Chapter 8-226: To the Heart of the Matter

There were a few burps of gunfire from the floor below, the crumping of a grenade, and men screaming. The fleeing soldiers hadn’t gotten very far, pity them. Renegade, highly-trained men with no morals running around weren’t high on the requested People to Keep Around list.

“Yeah, well, men die for money,” Sama muttered unapologetically, kicking the corpse idly. “You didn’t meet me here by accident, and I know you ain’t worried about Traveler. Her head’s way up there with her heart,” Sama waved airily at the decaying ceiling, where it seemed part of the floor above had gotten spattered and was smoking slightly. “She’s no threat to anyone who comports themselves. She even took you, right?”

“That is true,” Shvaughn agreed calmly, inhaling some fumes and letting them burn around inside her casually to experience the sensation. “But you and your hairy amour seem to have a unique take on her, especially given how resistant to magic you both are.” Enough that her strongest Scorn had no chance of affecting either of them, a daunting prospect. She already knew she couldn’t beat Sama in physical combat, and with no magic on top of that, the Null Forsaken and her beefy lover were incredibly threatening.

Logically, such anti-magical ability should put them at odds with the Powered. Yet the Null and the Source were working with the totally overpowered Sorceress without reservation or hesitation. She frankly found it very strange!

“Well, keep in mind that she doesn’t think like a lot of Powered, who get coddled and indulged starting as kids, and figure they are the greatest thing since sliced bread. She’s had her magic for what, four months? And she hasn’t even bothered to hunt down and beat up all the people who treated her like shit yet.”

“Her forbearance is almost saintly,” Shvaughn agreed calmly. “Like Heavenbound.”

“She has her priorities, and is keeping them in mind. But that’s not your real concern. Out with it,” Sama waved the bottle at her idly.

“Is... this level of power something any Powered can attain?” Shvaughn asked carefully. “I... am one of the very, very few who found the road to Ten. She has now opened that road to almost any Powered out there. Warlocks simply do not have the sheer raw power she has put on display. Can... any Powered do that?”

“Any Powered... potentially, yes. Every Powered, no,” Sama said mildly, shaking the hissing bottle at her. The glass seemed to be pitting, and Sama glanced at it in irritation, drinking faster around her words. “There’s not enough Karma in the world for everyone to be doing what she is doing, and so much is dependent on Stats, Bloodline, Divine approval... or disapproval, as the case might be now.

“Also, magic is a living, evolving thing. Look at the shit she’s doing. Even I barely believe she can actually do that, but there it is. Magic can and does change... just the coming of the Shroud should tell you that it can do so abruptly, too.” Shvaughn nodded slowly. Certainly magic had been much milder, slower, and circumspect in the past. Unless you were standing in a well-hidden place of power, you just didn’t throw magic around like you did today. “So, it’s entirely likely that what she is doing is simply not going to be possible for anyone else.”

“As if she found a loophole in the rules, and it’s going to be closed?” Shvaughn conjectured.

“Precisely. Do you know the key point this exploit she’s using hinges on?” Shvaughn shook her eyes, burning eyes gleaming. “It’s the fact it’s working on a spell that she can Weaponize. All that magic has to do is tweak that one little thing, and her massive combination of endless firepower doesn’t work. It won’t stop her from being able to toss out a spell that can kill thousands, but it will stop her from doing it so fast and endlessly.”

“’So fast?’ Can it stop her from doing it at all? She’ll still be able to pull it off in a more limited form?”

“She’s harvesting ki residues from killing things. It’s a vampiric effect. Those things are hugely abusable! She could find a way to kill things with Weapons to refill her Slots and stuff, then alternate hacking and Casting. As long as there’s a decent amount of chaff around, she can slaughter the weak, then use them to slaughter everyone else.”

Shvaughn exhaled blue flame from her mouth, breathing it in through her nose. “Powered kill armies, and Forsaken kill individuals,” she recited.

“Powered get all the toys,” Sama agreed, “and ALL the eyes are on them. Unlike Warlocks, most Powered can’t tell it, either.”

“Do we have to put up with them?” Shvaughn had to sigh, and Sama raised an eyebrow. “I have seen far too many Powered who should be put in the ground.”

Sama’s currently-dark eyes flared with light again. “The corruption around here is bad. But the source of the corruption was initially outside the race. Plenty of non-Powered were total asshats here, Warlocks, thought like you, and kindly sold off those Powered who couldn’t defend themselves to things that would like nothing more than to reduce humanity to slaves and chattel.”

“You are certain this is not simply conflicting philosophies-?”

“Absolutely. I do not know the true origins of Cultivation techniques, but they are aimed at the mortal races. No mortal becomes a Cultivator; the Cultivators become the mortal. It is how Cultivation works. You are the garden, you are not the seed. The seed becomes the plant that takes over the garden.

“Even Mythos creatures do not use Qi. It is a stupid and inefficient energy form compared to mana and ki, and they know the dangers of it. In some ways, they might be even more susceptible to Cultivation than humans are.

“Humans want power, so they are drawn to Cultivation. It is founded on greed and lust for power, and it is born in cannibalism, as your own power eats your mind, soul, and then body to become a Cultivator.

“There is no reasoning with a Cultivator. Their entire system of life and power does not work well in a magical world, and any being with magical power is a threat to them.

