Dusk Renewal, Night 17...

    Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

            For a moment, I thought I’d been advanced into a second Level finally, but no.

            Noble/1. Leadership. Charisma Mastery/1.

            I groaned at nobody in particular. It had taken all of my choices. Perhaps smirking that I STILL couldn’t advance to a Two.

            It had also maxed me out in Diplomacy, and given me another point into Lore/History, meaning all my studying on the basic history of the country was getting more focused on specific places and individuals.

            I already knew I was going to be doing a lot of reading in my down time, since there was only so much akashic learning I was going to get out of grabbing Ranks. In short, the more I knew, the more the akasha could splinter out into specifics, building upon and broadening what I had learned without it.

            2 Ranks already made me informed of recent history to a far higher degree than most of the population, except for local information that would trickle in over time... or I would go look up and have built upon rapidly.

            I brought up my Visual File of spreadsheets on what to take, dismissing several of them straight off as my plans had shifted once again.

            There was literally no Class I knew of that I could still take... except maybe Magewright, and that was basically an NPC underclass of Artificer, subsumed by it the same way Warrior was subsumed by Melee and Archer.

            So, tomorrow I would be taking my first Two. I wanted that to be Melee/2, for one reason only... maximum amount of Soak possible.

            It was a minor and stupid reason, and it would only work for two Levels... but since there was no reason NOT to do it that way, I’d take my four additional Soak, thank you.

            The key thing would be my first Level to hit Four. That would be my Primary Class, and I wanted that to be Sorcerer.

            Once I hit Four... things could advance rather quickly. I should be able to shoot right to Nine in Casting within a week...

            In the meantime, I was going to have to take some Theurgic Levels.

            I had the equivalent of five trips to Ten of Karma... taking ten Levels at Nine. Although Levels at lower Levels were still much cheaper than taking them later... I definitely did not have the Karma to take twenty Classes to even 10/6x, let alone taking the Theurgic and Archclasses to complement them...

            So, I would be getting to Six, and then I would be needing massive amounts of Karma, because getting those Secondary Levels at Eight and Ten was going to be taking ungodly amounts of Karma.

            That was fine. As soon as I had Nine Casting, my offensive power was going to reach a new Level... and more importantly, so was my Crafting ability.

            I had confirmed that humans who took their racial Caster Level advance at Human/2 were still considered Sixes and couldn’t take 7 Ranks in a skill. Faux Sevens. But I could already take six Ranks as a One, a nod to the fact that I was regaining core knowledge, not accruing new knowledge, and so purely intellectual limits were much looser.

            By hitting Nine Caster, I should have the same limit on Ranks, which was important for Spellcrafting... and I would have access to a LOT more key spells. I would be able to make magical items literally no one else on the planet was capable of with my multi-disciplinary Casting.

            So many rep counts required... I sighed despite myself.

            Still, the Karma was coming, and with Levels came more Slots, and more spells per day. I was now in basically a ‘safe’ place, so expending all my Slots every day was basically a given. But I couldn’t work on Weirding Metas until I had at least my II’s open.

            Annoying...

            The implications of taking a Noble Level were apparent to me, if not to an outsider.

            It wanted me to build an Allegiance!

            A Noble was considered a Monarch of the appropriate Rank for granting benefits to their Allegiance. It was a minor benefit, and certainly didn’t excuse a Noble’s lack of personal power at all... but it meant that a deposed king who was a Noble/10 with ten followers to his name provided the same benefits to his followers as a non-Noble Monarch with 100 million followers would...

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

            The Class had average skill points, one good save, average Hit Dice, average AB... but a Noble was still made to be followed. It was a Class purely there to rule and lead others. You literally had to be born into a ruling family or be a political authority to take Levels in it.

            Nothing I’d read indicated that the natives of this world had stumbled onto the Allegiance system yet. If they had, the nations of this world would have factionalized further, swearing under this or that other powerful individuals, and their loyalty would absolutely trump that to any particular nation, race, or landmass.

            Or at least, if it didn’t, their Monarch probably didn’t want them, either. Loyalty and Duty were the twin coins of an Allegiance.

            Here I was, a One sitting in the heart of Heavenbound Hall, probably the greatest center of Good on the planet, and the forces driving me wanted me to become a Monarch.

            Mmm. I knew I could do the job, and I’d be good at it. It would probably be vital if and when I cleared off the Shroud and everyone lost a collective enemy.

            But I was also aware that I didn’t have the name or recognition to truly be a Monarch right now... but I would soon.

            I eyed the page of gold leaf before me, wrought and written with graceful lines and arcane formulae, glimmering with power.

            This would definitely be making an impression when I walked up before the Council of Heavenbound Hall in the morning...

