The Power of Ten

Chapter 9-265: Bringing Some Heaven

He pointed to himself, the two Illriggers with their automatic weapons, then the big devil with the hellfire eyes, occasional drops of steaming drool falling from its jaws to hiss on the polished blackness of the floor before the hellfire swept them away tracelessly.

I pulled the Orb off of Clavus, and didn’t even bother putting a Baneskull on him, as it wouldn’t be useful. Sleipner fused himself to the clawed tip, turning my Staff into an Alicorn-tipped Spear, the five bands about it promising surprises for the unwary.

“I got the gargoyles while that happens, but there’s no way I can enter the Pattern itself.” I began to remove crystalline vials filled with sparkling stuff, and handed four of them to him. He smiled, and they began to glow before he hung two of them off his belt, and gave two of them back to me. “Also, I want them all alive.”

He gave me a very curious look, but the pale light of Mercy flowed over his Grit as he saw it was also up on Clavus.

I flicked up Sleipner, my Staff reaching a hand over two meters with him tipping it, and sent a pulse through Clavus. It passed into the Alicorn smoothly, and I saw crystalline forcewaves break over the Alicorn in acknowledgement.

Force Reserve and War Domain Reserve at virtua VII working just fine, thank you.

Master Fred indicated that he was ready. I put my hand on the stone, and it fell away as if it was made of water, disappearing into the walls and floor instantly.

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Master Fred stepped out, brought up his Grit, and fired twice.

Wrath is considered a Spell-Like Ability, and the Metas that affect it have their own progression. They are often considered a luxury to pick up by many Warlocks, but if you have the Karma, well, they turn from luxuries into How Could I Live Without This pretty damn quick.

Case in point: normally you could only discharge a shot of Wrath once every six seconds. But if you could Fastcast it three times a day, well, you could do it twice if you needed to.

You could also learn to Top it three times a day.

Master Fred had Profound gunmanship with a Mighty Grit that operated off his Strength. If it wasn’t Silenced, the boom would have been like a small cannon going off.

The guards at the door were naturally totally surprised, which meant Sneak Attack dice.

11d6+10 of Wrath Topped is 76 points. Add on 9d6 from Alchemist and Scout Levels with Way of Shadow III, and his Might, and a base damage of that slug in the 4-32 range, and yeah, it was no surprise when the double-taps of flaring, hotly bright Wrath reached out to intersect their skulls, they both kicked sideways and dropped, their heads all aflame.

The malebranche responded as if it was just waiting for a fight. With a roar of glee, expectation, surprise, and definite amounts of confidence, it flapped its bat-like wings... and crashed right back to the ground in shock.

Master Fred had swapped his City Pact to this mountain, which definitely didn’t want a devil camping out in its heart. Hello, Stillflight!

Master Fred wasn’t the kind to charge, but his strides were covering twice the distance they looked like as he crossed the outer ring, stepping past one of the chained Hellbound whose soul was screaming outside her skin, and striding right into the burning hellfire of the Infernal Circle there.

Hellfire broke over his skin, and to the surprise of the malebranche as it clutched its crackling trident, didn’t do anything to him. It should have looked more closely at his eyes, I guess.

Since it wasn’t charging him, Master Fred promptly shot it.josei

The round blew right through its massive shoulder, and the malebranche jerked. It resumed raging to the attack, coming down with a mighty overhand thrust to sweep the puny human before it away.

Well, perhaps it should have done some homework.

Master Fred wasn’t built huge, but he was almost done with the Heavy Gravity/5 training, he had a bunch of Classes to help raise his Stats, he had a Strength Mark, and he had gotten the +5 Inherent bonuses to his Strength that I could give him. In addition, Sama had personally scribed the I-Ching Patterns on his arms for Philosopher’s Might, so he could put his ki to some use, and four of them were currently lit up on his arms with hot white light.

His functioning Might was in the neighborhood of 50 or so, while his Power was about 35 or so.

Idiot slammed into the descending Trident, and took the full impact of the double-sized Weapon, and the near-ton of devil behind it, without being forced back, to the devil’s utter shock.

His Grit was back in its holster, and he stepped in to slam his fist into its chest... a fist blazing with Wrath, and holding a glass vial to boot.

Some very, very Empowered holy water joined the Wrath in lighting off against the malebranche’s chest.

It didn’t even get to hit the ground before there was an explosion, and it screamed in agony as a whole lot of holy water ate into a body literally made of Sin. The Wrath of Heaven added a bunch of counterpoints to it.

The butt of its Trident smashed into him, hate lightning crackled over him wildly, and he was pushed back... as he grasped one of those massive clawed wrists, ignoring both hellfire and lightning as he looked into those astonished, burning eyes.

Strength at 35+ all has a TK component. Master Fred heaved, planted Idiot for a pivot point, and as if the malebranche wasn’t twice his height and eight times his weight, made a nice arc with the devil and brought it down onto one of those strange and unhealthily-carved waist-high black stelae sitting around.

