Chapter 1-9: A New Night (1/2)

Ding! Ding!

That mental alert was very unwanted, even coming as it did on the heels of the healing rush that once again eased some of my ability damage (and my feet stopped throbbing). My guts didn’t feel so horrible, and I just felt understrength and stiff, not aching in all my joints.

I Assayed myself and found that I had for some reason been assigned a Level in Ur-Priest.

Ur-Priest!

I hit my head as I looked at it. That was a Class for Evil characters! It was intended for con men and agnostics who didn’t believe in ‘gods’, and stole the power of faith from the gods for their own use, typically setting up false churches and cults and things like that. They had no respect for any of the gods or their servants, and considered divine magic just another type of magic to be mastered by those smart enough to take it.

The gods didn’t exactly think the same, and so Ur-Priests were one of those people that tended to have multiple faiths and gods hunting them down for their theft of divine power.

I glared at it, even as I read the benefits.

Divine Casting Class, Prepared Caster, Wisdom-based... Okay, that meant... I got an additional Wisdom-bonus Spell, which I could fill right now.

I actually got two Divine Domains (but only one Slot, of course)... Darkness and Death. The first gave me Blind-Fighting as a bonus Feat, and a potential Domain Spell of Obscurement, a minor fog-producing spell. The second gave me Command Undead with Channeling, and a potential Domain Spell of Invisibility to Undead.

Well, that second one was definitely useful. I Slotted it, then Wrote it to Einz on top of that.

The connection I felt to the magic went up into the sky... and stopped right there in the Haze as I cast out for the connection, far shorter and more immediate than the ethereal link to an actual deity.

Because the Shroud stopped connections with the Divine... Under the Shroud here, you couldn’t contact the gods, and even the souls of those who died were trapped in it. The only way to get rid of it was to crush the Dead March that had brought it here...

I was stealing the faith and prayer power offered up to the gods and stolen by the Shroud... because I couldn’t reach the gods as a Shrouded character, anyways.

Since I could, I slotted Bless Water in my new Wisdom/Divine Slot. This was the spell that made holy water. There were some half-size Mason jars downstairs for canning, sitting on a shelf. They were a little on the big side, but if I could only make one and it proved useful, that was fine enough for me.

Through a crack in the window, I watched a zombie peel itself up out of the ground, literally pulling itself up out of the withered grass, clothing and all, as if it had been sleeping there and just decided to return. The flannel shirt and rough pants that hadn’t fallen off yet indicated it might have been a guy at some point, and it kind of stood there, gazing with withered eyeballs in the direction of the vanished sun, and then sort of looked around.

I kept an eye on it as it began to wander, wondering if it would investigate the dark window. The room I was in was completely dark now, and there was no sound and I wasn’t moving... but it could ‘see’ in the dark as well as I could, so nothing to do about that now.

I could Channel Negative Energy and Rebuke Undead, as a Death false priest...

Ugh. Introducing negative energy into the world was a Bad Idea. WTF did it give that ability to me? I would have chosen positive energy every time!

It did allow me to instead Rebuke Undead and take control of them as I wished... all 2 HD I could control at this time.

Fine, fine, it was what it was. Had it invested the skill points for me?

Yes. I rolled my eyes when I saw they were popped into Faith, all two points, bringing me to 3 there.

Glorious...

Still, Invisibility to Undead could be a total lifesaver. Unfortunately, it left me with only a Mastery for me to grab to upgrade my offense...

And what Feat had it chosen for me this time, praytell?

Beyond Good and Evil.

I lifted an eyebrow. That... wasn’t that bad, for me?

For Alignment-based attacks, you are considered to always be of the most favorable Alignment. You can ignore most consequences of violating your Alignment, as these are considered minor matters to the greater truth in your heart.

So... acting as an Ur-Priest and stealing faith was not consequential for me, nor was using negative energy, or controlling undead. I could probably even make undead without any real consequences, as I wouldn’t do it without a good reason.

It meant I could Cast Evil spells without Alignment repercussions, too...

Huh. Basically setting me up to be a necromancer who wouldn’t damn their own soul for using that kind of magic...

Left me with the Mastery. I sighed and took the only choice that was feasible at the moment: Sanctified Spell, first of the Holy Metamagicks Mastery.

The Holy Metamagicks were some cheap and powerful Metas, if all you wanted to do was fight against evil creatures and undead and stuff. Against non-Evil creatures, they were next to useless, and against Good creatures... well, you could drop a Sacred Fireball on top of a party of Good people fighting Evil people, and wipe the latter while not harming the former a bit.