The Power of Ten, Book Five: Versatile Wizardry

Thirty-five days go by...

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Fae

Female* Human/5 (Mage/3)

Vizard/3**; Wizard/1 (5); Sorcerer/1 (Arcane Sage); Ur-Priest/1 (5); Inquisitor/1 (5); Druid/1 (5); Binder/1 (3)

Theurge: Eldritch/3 (Sorc/Binder); Arcane/5 (Wiz/Sorc); Mystic/5 (Ur/Wizard); Divine/5 (Ur/Inquis); Elemental/5 (Druid/Wiz)

Advanced: Archbinder/3; Archshaman/3; Archcleric/3; Archwizard/3

Strength (10): 8*

Dexterity (16): 16

Constitution (16): 18*

Intellect (18): 22 (31)

Wisdom (14): 16

Charisma (14): 16

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Height: 5'5" Weight: 95 lbs. Hair: White (Sylune’s Grace) Eyes: Silver (Warlock Sign, Blue) Age: 15

Health: 82

Soak: 62

Movement: 55’

Talent: Naturally Focused

Acquired Powers: Fire Template; Cold Template; affinity for Fire and Cold Magic (5%/5%); Sylune’s Grace; Master Archtheurge Incarnation

Skill Points: 121 (0 Unallocated)

Paid Masteries: 55/147 possible

Paid Feats: 48/48 possible

Traits: 6 (Complete)

Favored Class Points: 24 (0 unallocated)

Mark: +4 (5) Sacred bonus to Intellect (Complete)

Wrath: +3d6+4

Aegis: 15 vs. Acid, Lightning, Radiance (5 x Wrath Ranking)

Stars: 7 x Tier 6 (42 Mana each)

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And so my days and much of my nights went for the next month.

There were a few interruptions in the process of Winkle moving me from battlefield to battlefield, mostly involving preparing for massive dispersal of vivus slowly but surely. Making stone braziers and rods wasn’t that difficult for some of the Great Beasts here, merely an exercise in willpower, and bringing up ore to be smelted down into the right forms also wasn’t much of an effort for them.

Bringing in a man-high Alicorn from a graveyard of the creatures to be made into a Staff was huge, at least in my eyes, and wouldn’t have been done at all if the Beasts couldn’t see exactly what vivus was doing for them in the fighting and in purging away the Taint.

Also, I was Healing the Tainted physical wounds of a lot of them. By adding Holiness dice to the Light Element, I could Purify away all the Corruption without needing high-Valence spells to do so, and as soon as I got my II’s, I could directly affect the mind and soul, then overcharge the effect with Holiness, Vivus, and Light Mana.

In very little time I had literally hundreds of powerful Beasts lined up to be treated by me... and I helped each and every one of them. Horrendous wounds, damage to body and soul, Corruption, Taint, the vestiges of madness; I Burned through it all with what Healing I had, sometimes needing a Silver Fox or other powerful Beast there to suppress and control the one being Healed.

None of them complained once they were restored, or, if not physically healed to perfection, at least they were no longer infected. True Regeneration was a V, after all...

Got lots of Karma for doing that work, too, and it all worked as Naming Karma for me.

Getting the Human/5 allowed me to reach ‘effective’ Five in any or all of my Classes, without having to pay full price for the doing. As a result, I could ramp up to taking Valence III’s while still keeping Karmic Costs down, helping expand my Class Foundation.

By taking Warlock Blast/3 and Warlock Power/2 and /3, I also brought my Matrix Caster Level up to Six, my Combined Caster Level to Nine, and made myself eligible to take all the Advanced Classes I wanted to Five.

Helix Method, let us abuse you completely here! This place was just made for it...

Thus, in interest of spreading vivic fire far and wide with greater speed, I took Binder/1, then Eldritch Theurge/2 and /3, boosting Binder Casting to Three and Warlock to Six. Then I took Mystic Theurge/2 through /5, boosting Ur-Priest Casting to Five, followed by Arcane Theurge/2 through /5, boosting Wizard Casting to Five.

I also tried to take a Level in the Theurgy of Patronage, i.e., Pact and Divine Magic, and was simply unable to. It appeared that while I could take a Class itself, unless it could be directly combined with Mana, which required Arcane power, I couldn’t take a further Theurgy, even if it linked to another energy which was linked to my Arcane power.

The Rules were different here, was all I could surmise. No Sevenfold Archtheurgy for me!

Indeed, I took a Level in Druid, then tried to take a Level in Archshaman, which was the increased Casting Base for Druids, and found myself unable to... until I took a Level in Elemental Theurge, the combined Natural/Arcane Theurgy, and the obstruction was lifted as the Magics combined. Elemental Theurge progressed up to /5 as well.

Archwizard/1-3 followed up, doubling my base number of Prepared Spells, and giving me plenty of variety to choose from, 4/2/1 spells turning into 8/4/2, before bonus spells from Stats. Then Archcleric, Archshaman, and Archbinder all went to Three.

There was no Favored/Chosen of the Gods spontaneous-Caster Class here, which boded poorly, but Inquisitor was still there on the Divine side. I took a Level in Inquisitor, then Divine Theurge to /5, bringing my Inquisitor base Casting to Five and Conflated it with Cleric, which thankfully stayed Attuned to Arcane through Mystic Theurge.

There was no Shifter, the Druid Spontaneous-Casting shapeshifter Class, either. It appeared the division between Humans and Beasts here was too great, and no, Druids weren’t going to be able to borrow the forms of animals (no Wildshaping abuse in a world with powerful Magical Beasts! The Rules here sucked!). It meant no spontaneous Caster of Natural Magic, but the only reason I would need such a thing would be for the Bonus Spells... and Bard would handle that, as a Charisma-based Natural prepared-Caster.

