Chapter 3-76: Points on the Map

A comment from Tucson had raised some flags, and one of the Powered back in the Hall had done a Scrying, only for it to be futzed. Given the address of the building, having Scrywards had been very improbable, and a local Aruan had agreed to pass by.

He’d flagged at least one person there who had an Aura painted deep purple, and a strike team including a Heavenbound, a Paladin, and an Aethran Ranger who was all over taking out baby-stealers had hit the place.

By the time it was over, a nest of Shoul adherents and Sinbound was mostly dead, a lot of healing magic had been expended... and they’d found baby care stuff in the trash, but no baby... although they did find a couple dead children with pieces carved off of them...

The people who weren’t quite dead got to that condition quickly. The Harsites could interrogate their skulls at their leisure.

Traveler had taken the news with the same steel in her eyes she always had. He really had no idea what kind of world she came from, that even a shard of a soul could be so grim yet good-hearted.

She had merely said they were the best manhunters in the world, and they would find him. When it was time for her to move, they would move.

This punk here was going to give him a target, even as the information sources pulled up records of cars belonging to the members, or stolen cars, and tried to find and match them up.

Undoubtedly Complareao was taking precautions, had Scrywards up, and was switching rides. Still, that wasn’t enough to shake a Ranger of Aethra, and they believed he was moving south, into Mexico. That was confirmed when a day later a group of people had crossed the border via magic, and observers noted the baby among the group as unusual. Nobody had wanted to mess with Powered strong enough to do what they had done, and so the people had simply watched them head off south from Antelope Wells and vanish.

Mexico’s inherent corruption, dominated by little fiefdoms of Powered and criminal cartels, with Church-backed forces constantly fighting one another and killing one another off, made it a perfect place for a Sinbound to flee to. Shoul’s faith had a lot of adherents in Mexico, framed as defying the wealthy that had dominated the peasantry for so long, ignoring the simple fact that Shoul’s people profited off misery... other people’s misery, rich or poor.

But even the Evil powers knew better to flaunt their power. Instead of intimidating their Good enemies, massacres only made them madder and evoked ever-greater retributions in return, particularly from Heavenbound. There were a lot of Warlocks killing one another in Mexico...

So, he was here, waiting for that hand to dip, to pull out a cell phone, to swipe it and deactivate its lock, and to place a call.

The Sinbound was listening to the phone ring when Idiot entered the back of his skull, and a surge of Wrath turned his brain to ash.

Fred let the corpse and his Sword fall, smoothly pulling the phone out of the dead hand as it did, grabbing the cord hanging ready from his own Vaccine, and inserting it smoothly into the power socket.

“Hello? Manuel, is that you? What news?”

Naturally there was no reply but the night wind. Five seconds later the phone hung up... but that was long enough.

“Got ‘em!” Gregorigori’s voice came out of the phone, but his excitement rapidly plummeted. “Fuck. The bastard is in the dead area around the City of the Gods Shroudzone!”

Fred waited patiently as the gnome on the other end of the phone did his thing. He watched as the Sinbound dead man was burned away and his soul dragged down somewhere by his Pact, waiting for the Shroud to go away so he could be delivered Down Below, and then the disposable cell phone in Fred’s hand popped, flamed, and burned away to slagged plastic and metal.

“Shoul has long been rumored to have a temple in the Dead Zone where they train new Powered and Sinbound. The undead ignore it if they go wandering out, and nobody there is stupid enough to want to go raiding it in a Dead Zone, even in the middle of the day.”

Fred considered that as Gregorigori sent all the information. He texted those following that he’d struck, while Sleipner drew up next to him and the charred remnants of the clothes on the sidewalk.

Fred cleared them off with a wash of Wrath, pocketing the gold necklace and rings automatically, burning the Warlock Pistol down to slag with a devoted burst that sent bullets popping. With a casual kick of his boot, he sent it skidding thirty yards down and across the street, into a rain gutter there, where it clattered down and vanished from sight.

It couldn’t be salvaged, as it would only work for the Warlock who’d Bound it, so no reason to keep it around...

---------

The two vans came to a stop next to him, Briggs opening the door to swing out his legs, and I hopped out to join him and Fred.

“The City of the Gods.” It was the biggest Mexican Shroudzone, and its eruption had basically turned Mexico City into a literal ghost town.

There was no wall around that Shroudzone, so the undead were free to wander out and around every night, and they frequently did. That basically meant the terrain for twenty miles around the Zone was a death-blasted wasteland with nothing living, while those who died and weren’t disposed of in time for a hundred miles and more around the place were constantly wandering in, and either had to be put down by the overworked Priests of the area... or were escorted in by Dark Priests or Evilbound Warlocks, then turned over to the Dark Ministers.

