Chapter 5-159: It’s the Thought that Counts

“Seventeen hundred hours of rep counts for one Meta? Seventy days worth of time?” She rolled her eyes. “Okay, you have the fun toys, but that just sounds colossally boring, and I can Meditate endlessly if I have to.”

“Yes, but Meditation doesn’t have any negative modifiers. Rep Counts for Weirding stuff have a Concentration Check affected by fatigue modifiers, which can grow VERY quickly, you can’t just Cast-and-forget. The Concentration check to do that for a +9 is a base 38.”

“That can’t be that harsh if you build for it as a Ten. What’s your modifier right now? +40?”

“+46, Steady Focus.”

“Taking Ten on a +46.” Sama rolled her eyes. “Riiiight.”

“Two universal skills, four Casting skills,” I answered back, giving her shoulder a slug. My fist bounced like I’d hit a tire; I wasn’t worried about hurting her, and she barely noticed it. If it hurt her, my fist would probably be broken.

“Depending on Tradition, right,” she agreed, nodding at the memory.

Stealth and Perception were naturally the universal Skills if you were an adventurer. For an Arcane main Class, Concentration, Meditation, Arcane Lore, and Spellcraft were primary. For Divine, swap the last two for Faith and Religious Lore. For Druids, Faith and Natural Lore. For Binding, Spellcraft and Planar Lore. For Artifice, Alchemy and Spellcraft. For the Heartsong, Diplomacy and a Perform Skill.

“You realize you just described a +28 modifier you need the Concentration Skill Tree at Four to Take Ten on as ‘not hard’,” I laughed at her.

“Oy!” She knocked my head once, being obvious about it, and I still yelped. “Power of Ten Magos Ten I’m talking to here! Are you judging things by these folks around us being stuck at Six? You’ve already arranged for a +46, and it’s only going to get higher, right?”

I grumbled as I rubbed my head, certain I was going to have a bump on it. Damn Hag-happy muscle women... “I certainly hope so. I’m pretty sure it’s going to let me take my Fours, and I have a big, big desire to get the Sagedom for it, thank you kindly.”

“Oh, what’s that Sagedom?” she asked brightly. “Did you inherit it? I didn’t know Aelryinth had a Sagedom...”

“He never claimed it in public. Sage of Focus... add all mental modifiers for all your Casting Attributes to your Concentration check.”

She narrowed her eyes and turned to look at me. “Are you serious?”

“Totally.”

“You get to add FOUR ABILITY SCORES to a skill check?!” she demanded in a stage whisper.

“I’ve got everything but the base Concentration Skill Mastery.”

Sama rolled her eyes at the sky. “Mithar and Valus. That... what do you do with a skill check that high?”

“Make Saving Throws against no-save Death Curses from post-Thirty Death Giant Demi-liches?”

She opened her mouth and shut it, then smirked. “I shouldn’t be rolling my eyes at grabbing for high numbers.”

“Yeah, I know what Sama’s to-hit numbers are back home after Way of Water, Air, and Fire IV, and all them damn modifiers she started stacking up.”

“We might have to hit crazy optimized Magas with post-40 AC’s!” she replied shamelessly.

“Yes. Or Magmawights.” Her smug smile slipped a bit.

“That’s your guess?” Her eyes turned to the cinderstorm. “Okay, that’s a damn good guess. A Firezone is an awesome protection against most undead, although I have a feeling it won’t work against the big one in Russia...”

“No, that Cardinal would just Control Weather to make a constant driving blizzard, and keep infusing soulchill into everything, cooling it down faster than the magmawight could keep it artificially heated. Nega-lance all its Fire minions to undeath, and take it out easy. Maybe if another Shroudzone could have come here, it would have been a fight...” I trailed off. “What’s your Trembling Domain telling you?” I asked sharply, slowly raising my feet off the ground on the patient Disk I was sitting on.

Sama blinked, and the transition to kill-happy melee bitch was in full force. Her bare feet hovered an inch above the ground as she looked down, concentrating intently on what the vibrations were telling her, above and beyond the constant patter of the cinders and ash coming down.

She whistled a very precise two-tones.

I clutched my hand, and the Hut vanished even as the occupants thereof were hurling themselves back and away on their Disks, Guns springing to hand and/or Weapons drawn.

The Mick additionally smoothly gathered the cards and chips as he kicked away and flicked up his own Force Armor to turn aside the falling ash as he left the protection of Master Fred’s Ward. Because he could, natch.

There was an explosion of stone and ash right in the middle of where they’d been playing cards, scattering molten stone, fire, and shards of earth and rock in all directions as a mighty roar filled the air. A huge serpentine creature wreathed in fire and molten stone smashed through Master Fred’s Ward Wall and rose thirty feet into the air, towering over everyone before it began to arch over and peer at us, pausing as if to revel in our fear and awe and...

