahead. Nobody was coming, not that Sleipner would have slowed down. There was the slightest of bumps as something materialized under the tires, and suddenly we were rising off the ground, over the guardrail, and breaking out of the veiling effect as we left the road…