“So damn annoying,” I groused to Kris, making the mixing bowl. One of their Healing Kits, shredded into tiny bits to release the treated herbal essence within it, was the primary ingredient, although Locate Plants easily zeroed in on more supporting herbal reagents in the area I could use.

That was good, because we were going to make multiple Potions today.

“Calm yourself,” Princess Kristie said, amusing even herself as she said it, while pounding out one of the fixtures to be assembled on this machine with supernatural speed on her Floating Forge. “It’s actually not a bad thing. We should have more reserves than that handful of Potions you have inside the Wagon, too.”

“The Isparian System gives Stamina as a Pool resource that can be drawn from,” I stated, staring at the bowl I was Shaping as intricate Runes began to crawl all over it. I wasn’t empowering them, that would come from joint efforts of the Scouts, later. “However, combat endurance and these Healing Kit things seem to be the only thing it was good for, outside the Transfer Spells. Is there a way of Weaponizing the Stamina Pool? Among other things, its natural regeneration is MUCH better than mana, which in the end is an external power source. Is there something on the side that could use that?”

It was her turn to grow thoughtful. “Huh. You do know there is a stamina-based secondary system for Power of Ten, right?”

“My Martial Lore isn’t complete. I don’t have a lot of Ranks in the stuff, and that sounds pretty obscure. It doesn’t sound like something that was commonly used.”

“It’s not. It’s called The Enduring Road, and it was very limited in depth. It was sort of a tack-on to Combat Feats and Techniques. You spent Stamina to make the Feats more effective or useful in one way or another. However, you ran through the pool of points very quickly, as it was Con bonus plus Melee Attack Bonus, and you could go through up to five points per attack. Going through all of it left you fatigued, so normally you’d get off two to three things from the Pool in one fight, and you were done with it until the next fight.”

“Sounds like chi, except horribly weak and not renewing fast enough?”

“That’s not far from it. For the investment, it wasn’t a lot of return, but… the Isparian system is much more generous with Stamina points and replenishment thereof, even if it is ten to one.”

I glanced at my internal Assay, and couldn’t argue. Even a major physical wuss like me had 168 Stamina after the morning’s lever-throwing by Mira, and if it was 10:1, that was still 16 points of Matrix Stamina… for a low-Level non-melee character.

“Kris,” I asked slowly, “What are your Stats under the Isparian System?”

She glanced at me with a smirk. “You really want to know?”

“Well, your Stamina I certainly do…”

“Oh. Huh. Well, a Constitution of 40 works out to about 1000 Endurance under the scaling Isparian system.”

“I’m thinking that The Enduring Road under Isparian rules might be a lot more viable than before.”

Her pale violet eyes flickered. “You might be right. A freaking huge Stamina pool means it won’t be emptied in a few seconds…”

“And Revitalization and Stamina Replenishment spells would actually be useful.”

“It would get them back to the go-go-go power-rest go-go-go standard the Mick likes to talk about, and provide major boosts to melee combat if they can spend big chunks quickly, then get them all back,” she agreed. “They’ll need a Stamina of at least 400, then.”

If that could be invested in combat, forty points would still be only eight swings.

But eight swings at +5 could be MONSTROUS if they were the right swings!

“You said they accentuate Combat Feats. Can you give me some useful examples?” I asked her.

“Hmm. Well, the bonus to hit is the basic benefit you get if you take the opening Feat. Then the options open up on all the Combat Feats that you get. It’s just that you spend it so fast, and you don’t get it back in combat… huh.” She actually paused in the rhythm of her silent hammering on her Anvil there. “Unless you have Revitalizing as an Enchantment on your Weapon, which removes any fatigue or exhaustion you might have...”

“So, an option with Arsenal or Infusions…” I drawled. “Do we know how it would interact with a Stamina Pool?” I inquired.

“The effects say it removes fatigue and exhaustion with a successful strike. They don’t say anything about Stamina Pools, ergo, no effect on Stamina Pools.”

“Which isn’t logical. Wasn’t Revitalizing discovered before The Enduring Road was?”

“Well before,” she confirmed. “But it was a +II, a huge Slot cost for what it did on a Weapon. It would be awesome if you were in a day-long battle, but otherwise, just shoot yourself up a Lesser Restore, or use a Potion of Vitality, right?”

“And how would Vitality interact with a Stamina Pool?” I promptly asked, and she paused a beat once again.

“How does being Sustained?” she rejoined, frowning as she resumed her forging, the metal staying hot under her Shaping Hammer as she bent it with machine-like precision.

That caught me off-guard, and I glanced at Zeks. “Gives us all-day energy, but we can still become tired from muscle fatigue, it just won’t affect us mentally…”

“So if we can direct that energy directly into a Stamina Pool…” she murmured.

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I put a hand to my head. It was a completely new synergistic road for Stamina usage, and nobody had bothered to go down it because The Enduring Road had such minor benefits.

If there was rapid Stamina Pool revitalization, it basically became a poor man’s chi resource!

Kris held up a piece of metal that was going to be turned into a gear. “Sustenance is a constant effect across Vajras, Rings, and Pacts.”

“And Stars.” She glanced at me. “Five Stars to become Sustained.”

“Can its Valence be raised?” she asked shortly, putting the red-hot gear down where she could apply her Shaping Hammer and use its control of kinetic force like the finest of carving tools, her tremblesense amplified by the Anvil of Silent Thunder.