That whole area was a center of conflict for Warlocks of all stripes. Evilbound used the Deadzone like a safe house, from which they trained and deployed against their counterparts, or for mercenary work or endeavors.

A major Assassin network was rumored to have a full training base there, associated with a Temple to Shoul.

The Temple would happily make non-Powered Sinbound, make use of them and their faith while they lived, and if they died, maybe Shoul would collect them from their Pactholders, maybe not, it wasn’t their concern.

Their Powered, now, they’d train as Priests and Assassins, sending them out to eliminate the enemies of the Church, infiltrate society, and grow their own power.

There would always be those willing to literally sell their souls for power, and there would always be those who had no reservations about doing anything to gain power. Shoul would happily make use of both, and the latter happily make use of the former.

I’d like to call them poor bastards, but qualifying for Sinbound generally meant murdering someone for no other reason than to qualify for the Pact, so I wasn’t caring too much. Those five hundred Pacts just kept cycling over to new fools...

But it seems I had a baby boy to follow into Mexico. As a One.

I sighed and rubbed my temples. I was going to be heading into a major Good/Evil conflict zone, basically a religious war going on, into a dead zone where uncounted numbers of undead might wander in during the evening, to face a bunch of mortal-killing Sinbound, any wandering Fiends they might have, and Powered Assassins.

As a One.

I might be close to the most dangerous One ever, but there was no freaking way. I didn’t have the staying power, I didn’t have the defense, I didn’t have the flexibility to do what needed to be done. Being able to pop seven spectres one after another was not the same as fighting a few hundred thousand undead.

I glanced at both Commander Briggs and Master Fred. I knew they’d come along if I asked. I was pretty sure Master Fred would go there alone, if nobody asked.

Heck, if he got to Nine and the Fifth level of Heaven’s Ward, he might even survive.

“I can’t possibly take that place on right now, and I can’t ask a lot of people to die for me to do it. However, I can certainly ask that you let certain interested people know, so they have one more reason to despise them, now.

“When I hit Three, I can do a Bloodbound Ritual, and I’ll know exactly the direction my son is in, they won’t be able to block it.

“When I hit Five, I will be able to go down there and survive without a problem.

“When I hit Seven, they are dead.”

“How long are you talking?” Briggs asked reasonably.

I had to screw up my face. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I don’t know how many Classes it is forcing on me sideways, and I don’t know if that’ll include Theurgic Classes... but even if it doesn’t, I should be taking them when I can, too, even if I don’t take all of them.”

“Guesstimate,” Briggs rumbled patiently. “Best estimate on Secondary Classes?”

“Today was my first non-Casting Class... and it was Monk/1, Arcane Fist.”

Briggs looked amused. “That’s about as close to a casting non-Caster as you’re able to find, right.” The archetype was basically designed to supplement Casters.

“It means I’ve finished off the Casting Classes. So, I’ve got Melee, Archer, Scout, Vizard, and maybe Noble left.”

“Added to?” Briggs prodded, and I simply swept up a Holo of the listing.

His pale violet eyes narrowed at the list. “Nineteen Classes? Required?” He rolled his eyes. “So, you should be at least a Six by now, and you’re still a One.”

“And the Theurgic and Archclasses start at Two.”

“Can you earn enough Karma?” he asked reasonably.

“I have enough Karma to reach Ten.” He blinked in shock, as did everyone else around me, save Master Fred. Technically, I had ten Levels at Nine... which was enough to make Ten five times over... or get to Ten with a half-dozen Secondary Classes topped off, i.e. a B Rank Ten.

Yeah, Aelryinth had thrown away a lot of Karma. Getting Levels when you were a Nine was half the price of being a Ten, but it still represented a crapload of Karma and Levels.

“I’m just applying the Karma every day, bit by bit... but it doesn’t advance my Gear. Gear is the main problem.”

“You’re earning a Level a day, and Gear is the problem.” He smacked his face with his huge hand, and everyone else groaned. “Seriously, Trav, do you know how hard it is to gain enough Karma to keep Leveling here?”

“And if you had something with Death Ward built in on it?” I inquired reasonably.

Now his eyes narrowed. “Death Ward... that would be a gamechanger,” he admitted. “Combine a Death Ward with Vivic fire, and being fast enough to run... we could start some really, really aggressive pruning of the Shroudzones.” He was almost salivating at the thought.

“It’s a IV. Duskstop it.”

He opened his mouth, closed it. “Shiiit...”

“Or cough up 28 Goldweight for an Amulet.”

Everyone around did indeed burst out coughing. 4.2 million dollars for an Amulet...

“Or... 35 Goldweight in a pair of Bracers.”