Chapter 7-189: Swift Spell Recall

Everyone was up and ready in plenty of time. I burned a III Slot and two Ki to power up the Teleport that whisked everyone away, a III Slot for the Mass Reduce so I could fit them all, and there was a swirl of motion along my Lived-Line, sweeping us across the landscape and dumping us atop the Rim of the Caldera out there, just before Dusk Renewal.

I stood there and murmured the Salute to Aethra, everyone waiting respectfully as I did so... and naturally preening to see just what had changed while they’d been snoring away.

The Dome wasn’t looking so hot, literally. The thick streams of Fire Qi about it seemed to have thinned out a bunch, and were occasionally poofing into icy whiteness when they touched the Wall of Icefire burning undeterred around the Dome. The give and take of the Dome getting eaten through and regenerating was also happening over a larger area.

The inside of the caldera just had whole bunches of dead stuff scattered around.

Some of it was from earlier, some was in new locations that indicated that master lightfooters had been hopping around, using and abusing the terrain to their own advantage, or ignoring it when chasing the bloody now-carcasses scattered all over the place.

I finished the Salute as I was running before and after comparisons. I was betting pretty much all those carcasses had Cores to be dug out...

DING!... Ding, ding...

That first one had sounded like the ominous first note of a very big bell. It was like the things making me gain Levels were winding up for the big reveal.

I looked at my Assay as everyone looked at me.

Poo, it gave me Magus/4 first. Class ability, Spell Recall: use a swift action, spend Arcana points equal to its Valences to regain a spell you’ve cast.

This immediately dovetailed with Spirit Captures Mana, which did much the same thing, but as a standard action... and for a lower Ki cost, half the spell’s Valence, minimum 1.

The two abilities promptly conflated in the Assay, turning into Spiritual Spell Recall:use Ki or Arcana as a swift action to recall a Cast spell, spending Mystic Arcana equal to half its Valence, rounded up.

Mystic Arcana was what it was calling my intermixed Pool now. I went into the results and subbed ‘Pool Points’ for ‘Mystic Arcana’ with a silent roll of my eyes. While it looked like the combined Pool was required for this to happen, I didn’t need the flowery language beating me over the head, especially since the Spell Pool from my Valence VI bonuses were dumped into the whole kibosh.

Purchased Feat, Improved Threat (Weapon Spells). Okay, going to a 19-20 or 17-20 was just fine by me.

Purchased Mastery was... Intellect Mastery/4.

It was starting on the final round of Stat Masteries, it looked like.

Taking Magus/4 gave me two skill points, another point of Arcana as a FC bonus, and +1 to Intellect, Sustained Effort over to include Dex. Intellect now at 36. +13 bonus, another I+V Spell Slot and Valence Slot on each side of my Matrix.

Moar Ubah Powah.

I refocused outside the image in the middle of my forehead. “Nothing dramatic today.” They all sort of sighed at me, although they’d had their own improvements overnight. “What do our do merry marauders say?”

The two of them were actually on almost the opposite side of the caldera, at seven o’clock to our twelve, with lots of fiery-hued creatures in the general area trying to rip at them and each other.

“Come on down and join the fun!” Shooter One grinned, and all six of them racked at the same moment.

The Mass Disks went up for everyone, and they got onto them with the familiarity of lots of practice. “Lord Sleipner, if you would carry us forth into battle?” I inquired, and the unicorn bike nickered merrily in response.

I was going to leave a bunch of Mass Phantom Servants behind to begin some harvesting again, and directed Sleipner to fly over the cave we’d used before, as it still had all the knives I’d made for them and left behind...

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The area was Stillflighted by the man and woman engaged in constant slaughter, so we couldn’t bombard the area from above, but that was fine. The fusillade we unleashed as we came in on the flank was pretty potent all by itself, and I had a whole bunch of Chained Shardrays I could be using in support.

Behind us, a horde of shadowy phantoms with gleaming sharp knives went to work on the dead things that weren’t there when we’d left, butchering away and recovering stuff usable for cash... at which point I’d vivisize the corpse, and add to the woes of the local Fire Qi.

Maddened and enraged Spirit Beasts aligned to Fire roared and screamed... and died nonetheless. Sama and Briggs were showing them no mercy, and if their Vajras hadn’t kept them constantly clean, would no doubt have been showered in gore. They were ripping into all the creatures, taking hits that should have pulped or shredded them, giving it back twice as good, and obviously having a great time as they bounded around, Weapons moving in eye-flickers of appalling violence that sent mighty beasts flying or falling apart.

It was quite a spectacle, and when all the frozen Baned gunfire opened up from behind, it didn’t help the staying power of the creatures at all.

The influxes of creatures had obviously tailed off immensely, and they’d obviously also been making their way here for hours from the landscape all around, if the mounds of dead were any indication.

I used several Shard spells to take out bigger and more dangerous creatures, like a pride of elephant-sized lions with flaming manes and jaws dripping golden acid or something, or that pack of killer claw-birds racing around the place like raptors, hooked beaks poised to rip and rend.

But, overall, there wasn’t much need to spend Valences, as the men around me shooting, or tanking like The Mick and Master Fred, were doing the job just fine, leaving me free to address problems and simply keep Casting as rapidly as possible where it was needed most.

Since the stuff wasn’t undead, most of it was too tough to kill with a Dartray, especially if I had to Chain it. That was fine, as the kickers still did damage, weakening them for the punch of the finishing guns... and there was no law that said I couldn’t shoot them twice, and if they were really dangerous, I just upgraded to Shards instead, quadrupling the base damage and really making them regret their choices in life.