Winkle was good about getting me into low-impact conflict zones to practice my Magic, watching as the spells I wielded slowly grew more and more powerful, without me actually advancing in power as the Beasts knew it. I was wielding Magic in multiple flavors and styles they had no exposure to, drawing the power in while using methods they had never seen and could not duplicate, although they could all feel the intense spiritual elements of the Divine and Natural Magic when I set it all to working.

The fact I could just keep Casting, especially after I dutifully received the blessed pure white Ki-rin Alicorn and Marrowshaped it into a proper Staff, astounded pretty much all the Beasts, as they couldn’t understand how such a little Novice Mage could store or channel so much Magic inside me when they could definitely see my level of power.

Also, as soon as I got effective Ur/5 and my III’s popped up, Exemplar Surge was on the board, and I was Surging for my one Feat a day I could pop as Extra Spell, then Write the Spells so gained to my Ring (well, really reclaiming them from the shadows of my inherited memory, but hey).

My Spellbook-Ring was going to have no problems filling right up and being a great resource for me, thank you.

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“So tell me, Little Fae, have you thought of obtaining a Seed for your own?”

I was making Eternal Lights. Very specifically, I was making DANGEROUS Eternal Lights.

The Light Element here was dangerous to Dark Magic, ergo, it ‘did damage’ to them. If I included a point of Light Mana when Casting an Eternal Light, this purification/damage factor applied to the spell, turning basically a century-or-more enduring simple light source into something that affected Dark Magic.

Once that happened, well, then, damage Kickers applied!

When those damage Kickers involved a confluence of Vivic Spell, Banespell, and the Holy Metas, well, then... +6d6, increased to 6d8, +50%, and then Topped, was a whopping +72 damage, just from Kickers.

I knew this, because my Shards had them. I could now mow through Servant-level Shades and Beasts with them, and really plow into Warrior-Class stuff, as long as they couldn’t get to me.

I reflected that if we could do something similar with Light spells back on Terra-Luna, this was going to be like the best undead-fighting tool ever! It would proliferate much, much faster than Weaponry, and if it was susceptible to Darkness effects neutralizing the base spell, that only gave us an incentive to Raise it in Valence, like I was doing.

That was what I was working on now, patiently making many, many Braziers and Torches that were hideously dangerous to Shades, Fiends, and Undead. The former were designed to just sit around and purify the air, maybe immerse limbs or inhale to cleanse any internal corruption. The latter were designed to be dispersed and start lighting vivic fires.

I’d made thousands of the Vivic Torches, and Silver Flowing Emperor had sent hundreds of them off to His fellow Emperors after my advice and some long-distance communication.

Vivus was igniting on the edges of the conflict areas, and the advance of the Dark Magic was suddenly running into a burning wall... a wall that was pressing back against it, hungering for more!

Silver Flowing Emperor was even polite enough to ask for any Soul Crystals that popped up to be sent this way, as the Beasts found they had absolutely no use for the unaligned energies within them. Some Beasts with Void Magic Pockets would gather up the mounds of them and send them back as bundles of Torches burning with radically powerful, yet completely harmless energies arrived in their multi-colored loads, and were then taken away to set their lands on mistfire.

It was not that the Torches couldn’t be useful against the Shades in combat, but that they weren’t able to withstand being saturated and snuffed out by enough pure Dark energy concentrated on them, and I wasn’t capable of Girding them up enough to withstand the monstrous amounts of Mana the enemy could commit to the task.

I was, however, capable of making a lot of the things, fueling them with a bunch of crushed amethysts broken out of geodes by a helpful Armadillo the size of a tanker truck, and sending them out for hours every day.

Winkle just sat nearby and watched me work. Eight hours making Torches, eight hours Healing up the Beasts waiting patiently outside, four hours of going to the nearest conflict zone about twenty miles away and shooting off some spells and making my own little contributions to the fighting.

“The furless Monkey asks the Silver Fox, what is this Seed he is referring to?” I replied to his casual inquiry, doubtless trying to tease out a sample of the famous Human greed the Beasts all knew about.

“You have never heard of Elemental Seeds?” Winkle asked, tongue lolling in that teasing mockery the Foxes did so well, always looking for signs of mental weakness they could exploit. “I thought Humans were well-informed!”

“I’ve learned all my Magery spells from you-all Beasts, not some Human school,” I pointed out to him. “You’ve been my Magic Instructors, so instruct!”

He was only a bit taller than an elephant, but that still meant his jaws were almost as long as I was tall, and he snapped them in his laugh, as always looking to see if I was frightened by the display. I never was, but that only seemed to entertain him more, instead of disappoint him.

“The power in the Land often gathers in locations of great Elemental nature, forming deposits of Elemental power that harmonize with one’s magic. Such Seeds are among the most prized resources for Beasts who wish to grow and enhance their strength, able to double the power of their magic and possibly add other effects,” he explained, again watching me closely.

“Really? Well, then, I assume most of the Seeds and gathering places are spoken for.” I shrugged it off as something I could address in the future, maybe in the Mortal World. “You said Elemental, precisely. So these Seeds are something of the Seven Star Elements. The only ones I’d be able to use would have to be Fire and Ice Seeds, they’d have to be very equal in power, and I’d likely have to absorb them at the same time.

“I won’t deny that they sound very attractive and I’ll learn more about them in the future, but given how picky I’d have to be, it doesn’t sound like something I’d get much use from, Elder?” I hazarded to him.