The Power of Ten

Chapter 10-308: Gamers and Thrones, Part Two

The black crescent on white of The Jet and Silver soon had Banners rising all over the world, often on the grounds of Churches to Sylune. The many national governments quavering in their parliaments dithered and argued and talked about passing laws and doing stuff about all this, finding their electorates evaporating away underneath them, and only custom and tradition keeping them in their jobs.

The quiet movements were already beginning, as people went looking for a King or Queen, quietly urged by the Heavenly Churches, as well as certain of the Neutral ones who saw a chance to grab power if they could influence a True King. There were some people who proclaimed all this bald-faced lies meant to divide everyone and create chaos and blah blah blah.

They were told to stop speaking Human if they didn’t believe me, and go tell all the Priests of Harse that they were lying bastards deluding everyone. Surely that would go over well.

Me, I was helping save the world. The things the Daoists and Buddhists had done were now streaming freely out onto the Internet, and the Obelisks I’d made were connecting the world on an information level like a higher tech internet-connected world should have been.

I was also managing the growth of my Allegiance without ever having to be in those places, and those who joined could instantly feel my Monarch’s Mantle anywhere I was upon the whole planet.

If they couldn’t talk to me because there too damn many people and that’s what Vassal relationships were designed to take care of, they all KNEW I was aware of them, that I could identify them on sight as easily as they could me, and my job wasn’t to kiss their boo-boos and powder their noses.

They were following me because I had someplace to go and I was leading them there. If they had their own ideas on what to do and how to do it and where to go, they could kiss off.

I was The Monarch. I was in control, I had a purpose, and they could follow me or get out of the way.

That was a true Allegiance, a united goal and purpose with a strong leader showing the way. The whole world knew my purpose, and I had the strength to drive it forward... and a huge portion of that purpose was making them stronger.

Yeah, I had no problems attracting people, nor did Briggs, Sama, or Sir Pellier. The people who thought they could compete with us could only sort of cringe when they realized just how big The Jet and Silver had grown, and how far its reach had spread.

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When Sama shifted camps to start making high-QL weapons and provide more immediate leadership in India if needed, the Warlords there could only try to protest, and one made the mistake of trying to drive her out with force of arms to stop people from going to her.

She let his men live, but he died in many pieces, and she didn’t even draw Tremble to kill him. The many pieces she tore him into was an excellent way to dissuade others from following his example, and stripping his followers naked and sending them off into a Shroudzone to earn their lives back helped, too.

There were a lot of women learning to fight now. Amazons weren’t common, as those Pacts were often maxed out, but women could shoot just fine, and use spears, gain a Vajra, become a Null, and get tough as nails. Sama was totally willing to teach them and watch them Level, and if the patriarchal society they came from didn’t like it, too bad for them.

Things were changing, after all. If they came across a Powered, however untalented, there were ways to improve them, too... and minor Powered who suddenly could Do Stuff and contribute were not all that much different in mindset from people who had no Power at all.

When Sama moved her first army up to Delhi, I brought down the Dome and destroyed the two Arhats there, while she, Legion, Azaia, and Shvaughn/Windwise butchered the Anagami and the like, while Sama’s troops tore into the converted Buddhists in a screaming rage. Blooded on three different Shroudzones of undead, the Forsaken and lesser Powered with her displayed all the ferocious power and tactics of a true Warlord-led force as they cleaned up the Buddhists.

I roved the countryside, reversing Shrines, painting locations of Cultivators into the Map, and kill-teams of vengeful Forsaken moved this way and that with lethal intent. It had to be on foot, of course, but the first thing they all invested in was lightfoot and movement rate, and Nulls had no problem with endurance. Nor did those riding Disks to keep up with them.

Azaia Leveled with all of them and this activity, making quick and continual progress, albeit grabbing a lot of side Levels and doing smaller fights with Legion to keep her own Karmic gain high. She burned through a lot of Wands, but the Shards coming off them, and the spells she was Casting on her own, were once again rising in power.

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Rajkat, Ahdemabad, Jaipur, Kanpur, Nagpur, Ludhiana, Hyderabad, Karachi...

One by one, over days and weeks, the fortified centers of the Buddhists fell. Humans and goblins fell upon them one by one, and the Buddhists died to a once-Human. The fully transformed made power components and Baneskulls that helped kill more of them, and a religion thousands of years old was eradicated with a savage thoroughness that could only be called holy war. Like all such things, the purpose was holy, but the results were just brutal and merciless.

Sama organized the fighting and the recovery with aplomb and ever-rising Charisma, coordinating things with the skill and ease of a master strategist, logistician, diplomat, and bully. She was fully capable of getting all the things done, just like Briggs, and if she wasn’t my equal in several areas, I was fully capable of helping her out until she was.

She had spent months pouring Karma into her Charisma, and once she popped it, she was going to instantly make Seven, acquire more Classes, and do her Preincarnation Dive.

What was going to come out of that, I had no idea...

My own advancements were in Masteries, and they simply continued at a slow, once-a-day pace. Sure, I was investing in Einz and Clavus, I was making Energized gems in massive quantities, I was Blessing people, I was running supplies back and forth, I was Mapping the land, I was extending my Lived-Line, and I was organizing and advising.

