The Power of Ten

Chapter 10-303: More Oaths

For all that she was quite strong, Azaia was not a combat mage, although she had done her service in France and been trained since she could walk. She simply tended to avoid combat, and the government had been perfectly happy to keep her behind the lines curing injuries and handing out Buffing spells rather than mixing it up anywhere important.josei

Hitting Nine and being able to Teleport from place to place made her a wonderful transporter of important items for Church and State, too. Thus, she knew a large number of important and wealthy people, and had no problem making money just scribing Scrolls, if she wanted to. Everybody wanted V’s to toss around, in the end.

Still, she had spent most of her time making Toys, or Miscellaneous Magic Items. Nothing says wealthy like spending 50k for an animated teddy bear for your daughter, after all, or a crystalline bird that sings Chopin.

She wasn’t going to be in much danger, of course. I could Buff her along with myself and Master Fred quite easily with Eldritch Tapestry.

As for her Levels, I took care of that with a Kiss.

I didn’t have any Succubus Racial Levels, but the potential was there, and Enervation was a IV Valence Necromancy spell that could be lifted to VII, and as long as she deliberately failed the Save come dawn, it would do the job.

Instead of straight-up neutralizing her life energy, I sort of ‘pushed it out’, into the diamond pendant on a necklace I made for her. With a simple Save, she could reclaim all her power at dawn; her refusal to do so was what would make it possible for her to set a new course.

She was still ghastly pale when I finally let her go, shuddering and having to sit down after feeling all the Levels she had gained over the years draining away, her Valences dissolving into nothing, and the power she had built up reverted to stored-up potential in the heart-cut diamond at her throat.

I had to Drain her all the way down to Two for the Helix Method to work. It was a hard fall from being a Nine Wizardess.

Then we discussed her Path, and HOW she was going to Level. She’d lost a lot of her Feats and Masteries, of course... but not her Rep Counts. Despite herself and having suffered a devastating loss of power, she got very deep into the advancement schema, especially as she saw how all the different Classes could fold over and combine with one another, and how with a proper Stat spread, she was eligible to gain Levels in so many Classes...

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“I Wish for Azaia Morningwind’s Primary Class to be set to Sorcerer,” Legion said quietly, and Azaia gaped.

“Granted.”

Azaia gasped as she felt a swirl in her mind, and the Sorcerer Level she’d just advanced to Two suddenly took on new significance in her mind.

“I Wish that Azaia Morningwind would gain a point of Wisdom, to apply when she has accrued five such Wishes.”

“Granted.”

“I Wish that Azaia Morningwind would gain a point of Wisdom, to apply when she has accrued five such Wishes.”

“Granted.”

Azaia looked between Legion and me, swallowing visibly. “You can grant Wishes?” she asked in disbelief.

“Technically, no. However, I can duplicate the ability of the Efreet bound in this Genie Prison, which he is unaware of.” I lifted up the glittering crystalline Prison from behind me for her to see. It looked like a fancy hair ornament, and she stared at it. “It comes in quite handy.” And since he couldn’t sense outside it whenever I didn’t want him to, he had no idea I was doing this.

More of a peace of mind thing, anyways, as he couldn’t stop it, and when the Shroud went away, he would lose all memory of it regardless.

“You used it to raise all your Stats!” she gasped.

“And those of many other people,” I confirmed. “To the magical 14 needed to start the Road to Ten.”

She considered her own Stats. “And you’re going to do the same for me...”

I nodded once. “You are going to need the edge, especially if you want to make it to Twenty, and step beyond into the Eternal.”

She touched the Blessing on her arm, moved from her forehead, already boosting her Wisdom by a massive +4, making it her highest Stat. It was plain that things were going to be very different as she reclaimed her power.

“What do I need to do next?” she asked intently, and I nodded.

“Let’s see what Traits you are eligible for. Warcaster Tradition should now be one of them!” And would get her started on the road of being a Shardcaster, although her Magical Lineage went in a different direction...

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I Tapestry’d down some more ammunition, supplies, ingots for Weapons, and the like, grabbed some rolls of cloth to send back the amounts of goodies heaped up at the far end, and with Commander Haru’Ara staying in his non-descript human form, we were off.

One thing he did not have was Gunsmithing Ranks. Despite Briggs’ tech aversion, it was a Smithing skill, so Briggs did. While planetars traditionally didn’t carry much in the way of ranged weapons, he’d seen plenty of examples of the power of firearms, and he wanted an appropriate one for himself. After hearing about Briggs’ Shotgun, he decided that would be a good thing to have, so he intended to get one made for himself.

Briggs was naturally willing to help out a planetar, no trouble at all! He had even requested and got quick donations of the metals needed to make an appropriate suit of armor for the celestial general.

He was OUR angel now, and we were going to treat him right, a fact which rather amused him.

The Angelos, unsurprisingly, was tagging along with his commander. After all, the more Levels he gained, the better! He also brought along some projects to work on in their down time.

As opposed to before, this time we went overland at speed, Sleipner zipping along to establish a Lived-Line lock closer to the conflict zones. Chinese volunteers were butchering undead in Shroudzones still, Leveling up, and then joining the fight against the Cultivators, who were finding, to their dismay, that they were continually losing on an individual level. Oh, some of the Chinese were dying, certainly, but they were glad to do so if it meant killing Cultivators...