My Spellflare hit it in a wild, gyrating ball of black and silver lines trailing rainbow chaos, and ripped all its Buffs apart. Writhing lightnings in multiple colors of magic, but predominated by the blazing hues of disjointed pyromancy, blew up and down it, ripping into and through it as wild magic unleashed did its thing.

The one-horned hou lung shrieked in disbelief and not a little bit of pain as it took the hit, and was paralyzed by the bubbles, arcs, creeping sizzles, and poking thorns riding it up and down from the wild magic.

That meant its armor boost, strength boost, cold protection, fire aura, and speed boost were all gone, judging by the sensations when I’d torn the Qi spells apart.

Which meant all these Coldphasing shots going into it were really going to hurt!

Guns roared, and blue-white streaks stabbed into it. At this close range, its scales weren’t going to do anything, especially against a Cold energy attack. Great black spots sprouted across its body, steel-hard scales shattered-

Endure whipped up and hit the underside of its jaw like a cannonball of exploding ice, and its muzzle was suddenly rimed in ice and half-frozen.

My Topped Shards slammed into the full length of it, punching through its magic resistance... and running right into an arseload of Health Qi, which every impact ate away with double damage, devouring it with downright terrifying speed it had not anticipated.

I didn’t look like I did any damage to it at all, but it had vented Health Qi like a sieve, and now it was a purely physical fight.

Sama ran right up its scaly length, ignoring the magic burning out over it, waaaay too quick to be human. It tried to writhe and throw her off, one eye turned on her, trying to get its head around-

“TREMBLE!” she snarled, flashing past it, past the jaws trying to clamp shut on her, and the dragon screamed as a great gout of blood blew out a rending blow passing right through its burning right eye.

Dammit, Sama, that was like tossing away a goldweight!

It heaved itself up out of the ground, lashing itself around and out like a snake. It lunged for Sir Pellier, who didn’t even flinch as he sighted right down the gaping throat coming at him, and pumped the action on the grenade launcher slung underneath Lady Florentine.

The shot was affected by the Coldphasing, too.

The explosion of cold and ice detonated violently inside the dragon’s half-frozen mouth and throat less than ten feet from Sir Pellier, who took any real damage on his Soak and let the rest of the impact blast him backwards onto the ground.

The dragon shrieked again, its jaws black and cold, and lights began to leak between its scales as it built up a breath to sweep over everyone and thaw its jaws-

Endure was in Briggs’ hands this time, and his feet were twenty feet above the ground as he came around with all his weight and mass into the side of its head.

The vented breath blew out everywhere beyond us, venting crazily into the surroundings in a wide and ineffectual swathe, because Briggs had shattered its lower jaw to pieces with that blow.

Right down on top of it came Master Fred, who was dropping in from a bit higher in the air.

“WE COME!” everyone roared out as Tremble two-toned, one on Idiot’s plunging hit, the second note as the huo lung smashed to the ground under the impact of a falling half-ton and more of mass.

The Mick came flowing in, Smior trailing crimson, light and white and pure as blood as he buried his Katana in the side of its other eye. (MY GOLDWEIGHT! Rassum, frassum...)The rippling crimson gathered about it let go just about at the same time as Master Fred’s Wrath did, silhouetting the crimson blast he unleashed in polyhued thaumacolored flames...

The huo lung shuddered, convulsing and twitching, its tree-thick body twisting and flailing as its nervous system got some mixed messages.

Briggs’ One Strike came hewing down, the force-image of a great axe around his Hammer, and with a crunch and crack, took its head right off, ending any discussions on whether it was still living.

----

The headless carcass writhed around for a while, Helix wondering loudly if it had a second brain somewhere. It took about ten minutes for it to finally stop moving... but well before then, we had the stump of its body sealed off, an Exsanguinating Tube in place, and Sama was riding it and holding onto the jars that were storing the liquid platinum getting sucked out of the thing.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are looking at at least fifty goldweight of materials right there.” Eyes almost popped among the uninformed as they looked at the remnants of the dragon. “The eyes alone were a goldweight each, as was the brain. Pity.” I glowered at certain people, who whistled and toed the ground and looked away...

“Dead and valuable is worth a few goldweight. Look at all those frozen holes in its hide we have to work around!” Sama complained right back at me, and The Mick just grinned.

“Meat in one container, blood in jars, bones collected, organs in separate containers, claws together, and that Horn alone is five goldweight!” Briggs was rubbing his hands in glee. “Sama’s got the Butcher Ranks, she’s going to be directing everything. Give me a hexagon spread on guard; Sir Pellier, Master Fred, scanning! The rest of us, start slicing and collecting! Helix... document it!”

The last had been taking pictures of everything during the fight rather than shooting... by general agreement if and when we fought the dragon. He was plenty happy to record us rendering the thing down.

“Sama,” I called out, “how much cooking do you do on that Forge of yours?”

Her smiles was all canines on display. We didn’t have to eat much, but when we did, we liked the good stuff... and Oriental dragons were rumored to be very good to eat, indeed.