The Power of Ten

Chapter 6-161: An Arc of Conversation

“So, Sama, tell me what happened up north, and in Nashville, would you?”

Sama knocked back a drink of something that could peel paint, a hard light winking on in her eyes. She took a moment to answer me, arranging her thoughts.

“Fucking Fey. Fucking Weres. Fucking Hags and Warlocks, the lot of them.” Her blue eyes glittered with the promise of storms coming... or maybe that had already come, and were still raging. “How much do you know?”

“I know Wakefield in the U-P was wiped off the map, and Nashville was considered the biggest terrorist attack in the last decade... and no clue what went down in Portal. Basically, what hit the news. There doesn’t seem to be a ‘real version’ floating around anywhere, unless you count the lies the Imprusar started spewing.”

Sama sighed at nothing in particular, but there was nothing soft in her expression. “Well, I got tired of gutting Imprusar as a masked bitch, and cutting into certain packs of weres that thought humans needed to be put back in their place. So I put out some feelers for people who wanted a different way, and set up a place in Wakefield to start training some of the younger folks in how to break through to Forsaken...”

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Several years prior...josei

“Now, you focus. Show me what you can do.”

The Light on top of the cone was at CL 1, the minimum difficulty needed to suppress magic. It had been easy for her to make, scaling in difficulty as the young men and women here were eager to train their Nulls.

Interest in martial traditions was pretty high among the new generations, and not just in shooting guns. Yeah, guns had power, but they cost money to get really good at. Training ki just for general health and improvement meant she got a lot of interest from the locals, even those who didn’t much care for mumbo-jumbo.

Wakefield was a pass-through town in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, far more tied to Wisconsin than the state it belonged to. It was surrounded by forests and hills, the latter of which had once yielded a great deal of iron ore, and had long since been tapped out, the last mine closing in the 60’s. There was a ski resort nearby, and the lake was very pretty, but basically the town survived off forestry, tourism on the highway passing through town, and the hunting season.

It was a place on the downturn, but the natives were hardy, loved the outdoors, were generally close to nature, and when winter came, wanted things to occupy their time.

This fascinating ki stuff was just the sort of thing to stir up interest here.

Sama didn’t have any problem changing her appearance or her scent to settle down here for a while. Klitza was off on her own now, the Shaman of the Owl Woman pursuing her own destiny independent of the Old Packs that had spurned her.

The key thing for anyone wanting to learn ki was sensing it. Since Sama had a Vajra, that wasn’t hard at all. She could press in on someone’s soul with just physical contact, and once someone learned to press back... they were on the way.

Powered Level, Primos train. She had settled down easily enough, doing classes every day. The people in Wakefield weren’t very high Level, with the highest being a few roughnecks working in forest services who’d once served in the military, but they’d all learned how to use a gun, a knife, and even a spear. Being told there WAS a type of energy they could wield was an incredible thing to non-Powered in this world, and naturally everyone had seen vids of undead, or even real undead, many times by now.

Nobody doubted there was magic. Even a town like this had a few Powered around, such as the Floran in the local church, a couple Druids up doing things in the hills, and Hills and Spronowski, who handled a lot of minor Casting and Artificing here in town, making them important people here, instead of nobodies among the Powered of the larger cities who couldn’t reach Four.

Joey Conneracht was concentrating hard as he slowly closed his fingers on the Light. It wavered visibly, wobbling as he tried to feel the center of the spell effect and bear down on it, stop it from drawing its power.

He was a teenager from a local family, primed to become a Null. Like every kid in town here, he’d been tested and found to have no magic, so he was going through normal classes like everyone else. Hearing that someone was teaching a course on mystic energy even normal people could use, he’d been skeptical... until Sama had cut a drifting Kleenex tissue in half in mid-air... with her elbow. Then she’d driven a hole through a one-by-four... with her forehead.

The Null Classes were generally only open to kids who were still Ones, and suddenly not being a Two was an awesome thing to be, instead of an indication of weakness.

Joey focused as much as he could, feeling the resistance between his fingers, and for a second, felt like something was poised between them.

He pinched, and the Light went out.

Those watching cheered at his success, clapping for him. Visibly sweating, he backed off, watching as the Light slowly re-ignited, and then popped back into its normal torch-like brilliance.

“Better,” Sama said with a nod. “Minerva, your turn.”

The curly-haired brunette bounced to her feet, eager to try herself. She set up before the cone, centering herself with a slow series of ritualized hand motions, like a private dance, to calm herself down. Sama knew dozens of different methods for doing this sort of thing, and was perfectly happy to let them use what worked for such basic methods.

On other things, she was an iron taskmaster who tolerated absolutely no deviation from the correct method, knowing they could die if they did it wrong. Her ear-pulling and nostril-hooking were dreaded in her classes, and if anyone wanted to get violent, she greeted the attempt with an inordinate amount of enthusiasm before thoroughly humiliating them repeatedly.