Then, if their bodies were intact, they could even be back to the fight in the next day or two, because some of the Priests had driven themselves right to Nine on the Double Helix, and I was happy to supply the Life Diamonds to them. If they could be reached within a minute of dying, they didn’t even need the Diamonds.

Also, vastly superior healing capabilities were a thing. The Cultivators had to rely on their alchemy and pills, which were basically incredibly inferior to healing magic. It made the Priests targets, sure... and proper bait was always something useful, especially when they could Buff up so well defensively. Healing Reserve was extraordinarily useful to the predominantly Human/5+’s with their high Health and low Soak amounts.

The Commander and the Angelos’ unlimited healing abilities, and the protective Auras they emanated, were definitely going to be very useful, as would their literal millennia of battlefield experience. Nor were they mortal, so they could exceed some of the limits on spellcasting we had, which nobody much minded.

Schedules were worked out with /tellepathic speed, Briggs and Sama happy to share the load of Warlording all these people. I swapped in supplies, and then sent out stacks of harvested jars of Cultivator blood, all of it Energized and fully useful for making Gear. Teams of raiders cycled in and out if they had the power to Invest their stuff, while Sama and Briggs were churning out lots and lots of Armor and Weapons for them.

The Commander joining them was only going to make this even faster. They were totally looking forwards to it.

The Commander had taken the Sacred Fist Priest advance, which basically was a Monk with spells, and Profound Weapon (Sword), which treated his Sword as a Monk Weapon. When he popped to his full nine feet of height with a two-meter Heavy Sword in hand doing a base 10-60 damage, well, the enemy was in for a bad time.

Profound Weapon (Shotgun), combined with a Morphing Weapon, was also going to be really, really bad for the enemy.

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“I, Briggs, Source and Grandmaster, before Mithar the Grand Master, Valus the Champion, and Aru the Enlightened, do offer my Oath of Allegiance, and that of those to whom I owe Duty, to the Traveler, Monarch of the Jet and Silver, on this day, before gods and mortals!”

“I, The Traveler, Monarch of the Jet and Silver, by Mithar’s example, Sylune’s Path, and Aru’s Wisdom, do accept this Oath and the Duty that it brings as Monarch, from Grandmaster and Sage of the Hammer Briggs, on this day, before gods and mortals! Rise, Sage of the Hammer!”

“I, Sama Rantha, Null Grandmaster and Sage, before Mithar Who is Skill, Aethra Who Stands Long, and Valus Who Quests Forever, do offer my Oath of Allegiance, and that of those to whom I owe Duty, to The Traveler, Monarch of the Jet and Silver, on this day, before gods and mortals!”

“I, The Traveler, Monarch of the Jet and Silver, in the Stead of Mithar, for the Honor of Aethra, by the Light of Aru, and towards the Glory of Valus, do accept this Oath and the Duty that it brings as Monarch, from Grandmaster and Sage of Swords Sama Rantha, on this day, before gods and mortals! Rise, Sage of Swords!”

Yeah, I had totally blown past them in Karmic accumulations after what had happened in India. The only way they could have stayed ahead of me would be to have gone down into Antarctica and start reaping shoggoths there... something they did intend to do, but Cultivators and their Warlording was giving a nice fine stream of Karmic flow to pay for those monster Stats of theirs, so no need to be pushing things yet.

Formally accepting them under me also instantly gave them access to Powered Allegiance magic, which meant the ability to accept Bannersworn and formally accept the Fealty of others. Within literally minutes, both of them had thousands of people Sworn to them, courtesy of Marked scattered all over the damn place, and that number was rising precipitously.

Commander Haru’Ara watched it all impartially. The Angelos being Sworn to me was a temporary thing, as sooner or later his Celestial duties would call him away, and his mortal adherents would have to transfer, most likely to Sir Pellier, or to another Heavenbound stepping forward for the position.

Naturally, I did not have enough Karma to get a planetar to bend a knee to me, however temporarily. I COULD have Sworn to him, but that was probably not a good idea, given some of the people under me. Planetars were not supposed to rule mortals, after all, even Good ones, as when having a Celestial of that status in charge things would rapidly take on religious significance. That was something to avoid at all costs, as it would hamper Free Will... and potentially inspire direct and overwhelming rebukes from the other Profound Forces pulling similar shenanigans.

The weird thing was I could already remember accepting Oaths from both Briggs and Sama, so this was nothing new to me, and basically ‘the way it should be.’ Their attitude was more wry acceptance of the fact that this was simply the best way to go about things, tempered by the fact that we all had to do this right, because I wasn’t going to be here overlong.

I watched The Jet and Silver expanding at a madcap pace, and sort of shook my head, while both Sama and Briggs looked bemused. The speed it was proliferating among the non-human races was especially noteworthy, centered on the dwarves, who were smoothly and quickly forming a sub-Allegiance starting on and centered around the Blakhamars.

Back in Heavenbound Hall, the primary Banner was growing by the minute. It was already over a thousand feet high, and attracting attention as it suddenly started to grow more. People wondered what it all meant, and they would find out in several days.

Then the mad rush to grow would be on. Unfortunately for many of them, we had Marked and Blessed all over the place by now, and so we were sniping those most suitable first...