With the Harmonic Drive ensconced in ever more ships, ever more details on its use, and an ever-expanding array of Phlo Rivers to follow and use, exploration of the surrounding systems began to explode in details never undertaken by the survey ships of the Empire.
The Empire had to use the Warp to move from star to star, as sublight propulsion would simply take far too long to be viable. Naturally, whole groups and clusters of stars were missed as the scouts tried to concentrate on the most viable, and then such ships ran into alien empires, forgotten worlds, strange horrors... or other humans who wanted such knowledge kept quiet and confidential, and killed them and kept such secrets to themselves. In other cases, human colonies lost for thousands of years could be stumbled upon. In many cases such were extremely reluctant to be rejoined to the great Empire of Humanity, and fought such sublimation energetically.
Too energetically, and they might be Omega Sanctioned, which was almost inevitable if they’d fallen into worship of the Warp Gods.
Being able to move from system to system in real time, without the threat of the Warp, allowed for far more thorough and easy investigation of all neighboring systems, which could now be explored in an easy and thorough manner... barring the natives of the systems taking energetic opposition to their presence, of course.
This was the primary occupation of the Alias Smith and Jones teams, who shot off along the Phlogiston Rivers to see where they led, gathering more data, and finding out more information about the neighbors of Janus III. Some stayed in the Phlos that were discovered, some made direct transits if they couldn’t locate anything to a nearby star, but in any case more data was being gathered, gravitics assembled, and the ease of locating new Phlos was ever-increasing, while sensor calibrations and ranges were also extending ever further out.
Naturally, such explorations encompassed all the nearby systems... six of which were occupied by goblins, one was a Tekron Creche system, one turned out to be a waystation managed by the Greys where various Aberrant races mingled to trade, and another had an old Mechanist research and relay station keeping a very low profile... and relay coordinates and supplies for an armed force to snatch up if need be.
The other systems were empty of life, but they did have Energized materials that could be mined out in relative obscurity. One ended up having a derelict cargo ship being used as a base of operations for a pirate squadron, and Fleet got very interested in paying that system a sudden visit for some excitement.
A handful, then a dozen, then dozens of systems every day were being scanned in detail, and added to updated navigation records kept only in the Markspace and The Map. Space was blooming around Janus III, and the only limits on resources seemed to be how much they could produce.
Ergo, those systems had to be developed. The first Tachyon Drive was fit onto a cargo ship that could haul mining equipment and printers that could print printers that could print mining equipment. Development began, and more little mercantile kingdoms were starting in the stars, coordinating with one another in ways that those managed and owned by non-Ranthas simply could not.
Production lines for GAMT shiplines were coming into service, while lines once devoted to making hulls for standard ships of the Imperial Fleet were relegated to basically replacement parts. The Coronal and Umbran ships, as well as the MF Gunboats and Indy-class Explorer boats, had their own devoted lines, but the processes were put in place for the first true warships for the system fleet, and resources retasked from old AMT models to the new lines, ensuring that production took off like a rocket.
Improvements in production technology that hadn’t changed in millennia were put into place, and databases guarded by Mechanists were quietly raided, or their end products analyzed and reverse-engineered by ungodly intelligent Hagbloods with a mad on for newer, better, stronger, a mindset heavily disapproved of by the Empire and its cyborg tech overseers.
------
The clearing of the Janus Warpzone was accelerating. More Ranthas and Briggs were coming in, assembling their own Allegiances of Green and Gold, and heading inside to grind up Levels. Since the Warped idiots not in direct conflict with them were still shooting one other, numbers of them were dropping, clearing the amount of territory more and more, and the Warpzone had been totally ringed by literally millions of mindblade-wielding young men and women at this point. Every soul with the Emperor’s Gift who had not fallen into the clutches of the Warp that the megacities could turn out was coming in there to gain Levels as Beacon psions.
The Thunder Bulls had slowly built themselves up to three hundred-man companies, and were continuing the process of building more and more. They did find themselves often in competition with the Hagbloods for prime talent, a competition they lost more often than they won... but given the quality and number of their recruits, it didn’t disturb them at all. The building of a Battalion of new Legionnaires had never been a rapid thing unless undertaken at a Crown or Throne World, as getting proper recruits was the hardest part of the process. By the standards of the Empire, they were still growing at an incredible clip.
The great additions to their training programs were also being worked out and refined by the Thunder Bulls and the psions working with them. Having plenty of enthusiastic targets helped plenty with the regimen and working out appropriate tactics, and psychic healers being around helped even more.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
They were also designing their own devoted light cruiser, and working on upgrades to the standard issue support artillery and war machines. There were a bunch of light mech users very interested in working alongside the Legionnaires, and there were some discussions about the Bulls forming hearts of small Battalions of their own mixed forces. The Warp Zone gave them plenty of opportunities to practice command and control of mixed forces, after all...
----------
Getting into Gloomheart wasn’t all that hard. The drow were remarkably welcoming of new meat coming into the city. Getting out of the city, now, that was considerably more difficult. The drow had an endless thirst for slaves and sacrifices, and non-drow leaving the city were either slaves trying to escape, or people trying to escape before they became slaves. Actual merchants and dealers tended to be slave dealers coming with wares to the drow for use.
