“Aye, Master. The islands are not good for the leaves. Wait any longer, and they start to rot instead of to dry,” the Mick explained to Master Ben Ten.
“It was always a problem there, and the solutions always involved too much salt in the air,” the skeletal swordsmaster agreed, before turning back to me. “How is this done, Your Highness?” he asked reasonably, to which Princess Kristie turned to me.
“Putrefy Food and Drink,” I explained to him. “The spell changes food and water in exactly the wrong way, making it palatable to the undead and completely unfit for the living.” I nodded at the cup. “I am having a teapot and the other three cups Empowered by the scouts as we speak. You will soon be able to share the equivalent of tea with your comrades. Merely make fine tea and serve it as you would, Putrefy it into un-tea, and enjoy.”
“She did bribe me uncle with the same in ale,” the Mick added in a low voice.
“This would work on sake?” The august swordsmaster was trying to hide his delight.
“You can’t get drunk, but yes,” I nodded in confirmation.
“Ahhh, what great gifts you have brought us. An end to the suffering of the damned. A gentle light at the end of our duty. A way to grow for the spirit, even in death. And… a little bit of flavor, in a stale and cold world.” He raised the cup. “Kampe!” he said with sepulchral cheerfulness, and we all slowly drank it down. He was not even able to slurp and show his pleasure to his audience, but clearly enjoyed being able to drink and taste something, finally.
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Every student of Master Ben Ten with untarnished blades, and that included the living scouts, was out there exercising come the dawn, caught up in the wonders of a teacher unleashing and opening a foundation both mystical and magical at the same time for them.
Kris couldn’t open Soul Chakras on the undead, as the leakage might just destroy them outright. But Naming Weapons and crystallizing the very rough outlines of the spiritual swordsmanship that Master Ben Ten had been pursuing all his life was a no-brainer, and gave these bunch of sword fanatics something wonderful to focus on.
Even the simple benefits of the Salute to Aru were praised by Master Ben Ten, the undead able to feel the sublime power of Renewal stealing past their souls, giving them a subtle new strength from the light of a new day that they’d not had before.
I had no doubt that soon the entire undead force would be Saluting the Dawn, staving off the gray and colorless despair of a cursed life, showing them the dawn of a new day.
Aru was the greatest foe of the undead… and as merciful as any doting father to truly noble self-sacrificing souls.
The newly named Giri in his hand swirled about as he moved through the advanced katas carefully, watching Princess Kristie going through the forms, then imitating them as best he might from observation and a level of active instruction that he had likely never experienced.
She had informed him that he could only learn five of the Seven Dragons, and that was if he was careful to learn them in balance. Some of his undead students would be restricted to four, three, or perhaps even two of them, depending on their mental chops, spiritual strength, and talent for the discipline.
She couldn’t teach the Chi Techniques and Forms of the Dragons, of course. But even the lesser Ki Feats, based upon the Way Feats that were the foundation of each Dragon style, were stacking, powerful supplements for any melee combatant, and the simple achievement of Profound Weapon linking a newly-Named Sword to its wielder’s soul was an extraordinary, spiritually uplifting experience to all of them.
I found myself holding court and a question and answer session with a number of experienced undead Casters. They were long locked in their power and unable to progress, but under Master Ben’s constant cajoling had managed to keep exercising their magic, and their skills had not decayed. All of them were Gold Scarab at the very least, and most of them had achieved the Pyreal and Platinum Scarabs tiers that I had no knowledge of. They were happy to expound about them while I was Infusing at the same time.
Mira had never been both the student and teacher to so many accomplished Casters, even if they were undead, and was giddy with delight at the chance to learn, teach, and brainstorm with them. Holos spun out around us as dead souls whose thirst for the knowledge and power of magic still hadn’t left them vied and collaborated under gently cajoled supervision towards a new and expanding field of magic.
If they couldn’t take advantage of it themselves, well, I was there to teach it to all I could, and that included their living descendants and other students.
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We ended up staying two full days.
Kris was busy giving instruction on ki usage. Undead couldn’t grow much, it being difficult for them to gain new Karma. But… they could reallocate old Karma from what they did know, and change it to something new.
Like, changing a ton of Karma dumped into the Sword Skill into a ton of Karma dumped into Melee Levels, and just shooting for the moon in it. As they gained Levels, they could also change the Karma dumped into Endurance and Health, especially since the Undead operated on Charisma and willpower instead of bodily vigor.
I, of course, was responsible for putting all those teachings down on something. I ended up having to Exemplar Surge for Reed, the Valence II spell that makes things flexible without inhibiting their hardness, just so I could make up thin stone plates that wouldn’t crack and shatter if handled roughly for Shaping and retaining the information.
