The Power of Ten, Book Three : The Human Race

Now it was indeed time to get into motion.

Grit leveled, Fred got to his feet as easily as if his toes were a rake someone had stepped on, and trotted for where the Baron had gone with strides ten feet long, remarkably light and quiet for how heavy they looked as he moved.

A flash of a silver cane, and half a dozen Shards came winging up at him.

He flicked his hand, and the Ward came up directly in front of them, intercepting them cleanly. They spattered against the screen of force impotently, the individual missiles not having the force to take it down. His forward progress didn’t stop, while the silver cane withdrew with alacrity, and his enhanced hearing heard light footsteps retreating at accelerated speed.

He could also hear the chittering of a lot of rats whelming below him, trying to climb the stacks of crates and racks of goods to get to him. They couldn’t keep up with his speed, either, but that didn’t bother him.

A door opened, he could feel the rush of wind from outside, the harbor beyond. His momentum didn’t slow as he headed for a skylight in the roof of the Warehouse, only fifteen feet up.

A normal person would have been shredded slamming through the glass like he did, but that was what Damage Reduction was for, neutralizing annoying and trivial injuries so they didn’t impede you. He blew the skylight apart in a tinkling spray of broken shards, landing smoothly on the roof, spinning once as he did so to make sure there were no shooters up here, and ran to the edge of the roof, leaping off high and far.

The Baron certainly was quick, already fifty yards down the wharf, moving with the accelerated movements of temporal magic.

He didn’t seem to think he was in danger, so when the first shot slammed him right in the back, detonating in wrathfire, he was taken completely by surprise and blown off his feet. True to being undead, he didn’t feel any pain, and was rolling and ducking for cover as the second shot came in from the figure arcing through the sky, and by the third he was behind one of the thick pilings of the quay.

Fred was almost a hundred feet in the sky as he plunged towards the choppy waters of the harbor below, undeterred. Normally, he could use Angel Walk to slow this to the speed of a falling feather, but all that would do at this point was make an easy target of him. He plunged at full speed towards the water below, and hit it with a splash.

That splash was the water getting out of his way as it soaked his momentum within three feet, then bulged back up to lift him back to the surface.

Sleipner was waiting right there, two points of golden light keeping his tires a few inches above the water, just like Fred was now standing just above the waves. This was his evacuation route, the unicorn-bike silently rolling out over the water to wait for him to exit the trap behind him.

Naturally it had seen him shooting at the person moving down the dock, who was now peeking around the edge of the piling and saw him swinging onto a motorcycle floating unperturbed over the waters of the harbor.

“Well played, Master Fred! We shall see one another again, I think!” the somewhat rattling voice of the Baron, edged in a German accent, came to his ears. With a swirl of magic and a sparkle, the Baron was gone, whisked away by spatial magic once he got outside the Interdiction.

Fred swept a quick eye over the surrounding buildings, saw no betraying flash, and Sleipner made the softest beep, indicating he saw nothing either.

He fed Wrath into the bike, replenishing Sleipner’s stored energy. The spirit’s power was limited, after all, and even after Banding the silvery alicorn a few times to add more power to it, there was only so much the dead unicorn could do. Using Wrath to supplement conventional power sources and power the ghostly stealth of the unicorn was much simpler for all concerned.

Let’s meet up with the others, he thought at the unicorn, who neighed softly back, inquiring how the night had gone. Oh, I got six of them, and it looked like a couple more were burning outside. A good night.

The dead unicorn nickered agreement. Fred kept his hands off the handlebars, keeping his eyes on the dock area as Sleipner pulled away.

A golden ramp three inches wide made from his Ward got them back up on land a half-mile down the shore, and they were pulling away as the smooth and assured voice of the young halvyri sorceress with the improbably powerful Shards came into his ear.

-We have exfiltrated and are moving to the location to dump the car, the police should find it by morning. We will see you at the temple.-

He nodded at nobody. They have gotten away and are going to the temple, he told Sleipner, who snorted an acknowledgement and adjusted course, the Global Divinatory System of the Vaccine-linked computer set there updating their course.

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So, Magus...

Since I didn’t have to kill rats constantly, I could take a look at this Class. I Assay’d and focused on it as we were driving back to the temple.

At Renewal, I had only Slotted the spells I had picked out ahead of time, doing nothing more. There simply wasn’t time. Had rats to pop, to stop them from warning the wererats, or forming a swarm.

Heh, they’d probably be a bit miffed at the numbers of them we’d left all over the place...

Some sort of warrior-mage hybrid Class, it looked like. Looked like something an elf would think up. Hah, Medium Attack bonus, both ranged and melee. I wanted to roll my eyes already.

Okay, full Caster Level. So, meant to Cast. If it was meant to fight, it would be full AB. As it was, maybe on the level of a Cleric...

Staff Magus. Since it wasn’t my first Class, weapon and armor proficiencies granted were absent and thus meaningless, but it only would have given me simple weapons, anyways, and it looked like this variant hadn’t been going to give me any armor, anyways.