I opened my mouth and closed it. “I don’t know…” I admitted softly. “There were attempts to recreate it as a spell, but it just didn’t work without a foundation under it providing constant power. A continuity that would persist past Natural Renewal seemed to be required for the magic to function…”

“The Power of Ten system doesn’t really have directed magic that works with Stamina, does it?”

I eyed the massive wall of spells that Aelryinth had known of, across multiple Traditions. I knew what they did, even if I didn’t know how they all did it at the moment. One spell off that Arcane wall a day… “The only thing I’m really seeing is the Potion of Vitality, and the two Restoration spells, in addition to the Revitalization Enchantment. One prevents fatigue and exhaustion for a day, and the other two will Heal it away. There’s nothing that addresses Stamina directly…

“Even in the Dragons, I only know of Dragon Heart Surge to remove fatigue and exhaustion. Nothing for Stamina directly.”

“But there are effects, Feats, and Masteries out there that help regenerate other Pools?” she inquired calmly.

“Yes. Reaper effects, mostly. You get a point back when you crit or you kill something. There’s also a Pool Mastery where all those effects can agglomerate. I know that Arcane Pools, Ki, Heartsong, Channels, and Alchemist Bombs can all agglomerate in a master Pool. I’ve also heard the Ki and Luck-type Pools can also agglomerate that way.” Thanks to that Sending from Aelryinth on my way here for all of that, thanks Einz!...

“Also, there’s the blood or sacrifice effects, using kills to regain health, magic, or rage uses by either sacrificing or consuming parts of your enemy…” I stuck out my tongue as I remembered them. Vampiric effects, very dangerous to the soul to use...

“So, Revitalization might have a secondary effect of refilling your Stamina Pool at such-and-such a rate, much like Healing Edge does. It’s not a vampiric effect, after all… and that would be entirely reasonable for a +II Enchantment, right?” she asked, spinning the red-hot gear under her fingers while chatting, simple tunks of her Hammer making intricate teeth form perfectly with every tap, such that a high-tech CAD/CAM device might cry in envy at what she was doing with such primitive tools.

“… Might the two Vampiric Enchantments drink in Stamina, too?” I wondered.

“You came from a copy of a guy who lived in a magical world for ten years, and nobody bothered to ask these questions and find out the answers?”

“How old are your folks, again?” I countered.

She opened her mouth, closed it with a smirk, not looking at me. “Touche! Nobody looks at The Enduring Road stuff…”

“Picture a Revitalizing Weapon that could return 10-60 points of Stamina with every blow it lands, and what that would do for The Enduring Road.”

“It would make use of Stamina almost free…” she murmured under her breath, and just sighed. “Right under everyone’s noses, Ryin?”

“Once you add a regen mechanic, it is glaringly obvious that The Enduring Road is the prototype for chi usage. Are there damage-boosting effects in the Stamina use stuff?”

“Power Attack and similar Feats. Spend up to five Stam, add twice that amount in damage on your next blow.”

“Fire Dragonish?”

“Spend Stamina instead of AoO uses on multiple Feats.”

“Wind?”

“Increase AC bonus or reduce penalty of Combat Expertise for an attack, increase Dodge bonuses against the next attack…”

“And I assume Crystal Damage Reduction boosts, as well.”

“Yes, if only for one attack.”

The silence between us grew long and thoughtful. “So, huge Stamina Pools to draw in. Stamina Feats and synergies, recharge mechanics beyond the Matrix system, which might have counterparts in the Matrix system we didn’t know about because meh.”

“The only uses of Stamina in the Isparian system are combat endurance and Healing via those kits. If you dodge a blow or swing a weapon, you lose Stamina. That’s it. Other than those, it just sits there and does nothing,” Kris said, a kind of grim schadenfreude under her words. “I’m a Null, dammit. We should have seen this. Constitution and endurance is our thing, Ryin!”

“Five seconds of benefit once a fight for how much investment, and no supporting magic or disciplines?” I just waved my hand at her. “The Enduring Road Masteries were nothing much either, were they?”

She glanced to the inside of her head. “No. Increase the size of the Stamina Pool by one per, increase the recharge rate out of combat. A Reaper effect to gain a point from exultation on a kill or crit as a /5 on the recharge side.” The effects so mundane and expensive to use compared to use of Ki and the other powers that it was just ignored. After all, a Ki point could power a Lesser Restore, a Shocking Grasp, a Barkskin, a Cure Moderate Wounds, and any other number of effects, being like spending a II Valence from a limited spell list. Spending five times that amount for a lesser amount of damage was just silly.

Unless there was a vastly accelerated recharge mechanic.

“The Healing Skill they have is a confluence of actual knowledge of healing and the body with the ability to turn Stamina into Health and Soak. Can you use the Vigor aspect of Resolve to use the Healing skill for the same purpose?”

She swapped in a new gear to hammer out as she considered the idea. “Unlimited uses of Vigor?” she asked softly.

“Vigor converts damage to temporary damage which can be mended away naturally with decent speed, or counts double for Healing magic. If they actually mended Health directly-?” I trailed off.

“The idea of unlimited Vigor alone, powered by Stamina, would be utterly revolutionary, Ryin,” she said softly, resuming her work. “If it can actually Heal damage instantly, or be applied to others?…” she trailed off as we considered the implications.