Chapter 17-455: To the Nines

They were painting everything into Markspace and The Map, as was everyone else, the combined knowledge an utter godsend for everyone out there who could tap into it...

Azaia had moved here, the Blood of the Irish was now here, and all the other Morningsuns were here. There were other Allegiances on the Eastern Front, including the Teutonic Knights of German ex-patriates (totally clean of Templars and Nazis, checked frequently); the Partisans of Yugoslavia and the Serbian Black Wolves, who had been active against the German Shroudzone; the Grecian Olympians; the Italian Divine Legion, which had led the snuffing of the Rome Shroudzone; the Prophets of Turkey, who had led the wiping of Istanbul’s Shroudzone; and the Hussars of Poland, who, although not fighting a-horse, had the largest number of Bonded horse mounts of all the forces present from Europe.

There were other groups from other countries, but those were the biggest ones, with France having contributed nearly half a score, and Spain and Portugal their own handfuls. Even Switzerland had ended up coughing up volunteers when they couldn’t get paid to be mercenaries, their people falling behind on the Levelling Curve and the nation naturally losing relevance as a result. Enterprising and ambitious Swiss had organized themselves, eventually agglomerated, and the New Swiss Guards had joined the fighting.

Their envy of the benefits of The Jet and Silver and its subordinate Allegiances was not small. Some of them had fairly good Monarch’s Mantles, but my Serenity benefit was incredibly beneficial even to civilians, and The Jet and Silver dominated the Loyalty of over half the Divine Casters in Europe outright, and all the Heavenbound. Sir Hans Jaeger, a German Paladin, was even taking organizing of Mithar’s favored Problem-Smiters to a pan-nationalistic level, with all their supporters, and the Knights in Argent were rapidly claiming the Oaths of any uncommitted Paladins.

Most of those other Allegiances had fans... but they didn’t have Bannersworn, as the people were naturally dithering until they had to make a decision among the options available. But those Allegiances had no Oath, no Mantle, no /tell system, no recognition of Oathsworn, and no The Map, the latter totally dependent on having someone with the Stats necessary to keep it up, and for some reason other Allegiances just didn’t have that post-35 Intellects necessary.

The pure numbers, civilian and otherwise, Levels and Depth, all mattered. There was power in unity, and The Jet and Silver just had a lead that crossed nations and races. People focused on such provincial concerns couldn’t touch that, nor their people benefit from them.

Wishes, Marks, and Blessings were going out every day. Tattoo Masters were Scribing Marks and linking them up to Sama’s Belt of Thank You Very Much!, and hundreds of people a day who were Classed and couldn’t Level were now able to move forwards, and were doing so with great zeal, even if it meant risking death.

December 6, 2019. I was tracking it closely, and I finally ticked over Sorcerer/9.

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On the surface, it wasn’t a grand event. One more Level, yay. But, it was forward progress, and there were still Level-dependent things I needed to know tied to Ranks and the like.

There were now lots and lots of people who had Double-Helixed up to Ten, and were going Deep, fortifying their top-end skills and Foundations, going for Stats and the like so they could keep progressing in their Primary and Secondary Classes. This rounding-up effect was especially prevalent in my Allegiance, notably among Nulls who could get more than one Mark for themselves.

So, I needed to progress. There was still no one who could match me on Caster Level, as the sheer amount of Karma I’d collected kept me well ahead of everyone. The truly mono-focused didn’t have the foundation to challenge me at all, and while they were treading at the edge of Ten, I was intent on moving past it and had the Karma banked up to do so.

Nine was going to be short. I couldn’t move up any Secondary Classes while at Nine, only what Advanced Classes I had bothered to take. That was basically Warshaper/4, Grenadier/4, and advancing my Hierophant and Archmage Levels to /4.

But, it didn’t matter. I was finally moving forwards again!

---

“... where rest the weary, and dream of the winds at dawn.”

DING! Ding! Ding! Ding!

I gazed upon mine newly expanded base Assay, hark ye, hark ye...

Sorcerer/9 (13)! VII Bonus Slots kicking into my Spell Pool for attention... Total Spell Pool now sitting at 90 Floating Valences, direct magic I could use for any spells I had in memory. A heady feeling, as it were, nyuk, nyuk...

Fort Save +1, Reflex Save +1. +1 to Health for 93, and +1 to Soak for 272.

D4+2 Soak, average of 4, click the lever for +1 training towards max Soak, which I would reach tomorrow at renewal. Add Con bonus of +15, net +21 Soak, to 293.

2 skill points, +1 Favored Class bonus, +19 for Intelligence, new upper Skill Ranks limit of 13. 22 Skills clicked over for +1 more, as the blizzard of information I was constantly processing finally turned from raw data into a greater understanding.

Valences were already topped. Three Spells Known: One from Bloodline, Contingency, finally hitting, so I didn’t need it as a Wizard Spell. One from Bloodline Bonus Effect of the Arcane Bloodline from Sorcerer, so Telekinesis moved off my Wizardry list, and one from gaining the Level, Fabricate, also moved over from Wizard to Sorcerer as a spell I would Always Have, plus Sending shifting over as an Always There on my IV list.

My Spells Known wouldn’t really increase much now, save for Secondary Classes coming due, which meant driving my Primary Class higher.

Didn’t matter all that much, given the sheer volume of spells I had on permanent call right now... although given the very specialized nature of what I was doing, how useful that was was a second matter I didn’t dwell much on, although I had to admit I was incredibly self-reliant on spell breadth now...