They were pretty tough. The malebranche tried to scream, but the pivot point Master Fred had chosen to use was through its throat, and it gargled around Idiot as it stared at the black stone that had been driven completely through its back and out its front.

It went spastic, struggling madly as those Runes lit up hotly with the fresh blood, and then hellfire did what it was made to do, and started feasting on Sin.

Master Fred withdrew Idiot smoothly as the shocked malebranche’s spirit began to scream outside its skull, thick black flames with barely any red burning at it greedily, adding a nice big surge to the power flowing away.

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“Seal that door!” I ordered, as Sleipner buried itself in the throat of the third gargoyle to leap at me, stony maw and fangs no match for a very twitchy Alicorn. Its lithic body shattered around the point of impact and its head fell off as I smoothly stepped aside from the fourth one.

The end of Clavus was quite heavy, and I spun the Staff smoothly to come down around the back of the fourth’s head, shattering its stony skull instantly and sending its body breaking apart across the floor.

Master Fred’s Stillflight effect had naturally crippled the maneuverability of the gargoyles leaping down, and I’d killed two of them before they could regain their feet and bearings after jumping off their perches and plummeting straight to the floor in surprise.

I used my Intelligence score instead of my Strength score when fighting like this, especially with my Staff. Mind Over Matter was a deucedly strong TK effect, and not something a Greyfield could shut down. As far as these things were concerned, they were getting clouted by someone almost as strong as Master Fred.

A shout came from the south, and I was racing that way as a blur shot out of the tunnel there on black wings... and promptly slammed to the ground as it entered theroom, shrieking in surprise and anger as it skidded in a spark-raising dive across the slick black floor... and right for me.

To the shock of the black-armored she-devil, I came sliding right in, Sleipner extending out before me.

Her wings slapped the ground hard enough to send her spinning aside, but I was tracking as she went by, and I wasn’t in range of her flaming sword as Sleipner slammed into her gorget and forced her back and away around me... before letting off a Force Reserve Pulse nicely hidden inside one of his stored Wrath blasts.

She was blasted away from me with a shriek of pain and spray of heated blood, while I heard more footsteps coming from the hallway.

An Amazon who might or might not have been fully clad came racing out the hallway, with another one not far behind. The first one was a curvy blonde, while the following one was Oriental, both of them in spiked leather somethings. This one was carrying a lengthy cat-o-nine tails, the jagged whips more like chains than strands, while the one behind was touting a hefty jagged-edged tetsubo like a toy.

I chucked the acid bomb into her face.

She had perfect reflexes, and managed to avoid most of the blast, screaming as the quasi-magical liquid ate at her, lashing at me as I dragged Clavus, spun aside, and swept my Staff across with a snap of my wrist.

With a crack, her knee broke like a toy, and she was upended instantly.

I slid into her, using her as a brake to rise right to my feet as Clavus completed his spin, and Sleipner plunged down into this doxie’s eyeball.

She convulsed, stopped screaming, and I stepped nonchalantly towards her physical twin charging at me.

The Amazon’s dark eyes flickered at my face and casual attitude, while I read her motions, looked like I was moving in three directions at once, and stepped aside from her blow as it crashed down, shifting right into her charge.

I did not focus on it at all, but I had a Strength of 31. Normal Melee combatants would kill for a Strength that high... and it was actually better than this Six of an Amazon.

Her astonishment as I palmed her face, clotheslined her, and slammed her to the ground onto the back of her skull was complete. She was in no way expecting a woman slighter, shorter, and lighter than she was to be stronger than her.

Sleipner went into her ear, and all her confusion vanished abruptly as the Force Pulse lit up her skull with brain-shuddering vibrations.

I stepped back as the first arrow burned past me, and glanced over at the erinyes in her armor, keeping her distance now and trying to shoot at me with a Bow made from the ribs of something rather large, launching burning shafts in my direction.

I stood there as she sent six shots at me, one after another, smooth and precise, right for my heart. I idly slapped them away, just raising an eyebrow at the darkly beautiful hunter of mortals trying to shoot me.

She looked like she was just about to curse me when she realized that I’d really just been diverting her attention, and she looked over... right into Master Fred’s eyes, who was now right at her shoulder.

The impact of her helmed head crashing into the dark stone of the wall left a crunched hole in the solid granite, so fast she had no chance to react at all.

Bright light flared around her head and his grasping hand, and then Idiot came up to finish things before she could shriek overmuch.

Her eyes leaking golden smoke, he tossed her limp body to the ground, ignoring the large burnt raven’s wings that hadn’t helped her much at all here.

I noticed he had fused the lock of the door over there completely shut. Standard efficiency from him.

He drew his Grit and snapshot the last gargoyle that had decided discretion was the better part of valor and fled to the other side of the room. It literally exploded from the impact, no need to Mercy the bloodthirsty semi-constructs.