Minerva breathed deeply, and brought her palms together slowly, the Light between them. Once, twice, and the third time, the Light snuffed out.

Everyone cheered as she grinned. No, it wasn’t a good success rate, but the point was that it was a success, and would only improve.

“Alright, Thomas, you’re next!” Sama clapped, and the freckle-faced red head bounced to his feet to give it a try...

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Some took as many as ten tries to succeed, but that was fine. That was Stats and practice. If they practiced, and got themselves in shape, they’d only get better... and they’d have more ki.

“Thank you, Senpai!” “See you tomorrow, Senpai!” wafted back as her class of students left, and Sama had the airy studio room to herself.

Using Meditation to circulate ki was one of the best ways of growing it, and even if you only ever reached Three, you could get at least a couple points to do stuff with. One point was enough to power basic Lightfoot, by far the most popular choice, especially for older folks who had problems moving around. The second was upping your Fortitude Save, which meant all-over better health, easing of joint pain, and similar things.

Tulpa paused at the door. “Senpai, they’ve got that Fire Dragon user coming in to give us a show at the school tomorrow. Will you be there?”

It wasn’t the first time she’d heard about it, and her smile was a bit lopsided. “Sure, if only to watch all the Powered shit he’s showing you that you shouldn’t be even dreaming of using.”

The tall blue-eyed blonde showing her Norwegian ancestry laughed at that. “I’m looking forward to the show anyways!” she called out, dancing away, as light on her feet as an eight-year old.

The Lightfoot was always the first thing the younger ones wanted to learn. Running around so light on your feet was just a thing.

“A Fire Chi-user, eh?” Sama rolled her eyes. Putting on shows for Primos kids was a kind of novelty promotional thing foisted off on secondary disciples who probably couldn’t break Three. Chi-use had mental as well as physical demands, and if you didn’t have the Stats, you didn’t get far. Exceptional Dragon Warriors and Dragon Hand Adepts were exceptional people, period. Just being an exceptional physical specimen didn’t guarantee you’d get very far in the Dragons.

Still, it would be an interesting thing to see in this sleepy town, where the most interesting things that happened were the people from outside who stopped in, and not the actions of the residents... unless an accident or another happened, which, if the lumbering companies pissed off the Druids nearby, wasn’t all that unlikely. Trying to buy off Powered who were devoted to the well-being of the Land just didn’t happen, so they either mended their ways, or hired some mercs to try to get rid of them... and no mercs liked trying to deal with Druids on their own land, where every animal was a sentry for someone who could channel elemental forces and all the hordes of nature...

But, that was tomorrow.

Tonight, there was hammering.

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She never really stopped smithing. There was a huge demand for high QL stuff in the world, and even if most of it was for firearms and armor, not Swords and Shields, people still wanted backup Weapons... and some still preferred the old-school ways of doing things, especially the Profound Schools.

There were certainly Profound Schools around, and they had their own devoted smiths making stuff for them.

However, Ki-Bound worked with Chi, and none of the smiths they used had any knowledge of it. Sama was a Null, not stamping things into the Akasha unless she wanted to. They couldn’t figure out the principles upon which the Swords she was making worked... only that they did, and they did so marvelously, more potent than any basic Enhancement, easily as good as any devoted Discipline Weapon.

It had been The Mick who opened up that particular source of funds, as his much-improved Flowing Waters swordplay had caught the attention of some of his sparring partners. Then they realized how awesome his Katana was for Drei Slots, and how it was eligible for six Slots, and they suddenly wanted one for their own.

She could make any Weapon to Zeks Slots, she was just faster and visibly better and smoother doing so with Swords.

So, the money continued to flow in slowly, and with it the Crafting Karma. It wasn’t optimal, but it was better than nothing, and she was finally teaching some Forsaken here, starting a foundation she could eventually expand out to the rest of the world in due time.

Tremble’s Arsenal was an endless glutton-hole of gold, after all. She never lacked for something to spend gold on, and unless she wanted to step into a Shroudzone and get herself killed quickly, continuous Karma wasn’t going to be a thing. She simply couldn’t deal with the level of incorps that would be thrown at her...

The two Wingblades would be ready tomorrow when their wealthy young purchaser arrived for his demonstration at the school. He wasn’t that powerful, and likely never would be, but his father was very proud of his Powered Son, and wanted him to have the best blades that he could for his skill.

A pair of Wingblades for a practitioner of the Fire Dragon was just iconic, and if they were starsilver Ki-Bound Fire Dragon Discipline Weapons, well, they could hardly be better, could they?

Amused despite herself, Sama applied fire and steel to the glittering metal that was taking its final form as the magic ran through it. Of course, the off-hand would be Main Gauche, reflecting the primary Sword, meaning he’d only need to keep improving one Sword, not both of them, and the second would advance in tandem with its pair.

He should give a good show with them tomorrow.