I tended to use II Valences, as I could restore them with one point from my Pool for the same cost as restoring a I Valence. I noted it was cheaper to restore a Slot than it was to pay for Metamagic from my Pool, and allocated Pool usage accordingly.

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It was about three hours before the incidence of creatures coming in was so low that it had basically stopped. We had long slaughtered our way through anything still in there by that point, and were basically doing butchery while a few stood guard, watching for latecomers and keeping an eye on how the Dome was degrading.

The Cultivators had tried launching a few attacks on the Wall of Icefire, but that had gotten pretty much all of nowhere, given how intense its chill was. They couldn’t muster enough individual firepower to neutralize it, and when they had ganged up and attacked it through a hole in their Dome, they had managed to snuff a section... which came burning fully back to life a few minutes later, completely undeterred, and really annoyed them.

The Shardray I snuck in on them when I saw what they were doing, fed by Master Fred’s Wrath and a Frozen Lightning alchemical bomb for a material component, wasn’t much appreciated, either. The primary target and half of the Cultivators and their overdone attire it arced to simply exploded as the force-lightning and Boosted damage ripped through them, the force of eighteen Shards Spellwarped, Split, and sneaking in through the gap of the dispelled Wall at the opportune moment, even adding some Sneak Attack damage to the original target for everyone’s entertainment and viewing pleasure.

I watched the Cultivatorbane and the Holy Metas going off on them, ripping into them without exception. Whatever they thought of themselves as noble and reasonable creatures, the rest of existence judged them to be total asshats, and was punishing them for it. They could make all the excuses about alternate ecosystems, blah blah, but changing the very landscape like they were was far, far worse than mere pollution; it was war against the living creatures of the world, for no purpose other than their own power.

The Alignments didn’t care about their opinions of themselves, and if they didn’t care about the Alignments, well, that didn’t mean they got to ignore them.

I crooked a hard smile at their shocked expressions from the other side of the bubbling lava lake, which was notably cooler and darker near the island and the terrifyingly cold Icefire Wall there. They hadn’t thought I could shoot them from over here, or even make them out on the other side of the Dome and Wall.

They couldn’t see the Eagle’s Vantage scrying sensor sitting twelve hundred feet up in the air, giving me a literal bird’s eye view of the entire place, either, especially at the multiple magnifications I had. It was a nice gift from having access to the Druid List, swiped off the Wall in my head, Slotted and Written to Einz yesterday.

I was also hugely amused that nasty bastards like them couldn’t do anything about the Blight. The only way to get rid of it was to Hallow the ground... and by definition, that was also impossible for them. Ignore the Alignments, and they ignored you. Maybe the Buddhists could Purify it... who knew?

It meant a Blight was a remarkably good tool when directed at them, moving from the level of an Abominable Deed to a way to use the Land against them by denying them its power. It was a good feeling, being able to make something so nasty actually useful against something even worse...

I had the impression Briggs and Sama wanted to go skinny-dipping in the lava lake as they came up to me, watching the Wall and Dome warring and the Qi in the air faltering with deep satisfaction.

“Can you cancel the Wall on command?” Briggs asked calmly.

“Why, yes.” A bunch of goldweight might go down the drain, but we’d already made several times that back with the continued slaughter, so money wasn’t the problem.

“The Blight is doing the job well,” Sama judged. “Did putting it down give you access to V’s?”

“No,” I shook my head. “No Commune to go cherry-picking with.”

They both cursed quietly. Needing lots of magic items and Gear made required lots of money. Everything we’d made and were going to make here could literally be used up inside a week without effort at Heavenbound Hall.

There was a reason I was draining my Valences with Energize Spells every day now. The spell was rapidly getting some of my best rep count numbers, especially since I was using it with all Valences. Valences direct to goldweight, while The Mick grinned. He was Energizing smaller stones with his spare Valences, too, and with the Karma we’d been making, his Wizard Level was increasing nicely, hitting Five... whereupon he had stopped and was working on his Sorcerer Theurgies, following the Helix method like a good Blooded should.

He had informed me quietly that his use of Blood Magic had altered his Bloodline away from Vampiric, sounding quietly relieved. We’d bopped fists, analyzed his Bloodline, and found the Sanguine Heart Bloodline he had was the first one opened on the world. It was potentially available to any of the Blooded, and maybe even to other Tomb Clans. It seemed to focus more on physical strength, enhancing physical Buff spells and some shape-changing, senses, and other things related to blood as part of its core kit.

The First Sanguine Heart. The Mick had a Title, which basically made him an Elder, whether or not any of the Fuilcroi would believe it. It gave him a Caster Level increase with Sanguine spells, something always appreciated.

He’d just smirked knowingly at that. The spellcasters of the Fuilcroi pursued the power of vampires, even if they weren’t undead themselves, wanting that power before they died so they could rise as true Vampires with all the trimmings.

He had a new road for the younger generations that, while somewhat macabre, also had its own purity about it. Blood was life, and blood was death. It fit the Blooded well.

Such were the travails of the Powered, always looking for something newer, better, and different to spend their energies on...

“How are we going to cross the lava?” Briggs asked reasonably. “If we keep the Stillflight up, there’s no way Disks will hold up over liquid stone.”

“And they’ll definitely try to break out in a different direction then we’re occupying,” Sama added. She glanced at the lava, clearly contemplating going down there and sticking her still-bare Tatted feet into it. Her Waveskating Step would take her across it at a run, so she could get there, and might even have to.

I gave them an affronted expression. “You Forsaken murderhobos, always with the basic solutions. Let me ask you something... my progenitor had a certain reputation on Bloodculling. I’d like to think I’ve been carrying that forward faithfully.”

They looked at one another over my head, and Briggs said knowingly, “What, the fact you’re spending more Valences looting than killing?”