Naturally, the drow could vat-grow unlimited amounts of sentients, but such were basically useless for buying off the Warp Gods, and in any event were limited in skill and appeal. Sure, if they wanted some slave armies to go at one another in a bloody rip-up, vat-grown could do the job. But for fun and entertainment, sacrifice on the go, and the delightful feelings of dread, despair, fear, and such they could inspire, freeborn sentients were much preferred.
So, infiltrating Gloomheart wasn’t actually very difficult. We literally just started walking towards the outermost walls.
The area ahead of us was filled with hundreds of figures flitting around and making runs at one another, with flashes of light and glitters of steel dancing between them as they zipped through the air like so many jousting wasps.
“Gutterboarder gangs having it out,” Jensa scoffed. “The guards must have shooed them out of the city, given the size of the fight.” We watched dark elves getting spitted, hacked, shot, and cloven, falling from their racing boards to the ground, ignored by everyone around them.
“Shall we start building our reputation?” I inquired of the girls, and they all smiled with me.
It wasn’t hard to get noticed and start a fight. We just started looting the dead.
I, of course, started to use my newest toy.
Making Twelve opened up two Item Creation Feats; specifically, Staff Creation, and Ring Creation.
Staves were the most ubiquitous, flexible, and powerful of Casting Implements, and any Caster or Psion worth their salt wanted one. Sure, sure, you could make Weapon Staves as soon as you could make a Sword. But making a Staff that could hold magic, expel charges to create spell effects, be recharged, and do them all at the same Caster Level as the holder, effectively toting around extra Valences of specific spells for them... that took a Twelve.
In the Power of Ten, nobody had ever managed to make a True Staff, and the only people who wielded them were the first people to complete specific Quests, instantly making them famous in the Game. Such things also came with in-game obligations, as they were powerful toys with great significance.
Getting a Staff made in the Empire was a weighty thing, often requiring cooperation between Mentats and Mechanists to construct. A macabre obsession with skulls meant the things were often headed by replicated versions of the wielder’s own skull, creating greater resonance with the toy, and they became the favored weapon of whatever high-level mentalist was wielding them pretty much without fail.
Rings now, Rings were different.
Rings were usable by anyone, and used the unique Rings Chakra, the unique paired Chakra point in the palm of the hands. Because of that Chakra point, Rings could accommodate magic that normally would be centered on lesser Chakra points with ease and power, enabling you to put in all kinds of magic at half the cost of other Creation methods, and some unique powers that could only work in the Ring Chakra.
There had only been one Ring in the game, a complete fluke that the maker had never been able to duplicate. His Ring had seemed like nothing special... until those players who were able to do so unlocked the power of being Sustained, realized what Aelryinth had managed to do, and likewise kept it quiet.
He was the first person to be Sustained, and so the first person to macro in the game. We all wondered just how powerful he was, but he never got onto the leaderboards anywhere, and didn’t even make Ten before the end of the game, as far as we knew. It was impossible for him not to, so what exactly had he been doing?...
Regardless, I could now healthily abuse all sorts of damn rules by being able to Create Rings.
Now, powerful effects take a damn long time to power up, and this Ring I was wearing was no different. I had been dropping a LOT of nexal stones into the damn thing for months to power it up, and I finally got it to working.
I now had me a Ring of Telekinesis!
I could have picked Elemental Command, but the magic would have been Warp-susceptible, and I wasn’t going to do that. Telekinesis was perfect thematically (I now haz Ubah Forz Powahz!) and best of all, it was a mental action to direct it. Normally this would mean not fighting, but someone wearing said Ring had multiple thoughtstreams perfectly happy to do all sorts of fun stuff in the real world, while also doing other things.
Telekinesis is one of the most powerful, useful, and versatile Caster effects there is, bar none. It is effectively Reach without having to use an actual limb, so people can’t chop it off, break your fingers, or leverage your wrist or anything. You want something to move, you move it.
However, telekinesis is not formless. You are literally grabbing something and manipulating it with your mind. Telekinesis can only grab solid objects. You need hydrokinesis for liquids, aerokinesis for gases, and pyrokinesis for plasmas. You want to manipulate energies, each of them requires their own effects.
Furthermore, telekinesis is not psychokinesis, which is force projection. The Ring couldn’t shoot force bolts. I could grab people and throw them against objects, but I couldn’t slam a kinetic fist into them.
I could, however, grab a solid object and slam/punch/thrust THAT into them, but that was basically wielding a weapon... strange, that...
The number of discrete objects I could manipulate was equal to the Caster Level of the TK, plus Intellect bonus, so in the neighborhood of thirty. The total amount of damage or force that could be unleashed was subject to Caster Level, and the weight limit equivalent in strength. I had Heightened the effect to VI, so fifty pounds per Caster Level, or a base of 600 lbs at this point. Converted to Strength, that was equal to a 24 or so Might.
No, I wasn’t going to be levitating any starfighters at this point. Jedi were stupid ridiculous strong by Powered standards. Only Warp sorcery, where psionics magnified magic, was that powerful!