The Power of Ten, Book Three : The Human Race

I didn’t really know how or why I got drafted into poking into others’ business, but I couldn’t really turn down a Heavenbound, being the sucker I was, especially one as grim as Master Fred.

And... I personally loathed all Evilbound for some reason. Wererats, well, I was prejudiced, and considered them little more than vermin infesting the human race to be exterminated. Anything that embraced the Lunar Curse was by definition no longer human, not some cutesy mice-men.

Then there was securing transportation. A freshly stolen car from a parishioner was made available. It would be duly registered as missing and conveniently recovered from them joy-riding kids tomorrow.

Warlock Fred was riding the most unique bike I’d ever seen, with what looked like a unicorn horn set in front of the handlebars, pointing ahead like a lance... and brimming with Wrath.

The spirit of the unicorn bound to the bike looked at me, I looked back at it, and I nodded at it, quite impressed. There definitely had to be a story to this.

Greater implications. Warlock Fred was riding a unicorn... poor bastard. I had to admit he had all the grim badassness down sitting on that bike, and with the magic of a unicorn on it, that bike could literally go anywhere like a ghost.

I WILL GET INTO POSITION, he told us, and smoothly drove off, vanishing into traffic as smoothly as if it were trees. We all kind of looked after him, then Sir Pellier headed for the driver’s seat, and Helix and I piled in.

We had layout plans from the city’s planning department... what, Scriba was the God of Bureaucrats, Ministers, Functionaries, and Scribes, the people working away in government trying to do the right thing, not just punch a clock. He had adherents in every government office, and so the Church of Harse rarely had problems accessing government databases when needed.

Prestidigitation had turned the light blue four-door sedan black, which both concealed it and meant it wouldn’t be picked up by any passing law enforcement looking for a freshly stolen car.

Everyone’s hair was now colored white, and we all had on painted Masks, so as to avoid easy retribution/revenge/recognition by interested Diviners, and our Weapons looked like someone else’s.

We parked a quarter-mile away from our destination, leaving the car in the drive of a car repair shop that had already closed for the night, picked out ahead of time, just one car among several.

Getting through the gate to the stockyard wasn’t hard, as it had been left slightly ajar by someone, a speechless act of laziness, no doubt, no doubt. We each took a drink of the Potion of Invisibility supplied by the temple, and I led the way, Sir Pellier’s hand on my shoulder, and Helix’s on his.

Strangely enough, I was by far the quietest of the three.

With three minutes of Invisibility, we hustled out from the back side of the garage, slid through the gate, and trotted in quiet discipline for the back of the building across from the large warehouse that was the site of the meet.

The lock had been shorn through recently with a stroke that had melted through the metal. I pulled it open, and we slipped inside just as the invisibility wore off, and we melted back into plain sight.

I scanned, as did Sir Pellier. He pointed ahead and to the left, and after a moment, I nodded.

Detect Shapechanger was coming up with three. I held up three fingers, he nodded.

We moved quietly enough through the press of boxes and stuff, while the people ahead of us seemed to be conversing and holding a card game or something.

I narrowed my eyes and scanned the area... and what looked like an office up a set of stairs to the right.

There was a spotter up there at a window.

The three fellows on the ground were all swarthy, compact of build, with dark eyes and hair, skinny and quick in motion, kind of twitchy.

Mammon was believed to be the originator of the Curse of the Rat, as greed was the strongest emotion associated with wererats, and the Curse bent them to the Red. Internally, they got along pretty well, bowing to their elders and superiors, and exploiting those beneath them. As a whole, they were quick, clever, ambitious, very greedy, and sneaky bastards who loved an unfair fight.

They all had rifles sitting against the wall as they played cards with one another, cursing one another freely in what I assumed was Italian, shoulder holsters hosting semi-automatic pistols and long knives... which, when they waved them about, were clearly not silvered, hehehe...

We pulled back to the back of the building. There was an hour to pass before the time of the meeting, so we had plenty of time to react to events.

Gingerly, we sat down on crates in the back of the large room, well out of view of the guys playing cards, while Sir Pellier calmly kept Lady Florentine, the long weight of a silencer screwed into her barrel, in his hand and ready for use.

Father Bower had found it quite reckless that we were getting involved in the work of a Warlock, but the work of Heaven was never done, and he could only give us his distant blessing after Sir Pellier informed him of what was going on...

------

Renewal washed past me as the Sun fell, and I could only hum Aethra’s Salute in my head.

I could, however, do-

Dingding!

Fuuuuuck...