            After all, I had an Oath to Sylune to discharge. This would definitely be the start of me raising my prestige... building on my introduction of the Human Tongue...

------

            I entered the Council Hall after all the High Councilors had taken their seats. Heads turned my way in interest... I had been working up until half an hour ago, and so hadn’t hobnobbed with any of them, so they hadn’t been able to sound me out, and probably try to recruit me to this or that faction.

            There were over a dozen of them, although this number wasn’t fixed. A power reserved for the Heavenbound Councilor was to grant additional seats on the Council as he deemed fit. Seats vanished when the holder retired, but typically new Seats were granted to a successor, and he could grant any person he wanted a temporary seat here if he wished for a session. Both were powers he was scrupulous about using, and never to just advance his own agenda.

            That right was granted him to allow different viewpoints to be heard, especially those that might exist within a specific Church. After all, different Orders in the Churches had very different goals, some of which might be inharmonious with the goals of other Orders, or at the very least, fight for the same amount of attention.

            The High Heavenbound was a man by name of Piotr Gorky, a Russian-born Warlock who had been under Pact for almost sixty years, and definitely the longest-serving Heavenbound on the planet. He was an expatriate from his homeland, fleeing the Shroud that had devoured virtually all of northern Asia.

            There were two representatives of the Church of Aru, by their robes representing the Orders of Spring and Autumn, which basically represented urban workers and rural communities. There were two representatives of Harse, the one from the Good/Community side representing justice for the living, and the Law/Dead side representing justice for the dead. The other Churches only had one representative each, and the chair marked for Valus was unoccupied, as Champions were meant to be on the Quest, not sitting at a table. The Mitharn chair opposite it was occupied by a steel-haired Paladin with hard eyes who’d likely seen almost as much stuff as Master Gorky.

            There were five non-Divine associated people in attendance. The sole gnome had that lean and hard demeanor of an intelligence operative, for which the race was quietly renowned for.

The sole hyn had shaggy brown hair, a wide smile, and the cool smarm that came naturally to businessmen.

The third was a massive fellow all chopped up and put back together bigger... a scarred and intelligent flesh golem who was in charge of training new would-be Warlocks and other people up.

The fourth was a dark-haired man with intense, intelligent eyes and an arcane aura, Master Polniebo. The Church of Sylune naturally had connections to any Good-aligned Casters, but in the end, their first obligations were to the Church and the goddess. The Artificers, Alchemists, Magi, and Wizards naturally wanted their own representative on the High Council, who weren’t so concerned with matters of faith.

The last was an athletic woman with the aquamarine badges of an Ocean stylist; Mistress Hana, who basically represented the Dragon Warriors and Adepts based out of the Hall, which were not many. They had their own schools in other places where they taught their skills to their students.

The High Council basically ran the finances of the place, trained prospective templars, would-be Heavenbound, and other agents of the Churches here. All the Churches naturally had their own private grounds for training their people, but in this place, things revolved around the Heavenbound, who transcended the Churches and worked for Heaven directly.

They also had an angel on the premises who could grant those Heavenbound Pacts, and a Djinn noble, not in attendance, who could do the same for Air. Such things basically gave the place a lot of pull as a location to bring Good folk together and work together.

Different Churches had different ways and means of working together, and definitely didn’t want to work at cross purposes if others could profit unduly from the infighting. Heavenbound Hall was where a lot of the tensions and problems between different Churches came to be resolved in the interests of overall Good.

These people didn’t command their respective faiths, but they had a LOT of pull in them. Church-wide policies between the faiths could be and were drawn up here, and so the people here were some of the best and brightest in their Churches. Their own history said that most of the reigning hierophants of the various Churches had served in Heavenbound Hall at one time or another.

And here I was coming to speak to them about them advancing me an unseemly amount of money to do things, on the basis that I could just pay them back later.

Well, no, I wasn’t going to come begging for money, that seemed rather silly. That was only necessary if I wasn’t going to stay somewhere and do some work.

They had been debating things before I came in here, and their expressions were definitely interested when they turned to see me walking in. The change in my eyes was noted with some surprise, and Master Gorky’s silver eyes visibly glittered seeing them, as he knew who I’d been down to see.

There was a short podium at the end of the table where people could go to speak, and be easily seen by everyone. I was waved to it without ceremony, and walked over to it calmly.

I wasn’t afraid, and I wasn’t impressed by them. I had been sliced off of a Fifteen, a massive Monarch from a world of Tens, with a full magical tradition. Neither the personal power they had nor the influence they commanded impressed me at all.

Nevertheless, I was here, and I needed to speak to them, and begin to build for the future here. The Human Tongue had given me the capital to speak here, and piqued their interest on what else I might be capable of... especially with such a lavish request...