Yeah, I was always busy, but that just kept all my thoughtstreams occupied, so it was a good thing. Occupying a supercharged brain is a necessity, or you start finding all sorts of stuff to keep you occupied.

A lot of bad things started that way...

Clavus completed his full Intelligence upgrade to 19 Wisdom and Intellect, and began his Detect Bane at V, which would alter depending on the Baneskull adorning him.

Einz was continuing with his Telekinesis, and was already moving around smaller items, practicing patterns and shifting things around constantly. I commissioned some adamantine razor-plates from Briggs, things I could upgrade to actual magical Weapons at a later time, along with lengths of coiled barbed chain Einz could use and manipulate. Telekinesis was an uber power in its flexibility and range, and if Einz couldn’t juice the damage it could do... so what?

I was the main damage; he was the supplement, defender, and controller. We were building to power with him, there was just a long way to go.

At the top end, having fifteen spinning razor disks that could serve as shields or weapons, along with a winding coil of barbed chain, all treated with +V Greater Magic Weapon and the like, should be plenty useful.

So would having his own Ranks in Sleight of Hand, Disable Device, Pick Locks, Spellcraft, and Perform (drums). That way he could be a sneaky git, subtle git, clever git, help make Potions and Scrolls, and do musical accompaniment, too. He could also tap all the Skill Points I had stored inside him, so he could write stuff down very quickly, play the piano, and do a bunch of other things no normal magic item could possibly do without being a highly-optimized Item Familiar.

Clavus was taking note of all that, too...

My own personal advancement was largely concentrated on maxing out my supply of ki.

I maxed out Extra Ki Mastery to /5, and Sun, Moon, Zen, and Shadow to Tier 3. Extra Arcane Pool was finished at /5, and I maxed out Bardic Lore Mastery to /5. The Mastery gave me a bonus in every Lore skill I had at least one Mastery in... which wasn’t much right then, but something I’d be acquiring in the future.josei

43 points of uninvested Ki gave me a LOT of room to play with for Buffs and stuff if needed. Spend it, get it back, spend it, get it back...

I also finished out Extra Channeling at /5. My total Pool was pretty impressive now, coming in at a nice 108 total points, before my Spell Pool, which was 62 points all by itself. Needless to say, I had no problems with spell caps now...

I maxed out the Eyes of Heaven at /5, Range now 360, stacking on top of its Permanent counterpart for a nice 240 paces of range, all the time. The other of Heaven Disciplines would be coming later...

From there, the rest of January was straight Skill Mastery increases. Diplomacy, Perform/Song, Sense Motive, and Intimidate Masteries were the main choices, resonating through the Allegiance with grace, style, awareness, and force respectively.

Thus it was that January passed by in a torrent of slaughter, harvestings, rewiring Shrines, and the world getting turned on its ear by everybody and their mothers trying to set up an Allegiance, and finding it weren’t anywhere as easy as it appeared.

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-My sister is having a concert tomorrow. I’d like to go.-

I lifted an eyebrow at the unspoken invitation in Azaia’s words. Her mental fatigue was apparent, as was hardly unexpected in someone who had gained forty Levels in forty days.

She had already reclaimed her Faux Nine Casting ability, and was now grimly going Deep and establishing a deeper foundation then she had ever believed possible. Karma flooded in, her Casting ability was continuously increasing, and Skills and Feats accumulated, giving her a breadth of knowledge and ability like nothing she had ever thought she could do.

That said, she was not a gamer, and her Empathy made it plain that, even with the reinforcements to her Will and additional mental disciplines, outright slaughter wore on her. She wanted to be about making the world better and more beautiful, not removing the ugly and corrupt. Even if she knew it was totally and unavoidably necessary, it was still hard for her.

The fact I could keep right on doing it, as could Sama, was both something she respected a lot, and feared some. It meant we were incredibly grim and resolute foes, unleashed swords ready to do what had to be done to defend the world.

She was more a song trying to lead people to a better day. I didn’t have a problem with that at all. Hope was a powerful thing.

It was also that mindset that would make it very difficult for her to use Pact Magic, either as a Warlock or a Binder. She didn’t have the martial mindset to be an eternal weapon for a profound force, even one she believed in, and she didn’t have the mindset to exploit all manner of other beings which was at the heart of being a Binder.

It meant she’d never be a Master Archtheurge of the Seven. Well, personality played a large part in such things, so we could only do what we could do. That she could be a Sylunar Priestess and start learning Druidism would just have to be enough.

She probably hadn’t realized that I was now going to start setting up things to make her the Queen of Europe. It was where she had grown up, after all, and Europe was big into Powered and elites and nobility and all that stuff. As a member of the Morningsun family, she already stood at the top, and that could only help her cause.

The Sylunar were naturally happy to start laying the groundwork for such an event. Even if she wouldn’t be a theocrat, a Sylunar Priestess on the Throne of Europe could only be good for them.

But, in the meantime, she had to endure the grinding that was going to be necessary to do that.

-A concert?- I /replied neutrally. -I can honestly say I’ve never been to one.-