I Invested into Einz, and there was a swirl as what I had been working on for the past four days was completed.

+1 Sacred Bonus to AC and Saves... increased to +2 by Favored by Faith!

Okay, it wasn’t huge, but it was an instant +2. I was quite pleased with myself. The long road to uberness had begun!

Yes, I could have used the standard Deflection/Resistance Protection combination, which would have cost three days of time, not four... but that was next for my Ring. Those were the cheap, easy things to do, but it would only gain me a stacking +1. By taking one day more, I’d gained +2, definitely the better choice.

Then, it would take me six more days to get a +1 Luck bonus... but that was still cheaper than raising the other bonuses up by 1.

Broad, low, stacking power was cheaper than shooting for height.

Aaaand what had my damn Bloodline purchased for me today?

Magus of the Staff/1.

Magus was another Class that I knew very little about, aside from what Helix had told me.

And what Feat?

Arcane Pool Mastery/1, Improved Arcane Pool.

What, it took a Mastery?! But-!

Argh! Buy Good Domain Focus!

There was something of a swirl and a chink mentally, and I nodded to myself.

Good Domain Focus was, in effect, a minor form of the Good Domain... but the +1 Caster Level to Good Spells stacked, the reqs were easy, and importantly, it triggered Sanctified Spell’s effect, generating me another +d6 on those spells.

The +1 Caster Level also got my effective Caster Level for Shards to Five, which meant a base three Shards, four with Shardcaster, five with touch attack, six with full round Casting.

I exhaled as I brought my hand up, and flicked up the Shards. The two men opened their eyes, and blinked in astonishment on seeing six of them there.

I was the very definition of a glass cannon, but I was quite the cannon, there was no doubt about that!

A squeak drew my attention, and I dropped my Shards, turned and fired the Exterminate off into the corner.

I didn’t even see exactly where it was hiding, because it was a small area of effect, about a foot square, but could extend into holes and around corners. There was sort of a scritch, and sudden silence.

There was more skittering around us. I looked at Helix, who was wearing a pair of borrowed night vision goggles; we both nodded, and proceeded to get up and start shooting rats.

The wererats up front could talk to rats, so the suckers could tip them off as to our position. With him seeing the heat and me seeing them in the dark, anything that came scampering around the corner of the crates or out of a hidden hole or something got zapped and instantly died.

I’d told Helix that one of the tricks for a Prepared Caster was to leave one Slot free and fill it with a needed spell in an emergency, and that included Cantrips. Exterminate was used exactly for this purpose of picking off rats and overlarge spiders and clusters of roaches and the like. There was a Valence I effect called Exterminator’s Hand that actually Summoned a spectral hand that went through the area, hunting the vermin down and crushing them as it found them, able to rapidly clear out a whole house of unwanted guests.

We weren’t quite that far gone, but the rats that basically served as the early warning system, or more likely, the first parts of a rat swarm, were dying as quickly as they showed up. There were bunches of them, but they were abruptly falling over as we pointed our fingers and brought down our thumbs, and soon enough dozens of them were scattered all over the place, being sniffed by companions who soon joined them in silent, unseen death.

Fifteen minutes to go, we all stood up, and with Helix and I pointing and silencing the rats on the way, stole our way forwards towards the door.

I Cast the Disk, Helix poked it up with his Staff to the far side of the elevated office, giving Sir Pellier on top of it an unobstructed view of the shooter inside. He brought his Lady up in a quiet grip, and rested it there, giving us a nod.

I sent a Message out to Warlock Fred, -We are in position to take out an overwatch squad, and will move when the cars arrive, if they are coming in cars.-

There was no reply because he couldn’t, as he was mute, and we weren’t going to test out coms here. I could only hope that whatever he was moving through beneath us, he was clearing out quietly. They were obviously expecting trouble, but were they expecting it from the smuggling tunnels beneath this place?

Helix and I kept ourselves busy picking off rats, which kept appearing without fail. It could be a reaction to the nightfall, or tide, or simply unconscious Summoning by the wererats, who were getting increasingly nervous. Eventually there was a shout from up top, and they threw down their cards and grabbed for their rifles.

They crowded around the small window on the door, obviously looking at something else outside, expecting something to happen.

Oddly enough, Helix and I continued picking off the rats, who definitely weren’t decreasing in number. Our ears were poised for the sound of Sir Pellier shooting. Point, thumb down. Point, thumb down. Rats fell over one after another after another...

“Awright, the hellspawn are here,” one of the guys at the door murmured. “Should be some excitement soon!”

Well, he had no idea...