Free Weapon Focus on Staff. I lifted an eyebrow. It wasn’t AB, but it was something. Quarterstaff Mastery for free, which allowed Weapon Finesse with the staff, or one-handed usage, or Reach, turning the quarterstaff into a versatile if underpowered weapon.

Spell combat... dual-handed usage of Casting and fighting. So, able to ply a weapon while Casting, at significant cost in Concentration... my, so not a problem.

Spell Progression... Lesser, equal to a Bard or Minstrel. So, instead of a V at Nine, it would get a IV at Ten. Class List of spells... this probably wasn’t normally accessible, but I had the shadows of so many in my memory that a bunch lit up immediately. Looked like an arcane list, favoring touch-type spells, Rays, and similar things, with some utility in illusions and defense. So, fewer spells known, fewer learnable, fewer Castable...

Hey, they got a bunch at One as a Starting bonus... which I didn’t. But they also got two per Level... which seemed to have been chosen for me. Frostbite and True Dodge. The former was a multi-use touch attack spell, and the latter was a reactive defensive spell for dealing with overwhelming incoming attacks.

However, this was an Intelligence-based Casting Class, so there were no new bonus Slots or anything for this, I already got them. They were just spells I could add on top of the dozens I had gotten from the Temple, move to my Ring, and were now actually available to be memorized.

It granted Duelist Defense, same as the Light Melee choice, if I was wielding my Staff. +2 Dodge wasn’t bad, and it went on the stack. If I had Expertise, it increased at the same rate as Expertise did. The cost was fewer spells per Level, but since it wasn’t giving me Castable Slots anyways, that point was moot, too.

Arcane Pool. This was the thing it spent my Mastery Slot on. I eyed it narrowly.

Okay, a pool of random mystical energy/mana. I went looking for it in my Matrix, and found it floating ‘below’ my Core, currently empty.

Size was Intellect bonus + ½ Magus Level. Regain an amount equal to your Ranks in Meditation +3 by sleep or meditating per Renewal, points gained as fast as Valences otherwise...

So, I’d need a short amount of time to put up to nine points into it.

A point could be spent from it to make my staff +I stacking for one minute; the bonus would increase as I went up in Level.

Sounded like a Paladin’s Weapon Spirit. It promised greater abilities as I went up in Level, but I couldn’t access any of them now, and I had no knowledge of what was possible.

I would have to do research, or ask around, or something. And we were going back to the temple...

I should probably get a cell phone, so I could look stuff up online – and just thinking that made my brain convulse so hard my eyes went blank.

Okay, maybe I wouldn’t take the easy route. I could have someone else look up stuff online for me...

Clavus was down to the size of a jo stick, held in my hand, happy to get his Morphing ability to change form and disguise himself. Sure, he wasn’t intelligent yet, but it turned out Magus qualified as a bond-to-Weapon Class, so I’d been able to Name him and assign him his first Karma. Wererats were actually good for something...

A Staff and a Ring. I was on my way...

Improved Arcane Pool/1: Your Spellcasting Ability is strong, and your Arcane Pool has grown with it. The size of your Pool has increased to Intellect + Caster Level, and you may spend one point to increase the CL of a spell by one.

So, my actual limit was... still 7, because my Caster Level was still One. But it could increase very quickly...

You may spend Valences or magical Class abilities to add points to your Arcane Pool.

I raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t an issue now, but if I increased the size of the Pool... that could be important, and something to use end/day abilities on, given the hard cap on how many I could restore by Meditating or sleeping.

My ability damage was all gone, too, leaving nothing behind but a glaring scar on my abdomen, and memories of a baby in the hands of a Sinbound...

Mmm...

My thoughts turned to a Heavenbound with a unicorn’s spirit bound to his motorcycle. I wouldn’t be able to fool them, so I’d have to speak the truth... but that was not an issue, to a Heavenbound.

It looked like I would be leaving Sir Pellier and Helix behind soon, along with Father Bower. I had obligations, and I would discharge them....

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With the excitement and stress of the night gone, and no need to stay up to watch a bunch of Karma-harvesters shooting spirits at the Long Island Wall, Sir Pellier and Helix opted to use some guest rooms and grab the cots there for some shuteye. Given that they had probably been working nights for quite some time, it was hardly unexpected.

Warlock Fred beat us back to the temple, perhaps unsurprisingly, and was in the Shrine to Mithar. Sir Pellier claimed his two kills of Warlocks, Master Fred indicated he’d eliminated six, and a handful of wererats had joined them.

He also told us and Initiate Hugo, who had stayed up to receive us, that the Baron von Nachtfel had been present, and been the one that tossed that big lightning bolt we’d seen crackling past overhead. Initiate Hugo hurried out to spread that news, although there was precious little that could be done about it.

I still didn’t think he was a lich. The next guess down would be a cold mummy, as opposed to the classic mummy from desert areas. A cold mummy was formed in frozen, arid wastes, as opposed to sandy ones. A mountaintop could easily work, in the right area. With no wrappings, the only way to tell would be an Assay, unlikely to work, or examining the aura.

A lay follower there was quick to lead the men off to places they could rest, leaving me alone in there with the scarred Warlock...