“They WILL try to kill any beings using profound powers other than Qi as threats to them. They WILL try to transform the ecology of the world to render it a Qi-based system. They WILL set up a strength-based system of government, where law and order are simply a case of who has the biggest fist, and if you are not a Cultivator, naturally you are the slime at the bottom of the mudpile. They WILL suppress technology, which you’ve already noticed among the Chinese we’ve run across here, and reduce the level of tech to medieval levels at best.

“They are heartless and will kill uncounted numbers of others if it benefits them to do so, thinking it only logical and fair. They exist to challenge Creation itself, all the entities it is composed of, and take its power for themselves.

“Powered have their own limits and limitations, because in the end, they are still mortals, with mortal drives and ambitions. They are not Cultivators, who simply do not have those drives and instincts. The desire to push, to fight, to excel, and to keep going and accumulate the vast amounts of Karma needed to proceed... most people simply do not have these things, and you can’t get them by simply walking out the door and slaughtering everyone you see.

“A Cultivator refining blood and unquiet souls into Blood Qi pills can, however.

“The mortal races have far, far too many enemies in a magical universe to not have the Powered along. Universes without magic facing magical beings have problems, as you know first-hand.”

“As one of those problems, and a victim of them, too...” Shvaughn agreed, and sighed. “I turned myself into one of the most dangerous people on the planet so I would not have to feel threatened by other people, Sama.”

“There’s always, Always, ALWAYS going to be things who can threaten you, Warlock,” Sama said, kindly but bluntly. “You can only keep growing so you can survive them. One of the reasons Powered exist is so that there’s someone around our race can use to deal with and survive those bastards. After all, magic is pretty cunning, you know? Powered don’t have Powered kids, after all...”

Shvaughn thought about the ramifications of that, nodding slowly. Human instinct was to pass down everything to your kids: power, knowledge, position, wealth, status.

But you couldn’t pass down being Powered, if you were human... and humans had by far the greatest variety of Powered of all the races. Powered could and did arise from anywhere...

“You are stronger and more dangerous than 99.99% of the Powered alive... and that’s probably not going to change, even if people know what to do. More people are going to get to Six, Seven, Ten... but the vast majority of Powered will still be weak, and even the powerful ones are not going to be quite like her.

“Furthermore, you should be able to feel it, just like I can. That tie of hers to the Shroud.”

Shvaughn’s eyes flickered. “Yes. Like a Warlock link, but not.”

“She’s tied to the Shroud... and the Shroud is definitely not limited to just our world. When she takes it down here... she’s just going to be going where the Shroud still exists, and starting this fight all over again, only it’s likely to be a world that fell to the Shroud, not one where it is still fighting. The world those undead in Russia came from, if I’m guessing right.”

Shvaughn frowned ever so slightly. “How many worlds have fallen to the Shroud?” she asked carefully.

“Mmm, this is news she was going to spread when she came back. Best estimate is over thirty thousand of them.”

Shvaughn blinked. “So... many?” she had to ask, stunned.

“Thought Earth was alone in the universe, did you? Didn’t say they were human worlds, either. Most probably aren’t, if you think about it. Or maybe they are, and the Shroud is drawn to them. Who knows?”

“Worlds where those who want power can go, and keep getting stronger and stronger...”

“Because the Shroud isn’t getting any weaker,” Sama nodded. “On the contrary, it’s getting bigger and bigger, because there’s no one out there fighting it like there has to be.” She finished off the wine bottle basically as it shattered on its own and fell apart in protesting green shards to the fine carpet beneath her. When she dropped the neck on the thickly padded carpet, it basically shattered to sand despite the cushioning, while the residual drops began to eat through the carpet, and then the floor beneath.

“Also,” she noted for posterity, “even when she succeeds in killing the Shroud here, and we are free to face all the rest of the horrors the universe can throw at us... the Shroud found us once, and there’s nothing that says it can’t find us again.”

Shvaughn took her own last swig of the burning wine, thinking about that, and what her place was in a universe that was getting too large for her to even think about being able to defend herself properly, and started considering some grim options...

----------

Sleipner’s cycle was de-Itemized, and we headed down the hundred-meter road of force extending out into the void.

The Old Steed was burning alternately red and blue now, favoring the former. The Ceremony of the Frozen Soul was almost done.

We had a long distance to cover, at least a thousand miles by my reckoning, and Sleipner was definitely faster at this kind of travel.

There was a little problem in that there was no air, and that dim orange-yellow ball of fire was still sending out the rads for us to enjoy.

Environmental Adaptation was a V. I Exemplar Surged for it, Wrote it to Einz, Slotted it, and cast it around us as Sleipner took off across the bridge.

At least the thing generated gravity. No air... who the heck was supposed to use this? Mass undead? Well, moon beasts and their ilk could all survive in vacuum, so I suppose it would have been superfluous to them...

Whatever, with no air, we couldn’t even use Sleipner’s jets properly, so we had to settle for 300 mph or so down this perfectly straight line hanging out into the void.

The land behind us rapidly became a thin line, and then simply vanished among the stars, as if it was not there. Didn’t want the natives knowing they were inside a pocket dimension?

That one lone peak jutted up above the Haze, the last Node of Cold I needed. If it took some traveling, that was fine...