The Artificers and Caster set were all over this new stuff, and another series of common designs from back in Terra-Luna were rolled out for appropriate compensation. I noted that the Tonfa-style design was actually the most popular, followed by the Jo, at least among combat mages. Those who preferred using Wands to Staffs in combat were very happy, indeed...
More gold into my account, more things for Powered to buy, stuff to drive the economy...
---
The only Ring working on the planet was also happy. Einz was storing a lot of my non-Essential Skill Ranks, and using them to provide me nice bonuses to specified skill checks. He still had a bunch stored up he hadn’t aligned to me yet, because the bonuses were still limited to +3.
Skill Ranks got more precious the further up you went. It was easy to get a bunch when your Levels were low, but much, much pricier later on. Many people deferred taking Secondary Classes just so they could apply Skill Ranks to increase their primary Skills, instead of going wide. I’d been lucky enough to have a cap of Six, and even then, I was throwing off some points on strange stuff...
Einz was giving me standard, Sacred, and Luck Protection +1, the ‘Dollars’ Format, i.e. Deflection, Luck, Resistance, and Sacred combo. With Favored by Faith, that was a nice +4 to my AC and Saves for half the price of doing it in the traditional way...
He was also giving me a Divination Ward at II, which stopped idle Scrying and other Divination spells III and less aimed at me. I wanted to improve that to a full Astral Ward, but that was 30 goldweight and days away whenever I chose to address it.
Death Ward was already confirmed and running active. That lowered the threat potential of anything but swarms of undead down considerably. No undead paralysis, drains, ability damage, or negative-energy damage or necroic effects. The only thing I had to worry about was damage or spell effects... which is why I had the Sun Saves and Rapid Refocus.
Now I was working on the ‘offensive’ power of the Ring, which was Control Temperature 10’ Radius.
Sure, it was a decent spell for going into a Firezone, as it could lower the temperature all around me to bearable levels... but if you were going into a Firezone without fire resistance, you were an idiot.
No, I was actually having the Angelos work on it, as he was the only one who could currently get it to CL15 in effectiveness... specifically, CL15 temperature reduction, and only for me. The rest of the area could stay limited at CL7, which was +/- seventy degrees to ambient temperature, with some effectiveness against cold or fire attacks, as appropriate.
-150 degrees meant I could be standing in the heart of the Sahara, or more pointedly, in a Firezone, and it would be below freezing. Ideally, it would be below zero.
At that point, ALL the Fellfrost Masteries were kicking in.
Snowcaster: give any spells the Cold descriptor, substitute fresh snow or ice for material component, cast actual cold spells at +1 level in freezing temperatures, or +2 when below zero.
Frozen Focus, +1 to Spell Potency, or +2, same circumstances.
Cold Specialization, +1 or +2/die of damage.
Ice Magic, +1 Straight up CL to Cold spells, or +2.
Fellfrost Prodigy, +2 or +4 to Casting Stat in same circumstances.
Naturally, this very powerful Mastery was only useful if I could make it cold around me all the time. I would have to use the area effect if I wanted to make fresh snow or ice that didn’t melt, but that was secondary. I could have done away with the area effect completely, but I liked having the option.
I had money to spend, and so I had spent it.
I would also need at least a point of Cold Resistance, but that wasn’t going to be hard at all... I still had the Summer and Winter Rituals’ shadows on my soul, I only needed to power them up again with Karma and Elemental magic.
The Ritual of the Burning Heart would give me the Fire Subtype. The Ceremony of the Frozen Soul would give me the Cold subtype. Temperatures would then not be an issue whatsoever, and without Primal or Divine power backing them, spells like that would be useless against me.
With a Blighter’s ability to draw on the Land, I was going to be able to suck the power to do this right out of that Firezone!
The only Coldzone I was personally aware of was in Antarctica, where it had been noticed from far in the distance by some explorers several decades ago, and confirmed still there by occasional airplane flights when the storms of the area were momentarily still.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Nobody traveled by ground in Antarctica. There were things active down there now that nobody would have believed existed before magic came... except people like Lovecraft, who was basically considered a mad prophet now for what had once been works of fiction.
Mmm. Wonder what he would have thought had he lived a decade longer...
Five wasn’t far. By my calculations, I had eight Levels to take as a Four, then I’d take Sorcerer/Five and things were going to explode. Five was going to involve a lot of Theurgic Levels, plus three Racial Levels... but that was fine.
I was going to be a fairly frail Ten as things went, but that was only relative to what I considered a Ten. To the locals, I’d still be abominably tough...
It was going to be a while before I hit my Racial/3’s, however...
Plans, plans, plans...
I had things to do, but starting my Allegiance would start after I firmly established my name. The fact that Allegiances were possible was going to turn over the world, as suddenly who could get the popular vote wasn’t going to actually mean anything. It was who you wanted to follow...
