It was definitely magical, as it was glowing to my Vatic sight, and unlike the other stone that had appeared in my hand, the Rune inside it was glowing with faint power.

I did not, however, recognize it, nor did Mira. Another thing dropped on us when we materialized?

I held it up in front of my eye, and then pushed at the Rune mentally.

There was a vroop and a sheathe of magic crawled over my skin and settled in.

It was a basic form of Barkskin, reinforcing my skin. The rune inside had dimmed, but I could see magic starting to eke back inside it, recharging it. I eyed it, the structure of the spell on my skin, and instead fed one into the other, basically continually extending the duration of the spell it had put in place on me as long as I carried it, so I wouldn’t have to key it again.

That done, I found a tiny pocket in my satchel the die-sized stone could sit in, and raked my eyes over what else was in there.

Everything in the satchel was basically stored in little jars of glass or crystal. There were the fingernail-sized scarabs, wrought of alloyed metals, runes on them storing the pattern and initialization energy for the mana they helped gather into a spell. The little jars of herb leaves, roots, and cuttings determined the nature of the mana for the spell. The small jars of powdered stones filtered out impurities. The little jars of tinctures aligned the spells with specific magical elements or functions. The talismans sent the energy out into the world in specific forms. The tapers were used as a suppressant to alleviate any stress between one’s magical aura and the field of magic, venting any irregularities by burning off the magic in arcane fires that did no damage, but made sure there was no friction passing through that would be harmful.

More powerful spells had more irregular elements in them, which disrupted the components of the spells and slowly used them up. The more mana was sent flowing through them, the faster they were used up.

I so had to apply No Material Components to this brand of magic. It only remained to figure out how, but I didn’t think it would be that hard. Given the nature of the spells, I should be able to get away with mental constructs alone, and only need to keep the scarabs.

Maybe I needed a higher quality level of scarabs that wouldn’t burn away...

I assessed the numbers of contents we had left, tying them directly to my Visual File and updateable with basically a touch and a glance.

Only ten Copper scarabs. Those things were expensive.

Something rustled.

I tensed up for just that second of surprise at the sound of movement, then forcibly relaxed. I exhaled and tried not to hiss as I murmured, “Armor,” casting the spell with a Valence II for the slightly increased effect.

Force Magic gathered and flowed around me, different than the little blue crystal had done, and settled into a layer of flexible force just above my skin, as opposed to on it. Armor, vs. natural armor, of 3, +1 per Valence it was Cast from.

Argent Savant Mastery/2 increased the effect by +2. So, +7 Armor, roughly equal to a suit of fine mail from head to toe, good for three hours.

Shield I’d put up if I thought there was need. In the meantime, offense was probably a better idea.

The movement I heard was like the patter of small feet, kind of squelching? I watched calmly as three figures that only would have come up to my chest scuttled out of the passage over there.

Little mushroom men? The Assay that was still up flickered over the things that looked like brown-grey bipeds the size of children wearing wide toadstool hats.

Hungry Thrungus?

I had no sympathy for mushroom folk and their spores at all. I focused on Mira’s understanding of War Magic, which was made up of simple but powerful evocations.

The spells she’d been taught and used seemed very simplistic to me, especially the fact the more powerful ones were quite slow and easy to dodge. But that’s not what I was doing here.

Iron, red taper, hawthorn, onyx, verdigris tincture, and birch, the talisman of war.

“Zojak Quati.”

The fringes of their caps vibrated as they turned on the sound of my voice in the darkness that didn’t bother me, and if the magic gathering to me was visible, it didn’t last long enough to make a difference to them.

The power of Whirling Blade II rotated down into the Cantrip I drew out, a simple Force Dart doing a whopping d4 damage base... but oh, there were some additions.

Argent Savant Mastery/1. Shardcaster Mastery/1.

I had thirteen Class Levels, which meant thirty-nine Mastery Levels, albeit none of them higher than /2.

Shard-type spells, first rule: If you Cast as a full-round action, you got another Shard. That even applied to the Cantrip-level Dart variants.

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Shardcaster Mastery/1, gain +1 Shard when Casting Shard spells.

Argent Savant Mastery/1, the masters of Force energy. I dropped the power of the spell into those Darts and divided it among them as the source of their energy. +2 to hit, +1/die of damage.

I was right at the edge of thirty feet away as they were coming toward me quickly, homing in on the faint light. Sneak Attack damage applied, +1d6, +2d6 with Way of Shadow I tacked on, Sniper Talent for extended Sneak Attack range. Thank you, Scout Level.

Holy Metas, Sanctified Spell. Cost +1 Level, spell is Good. Spells do +1d6 Holy damage for each Good boost you have, chosen among Feats, Mastery, Class Abilities. Good Domain Class ability; Holy Metas Mastery; Good Domain Focus.

Hey, +3 to Caster Level, too, from the Domains and the Good Reserve, too.

Zealotry Mastery/1, Good: Good spells that would normally harm only Evil will also harm Neutrals.