There was nothing for it but to do the same thing on the Caster side of things as well, putting down the basic principles and introductions of the Artifice and Arcane systems from the Power of Ten. I put down how they could totally empty out their Creature Magic at the very least, and probably their Item Magic, pouring that Karma into the two new paths, along with Pool Theurge, and start bringing back some of the power they’d once held.
It wouldn’t be quick, nor would it be easy, and good communication between everyone on what worked and what did not was going to be essential to getting this done in a timely manner.
I also left Vivic Eternal Lights ablaze around the place, letting these Cursed dead know there was a way out, and there were Lights that even they could see in the gray and dark of their world.
If the Gotrok lugians came boiling down from the hills again, there was going to be a surprise.
---
“Get anything done that you wanted to?” Princess Kristi asked me as we headed out of the city staffed by the undead, leaving Master Ben Ten and his new ‘tea set’ behind for him to enjoy.
There was no accompaniment by the undead, as we didn’t want to draw more attention to us from seawards. It was entirely possible that they were paying attention to us and the movement of undead troops, if as no more than a curiosity and because they were able to.
The undead troop patrol had moved out the day before, heading out along the peninsula to make sure there were no surprises waiting. We didn’t expect any, but the lugians might have gotten their knickers up for some revenge.
If they came back, there wasn’t going to be any mercy this time. That would be the other side of the ‘don’t piss off Heaven’ story, and oddly enough, the first one being delivered meant the same people could deliver the second one without actually physically doing so.
The Deep might have tried something, too, after we took out another of its temples. Another, because right down in the Mayoi harbor I was shown an old temple the Deep had once had its moarsmen throw up there, right in the face of human aggression, back when it was nigh impossible to destroy buildings easily. Its minions were tied to the Summons points and kept respawning, impossible to keep away, just like it couldn’t stop the local humans from going down there and killing them over and over again.
Obviously it didn’t care much about the psychological well-being of its servants. They were there to die at its command, and it had so commanded.
After the Fall? Not quite so lucky. The Mayoi undead had razed the temple with great energy, in doing so disrupting the ley line structure and any of the spawn points involved. If minions of the Deep tried to rebuild it, they were summarily chopped apart and turned into chum for the waters to disperse… by which point I was informed that sharks did exist here, but only the smallest of them could breach the Shoreward, and weren’t really a threat to humans.
The route we took was overland to the south, to the Islandwatch Villa sitting alone there and looking out over the sea towards the islands. Having been introduced to the fact that we could make magic items out of some of the salvage from those places, Master Ben Ten was quick to haul out what stores of pyreal and other coins he had recovered and stashed away about the place, putting my instructions on Artificing to the test eagerly.
Plans were now to stop at the Villa, loot it, and then move a couple miles further down the coast to the Mayoi Mansion that also looked out over the southern beach. Once that was Sifted through, we’d proceed through the small Cottage town a few miles further along.
From there, we’d go down to the beach, line it up, and make a beeline over the waters to Kryst.
“Twenty-five days. I am fifty Mastery Advances behind optimal allocation of Karma. I’ve finished both Lore Theurge and Lyric Theurge, and will be taking my first Archwizard advancement come dawn. I do, however, have Hydrous Spell online, and I’m sure you saw me practicing it yesterday. I’ve got it Weirded up to Valence II.”
“I did. I also heard you were making some progress on cracking your third taper?” Kris asked with interest.
“The undead are diligent collectors of herbs, if not gardeners, and I’m sure you visited some of the small mines they control around the city. The assembled masters theorized that since I didn’t respond to any of the prismatic tapers they had in supply, it is likely that my taper is made of a derived substance not normally found or employed in them. I believe I might have found the solution.”
“Oh? That didn’t take nearly as long as you expected...”
“Serendipity. It was because I brought up these.” I held up a glittering crystalline scarab in my hand, refracting the moonlight we were traveling under as we headed up the low hills towards our first stop.
“A Diamond Scarab?” the Mick asked, listening in from where he was trotting off on the side. Like before, the Marks made it easy to talk without actually taking any breath to do so.
“I had no idea that these were not a spell tier, and asked if they represented a separate branch of magic or something.”
“Ach, me apologies, lass. I knew the answer t’ that. Nay, the Diamond Scarabs are carved from the hearts of Diamond Golums, fething nuisances that they are, an’ are used to channel an’ control additional energies inside a spell. They be used in Ring and Wall spells, and some of the more custom Recall spells that were employed.”
“So the masters informed me. But… they react to my magic.”
“Aye, now? That be interesting...”
“I posited that since I have a black/light theme going on, and the crystal took the bright side, obsidian might very well be the counterbalance.”
The Mick chewed that over. “Obsidian, now? Not onyx, nor coal… I can’t think of anything anywhere that uses obsidian as anything more than ornamentation, lass...”