Didn’t matter much, in the end. They floated in my Matrix, and if I needed them, there they were.

+1 more Spell Power, inching up that slope.

Purchased Feat: Skill Focus: Arcane Lore. The edge of my mouth twerked. My Arcane Lore check was sitting at +55 right now... well, +57 in my Cold Aura. The volumes of stuff from Heavenbound Hall, the Alchemists, and multiple magical contacts I had read was a massive mental library of magical history, techniques, and people of this world going back for millennia, and even included connections going off-world and derived from other planes. I’d have to make some addendums to some of the tomes I had already converted and appraised... again.

General Feat: Spirit of the Arcane. This was a Ki Feat that allowed you to ‘set’ a spell ahead of time with extra Ki invested into it to do extra Kicker Damage, outside of Valences. So, invest 4 ki in the spell, do +4d6 kicker damage. The ki was considered used and could not be replaced until the spell was expended.

Limit on investable dice: Spellcraft Check divided by fifteen, round down. That was at a nice +54 right now, so +4 dice by default. Spend ki, get back ki...

Kicker damage is what allowed me to kill armies. This led me to the next item, the Mastery.

Arcane Spirit/1: Invest 1 Ki, +1 Kicker damage to all spells. Max limit = Arcane Lore check/15, invest once a day, cannot regain ki until Renewal.

Okay, clearly a stand-in for Soul Magic, as there was an Amulet Chakra form which did the same thing, and I doubted they stacked.

I’d thought I was going to be fairly well done with key Masteries, but there were always more, I guess. Unlike Aelryinth, I had new ones being spun for me out of the blue, I didn’t have to actually know they were there...

I had two more Purchasable Masteries for the Level. Was it going to make me take them before I could take another Class Level, or no?

I had the feeling if it didn’t do it immediately, it was still going to force matters before I could hit Ten.

Well, whatever.

---

I stepped off the Focus Legion had scribed on the stone for my Earthjump, delivering me right through the Strata to this massive stalag column. It definitely wasn’t made of limestone in any form, and was formed by streams of earthpower running up and down, punching through the water... or maybe this cavern was shaped away around those streams of strength, which made this pillar of support something that only an earthquake was going to be able to shake... and earthquakes never managed to get into the Felldeep, or it wouldn’t exist.

The city of the krovboynyar glimmered with a fell, macabre light, somehow shadowed and even more subdued than usual as its personal Shroudzone sucked even more life out of it. Tellingly, the great pale piers and wharfs of the port were completely silent, the three lonely skull-prowed galleys there were lying sullen and silent there on the listless black water.

Why even bother to patrol? Nothing that could feel the Deadzone energies was going to head towards the center of it if they had any sense, so there would be no trading... although those docks indicated that at one time trading had indeed been going on. Those warehouses there looked like slave pens...

Legion was as inhumanly serene and hot as ever, not bothering to hide their true appearance down here. Dragon wings, hooved digigrade feet, fox ears and nine fox tails, and a frill of multi-colored horns like a fantastic headdress. The complex Mask that reflected their Pact colors played over the eyeless face with rather more emotive power than normal eyes, as eye-catching as the butterfly patterns of celestial Runework running through their wings. The air was moving around them on its own, as if taking a breath in anticipation of them moving with just way too much power and control to be human anymore.

Only two arms at the moment. Legion didn’t break out the extras unless there was combat coming.

“I trust you didn’t try to Citypact with the place,” I said, presenting my cheek for a kiss of greeting. Blood humming, mmm!

“We can be extremely dumb, but that would just be stupid,” they replied quietly, the Mask’s ‘eye’s distorting comically in exaggerated distaste. “It’s a city designed to serve a race of life-eaters. It deserves nothing but annihilation.”

The areas Legion had filled in of the Deepsea showed just how immense, spread out, and convoluted this place was. Although the thinnest parts were still at least a hundred miles away, they could still be considered straits from multiple different Deepseas if you wanted to be a purist. We hadn’t talked with enough of the locals to get a clearer idea of things, as information on the Strata was monumentally sparse.

Yeah, those cephalids had libraries looted from and traded from other races. The only information that was worth a damn was guarded by cognition traps woven into the very words, and nobody wanted to read them as they stood.

Ergo, go forth, young lady, and discover the world laid out before you! Grumble, grumble...

“Both the city and the ghoulhold beyond and above have to go, and then I still have to wipe Navar Nevrend.” I’d said that I wouldn’t take down a Shroudzone, but I was going to have to go back on that. This place had to go down, and go down quickly; we couldn’t farm it for Karma.

Legion’s knuckles popped delicately, and I think the column we were standing on the side of shook a little. “We have no problem with the idea of levelling this place to the ground,” they conceded calmly. “Are you sure you don’t want to bring in any teams?”

I frowned heavily. “Krovboynyar still have children, but those children are all bound to the Shroud now.”

All the colors on their Mask darkened grimly. “I see...”

With a hiss of hellfire, Shvaughn stepped out of Legion, pitiless dark flames spiraling up from her hair. She fixed eyes on the shadowed, Shrouded city that had meant annihilation to so many of the living without pity. “It is their species’ fate,” she said calmly, hefting Burn. “I can bring in as many people as is required,” she went on, clearly having no issues with what was going to happen.

“That won’t be necessary,” I replied softly. “Will it, Brothers?”