“Ceremony of the Frozen Soul,” I murmured, and spent nine Levels of Karma to activate the Druidic Ritual.

My skin was too dark to really show it, and I was sure my eye color shifted to icy blue, my hair was already white. My blood swirled and my body temperature dropped like a rock. The cool air of this place suddenly became irrelevant as cold, clear energy flowed through me.

Snowcaster Masteries/1 and /2, activate! +2 Caster Level and +2 per die of damage as coming from a Cold creature, spell has Cold keyword.

Traits: Magical Lineage (Shards); Warcaster Tradition: -1 each to the total cost of Metas attached to Shard-type spells.

Signature Spell Metamagic Feat: +2 to Caster Level and -1 to total mana cost of Metas applying to chosen spells. Superceded/Evolved into Spell Thesis.

Metamagic Feat: Banespell: Pick a creature type. Your spell does +2d6 more damage to creatures of that type, and the save DC increases by 2. Applies to each tick of Damage over Time spells.

The three Darts began to spin around end over end, like whirling shuriken or rotary saw blades. They hissed out with a sound like screeching steel, trailing glittering stars of ice, force, and Holy light as they did so.

I wasn’t sure how much damage the things took, but I was sure the +7d6 of damage on top of the Whirling Blade’s split damage of +8-16 each +7 Warcaster’s Edge didn’t hurt the results at all when they were caught in mid-charge.

The foot-wide blades exploded into the mobile fungus-creatures and tore them wildly apart in a bright display of gleaming blades shredding pale pulsating insides, scattering pale pseudo-flesh and drops of mucus all over the dust of the area.

I waited calmly as mana flowed back into me, taking a couple minutes to replace the Iron War spell I’d just fired off, and then attempted to fill the II Valence Slot I’d spent on the Force Armor back up.

I couldn’t make the connection to the II Slot. The resistance to the mana flow was too high.

I eyed my Pool Theurge/1 Class Level, and just nodded to myself. I would have to restrict myself to I’s I could refill for now. I had a lot of Class Levels to take yet, something Mira still found amazing and strange.

I eyed my 252 Mana and otherwise full Slots, staying alert for anything else that might want to join the party.

I had twenty-four sets of Shards in a row there with my Pool, in addition to my five Sorcerer Slots, which was a LOT of firepower. I could refill them all in, what, fifteen minutes, if I did nothing else?

The explosion of force blades shredding these creatures had not been quiet, but considering each of them had 40 Health by the Assay, I had absolutely no problems with the overkill.

I was also sure something else would be coming, and flicked up my Shards, tapping War Magic/1, Delimit Spell.

Caster Level base 3, +2 Snowcaster, +2 Good, +3 Silver Magic Domain Theurgy, +2 Signature Spell. Modified CL 12 for 6 Shards, +1 Shardcaster, +1 Full Casting.

Eight wedges of deadly force spun up around my hand, gleaming with Holy energies, waiting for anything else I could throw on them as well, and the surging download of an Iron War spell danced among them.

There was a chitter that sounded uncomfortably like a very large insect, and I swore to myself. Bugs often traveled in packs. I did not want to carve my way out through a hive, but I might not have a choice here.

The clicking of carapaced feet on the floor was not quiet. I held my Wand and the eight Shards circling about it behind me, out of sight of the entry, and heard stone scraping on something as the pace of the footsteps picked up.

I blinked when it appeared. I had definitely not expected to see some sort of beetle-thing standing on two skimpy legs that somehow supported a full rounded glossy-black carapace, two small middle limbs with clip-like claws, and two higher pedipalps that gleamed like axes or picks extending above it, ready to chop down, maybe arc sideways against an enemy.

The entryway coming in was basically made exactly to fit it, carved through the stone. I eyed those chopping appendages, and a flickering, magical green light seemed to boil subtly on them to my Vatic Gaze.

That was definitely some form of magic at work, likely an acidic attack, and its eyes were actually gleaming in the dark with some form of internal energies. Explained how it cut through the stone using organic tools...

Okay, it still looked like a bug, but the way it was looking around was not insectile. This was some sort of magical being, either an aberration, which was unlikely if it belonged to a hive, or a magical beast.

I picked the latter, moving fast as Holy and Banespell stacked on the spell, my thoughts racing as quickly as they could.

Those things had probably been what chewed through the stone, the wooden doors, the iron doors, and the people here. Magical probably meant resistance to magic!

Spell Penetration/1 and /2, the first being +2 to Spell Penetration rolls, and the second a Metamagic, Piercing Spell at +1 Valence for +5 Penetration! I was pretty sure that if I didn’t manage to kill this thing quickly, I was going to die.

It was sniffing at the air, the spores of the dead mushroom men likely confusing it for the moment, but it had been attracted by either the sound or feel of the magic going off. It was turning towards where they had died, looking my way...

Looking at a person of cold who was nothing but a black blot in infravision.

What type of War Magic?

-The shell is chitin, it should be brittle. Use Shockwave!- Mira suggested crisply.