I was the death of democracy. I kind of smiled ironically to myself, wondering how that would work out. Somebody was going to want to start a theocracy, certainly, and the brain-washing and indoctrination would start at birth...
----------
“The night wind comes, the world now breathes deep...”
The coming of Dusk Renewal was kind of anti-climactic. I was a bit tensed, because if the Shroud threw me into some jiveass Primary Class, I was going to be soooo pissed, even if I couldn’t do anything about it.
I was singing Aethra’s Salute softly from up on a balcony on the Church of Sylune as the sun fell, a ball of hazy light behind the clouds that were such an eyesore to me. Not a whole lot of humans still alive still remembered stars at night, every night, and blue skies...
“...where rest the weary, and dream of the wind at dawn,” I finished calmly. It was the finish of many people’s gloomy days, but it was the start of mine.
No dings. Well, that was a bloody relief...
I ticked over Sorcerer/4.
I had maxed out my Inherent bonus to Dexterity earlier today, totally abusing Wishcraft for myself. The Windgraf was counting it as an investment in the future, and a reward for enabling him to finally personally contribute to the shattering of the Shroud. His Artificer Level was rising quickly, indeed, and he was counting out his Masteries...
Level-based Stat Raise. +1 to Intellect, Sustained Effort reflecting it to Dexterity.
No real effect after the Wishcrafting boosts...
Assign Skill Points. 9 from Intellect, 2 from Class...
It was going to be important for mastering the Sublime Chord Mastery and Celestial Magic, so five points each to Astrology and Astronomy, finishing them off at six each, and a point in Leatherworker, bringing that to five Ranks, meaning I could pretty much make anything out of Leather that I needed to...
Choose Favored Class bonus. Extra Spell Known, Level One. Base Spells known, 6/4/2, +1 Known for each Valence. Resist Energy joined Detect II, Elemental Orb I joined Enlarge/Reduce, and Hologram 0 went into Cantrips.
Base Caster Level at 4. My CL Mods with Shards were totaled +7 (+3 Good, +2 Signature Spell, +1 Healing, +1 Fire) so I was Casting at 11. That exceeded the limit of a Shards spell to generate new Shards, so I was going to have to use Delimit Spell to get the full array of them.
Increase in Base Caster Level to Four increased the power of Arcane Fist. The first Shard to hit something would be doing a 2-12 with Wolverine Mastery/1, Superior Unarmed Fist, subbing in and enhancing it.
The goal, of course, was to be able to hit multiple targets with Shards and do a lot of damage to them... and if I had to ladle them all onto one person, they would still do a boatload of additional damage.
Purchase Additional Feat and Mastery...
Feat: Aligned Theurgy!
I watched the energization and greater harmonization of energies within my Matrix, humming and synching up along channels of power.
Theurgic Classes in harmonization cast at the level of the higher Class. Aligned Theurgy allowed the Theurgic Bonuses to the lower Classes to apply to specific categories of spells.
Spells affected by Spell Focus Feats, or my Bloodline spells. That meant my Bloodline spells, all Good Spells, and all Cold Spells.
I could apply the Cold Descriptor to every spell I cast; it might not do anything if the temperature wasn’t low enough, but now, it would mean I was casting at +2 CL, and tomorrow that would increase to +3...
Mastery: Battle Magic/2: Split Ray!
This took one Ray and doubled it straight off, duplicating everything. Double damage for a +2 Meta modifier... and if you could reduce it to nothing, like I could if I applied it to a set of Shards or Darts that I was Spellwarping, I was golden.
Long range and/or single target punch. Just being able to double up the punch of the Darts was pretty good, as I’d lose the extra Sanctified damage going from two targets down to one otherwise, but with Split Ray, both applied.
Split Ray and Spellwarp combined to give me confidence I could take down some really big stuff, and truly punch above my weight. I didn’t have the Valences or recharge I wanted yet, but that was a different story...
So, why did I have this very sudden and uneasy feeling that my march to uberness wasn’t going to be so smooth? There was a pressure here that had suddenly magnified intently, crystallized almost, as if I was subconsciously aware of something vague and it suddenly had a time limit on it...
It had to be related to the Level, appearing so quickly. Level, no. New spells, no. Stat Raise, no. Skill points, n-
Blargh! The Autumnal Equinox was coming! My newly-reinforced Astronomy and Astrology Ranks, taken to chart the movements of the unseen moon, stars, and planets beyond the Haze, and the forces that responded to them, had naturally started catching me up to date on profound stuff going on, calculating and running through implications of certain dates and times and movements of celestial bodies...
The news smashed into my forebrain like a freight train of Duty, putting an immediate cap on a certain time limit I’d been revolving around. Saturday, September 22, was the Autumnal Equinox.
The baby boy!...