Chapter 1-16: Names are Words, Too... (1/2)
“Or maybe, instead of Banes, you had Ghost Touch, so you could hit spirits, right?” They all nodded quickly. “But you’re fighting zombies. Ghost Touch doesn’t mean squat. So, you switch to Flaming.” An aura of flame surrounded the dagger. “Or maybe Blessed.” A pure white light replaced the rippling flames. “Or Shocking.” Crackles of voltage snapped up and down the holo-dagger.
“So, it’s not POWER you get,” I said, making a rising gesture. “It’s versatility, and being able to have the right Weapon for the right opponent.” I made a widening gesture. “Options. It’s not something a Powered can’t duplicate a dozen different ways, but we can’t put it into a Weapon.
“The big thing is, you gotta start with a nice weapon. The kind of Weapon that makes someone who’s familiar with weapons go, ‘Ohhhhh, that’s DAMN nice!’, before you go adding magic to it.”
“And the stuff the army gives us won’t work, huh...” Dwayne asked, looking at the rifle, which I handed back to Pedro respectfully.
“No. It’s not badly made, but it isn’t a custom-made tool forged with love, sweat, and blood by a master craftsman.
“Magic loves master craftsmen. It loves things made with great degree of skill. Stuff made with production lines and mass-stamping can go take a leap, as far as magic is concerned. Magic is about people and how good they can be, not mass numbers. You want magic in mass numbers, then every single person has to work for it. It doesn’t just come to you. A craftsman without magic can make magic items, you know... just need to know the proper runecraft, and be good enough to do the job right... and by good, I mean DAMN GOOD,” I told them, before they could ask. “One of those people you see at work and just go fuuuuuuuuuck, that’s so smooth... not something a half-assed hobbyist can do. They are literally making something magical because they are just that good.
“It’s how most Dwarves do it, by the way. Most of the Rockborn aren’t Casters, but they are really good crafters and Runesmiths.”
Father Bower shook his greying head in wonder. “I have heard of Crafting magical items, but not like this, and did not know it could be done by those without magic. Do you know the basics of it?”
“No. I’m not a crafter,” Yet!, “and I’m not Primos. The techniques wouldn’t work for me. Static, y’see. I would just cheat wildly and weave magic into something like a smart person, but I’m not quite adept at that yet.” Meaning I hadn’t had time or the space to take the Item Creation Feats to do so!...
“Get a fine weapon. Name it. Fight and win!” Dwayne repeated, nodding repeatedly, almost to himself.
“And you probably want to stay away from automatic weapons.” He blinked at me. “Anything with spray and pray, where volume of fire makes up for skill... magic doesn’t cling to that stuff easily. Skill calls to skill, skill calls to magic. Fine weapon, fine wielder, makes a magic Name.”
“So, like a revolver, or a carbine, or a shotgun,” he nodded, getting the connection. “I got it. Make me a magic Weapon of my own!”
I hoped that would mean he wouldn’t try just shooting people on the street, but if it took no skill and had no risk, it wasn’t going anywhere, anyways. Sacrificing people to a weapon wasn’t about Naming it, after all. The whole principle was based on awesomeness, not butchery. Without that interplay of trust in the weapon and skill, it just wouldn’t work...
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Father Bower sent me out, with Dwayne escorting me. The young black soldier seemed to enjoy the job, and happily pointed out stuff and told me about the history involved here.
It had taken ten years to build the first layer of the wall across Long Island, and then they’d started over and built that first wall up to its present height. It had been kind of a competition, seeing if the undead could tear it down faster than it could be built up, and they’d gotten really good at putting it together and making it hard to take down. The modular units coming in linked together good and fast, and they could get an incredible amount of work done in a day once the crews knew their stuff.
It was a pattern soon replicated around the world, helping contain the undead spreading out from their Shroudzones and cities, and at least slowing them down, as fighting was generally pointless.
More to the point, it made it harder for undead to join the undead by wandering in from outside, called by the boss undead. As the numbers of undead commanded grew, so did the Shroudzone... and they couldn’t stop all the undead here. If they made it to the water, they’d just walk across the sea floor and be escorted into the Shardzone and recruited.
The number of walkers wasn’t high, as every effort was made to cremate or destroy the undead before that happened, but naturally they couldn’t stop everything.
I frowned as I considered how close the Shroudzone was to the wall.
Well, I could certainly do something to slow down the process, couldn’t I? Given some time...
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People were shuttling in via buses, having parked a couple miles back from the wall. I watched them dismount the unmarked buses, their demeanor a mixture of tension, anticipation, routine, and nervousness. They’d obviously done all this before, judging by their attitudes, but were still rightfully nervous of someone making an error, and having to face down a bunch of undead face to face, instead of picking on them from fifty feet away.
I followed them along towards the Wall, noting that pretty much all of them were Powered, and the ones that weren’t had magical Weapons tailor-made to shoot undead.
They were basically here to grind some Karma and work on their skills. Easy, empty xp that wouldn’t really have an effect on the world, since the undead would just be back tomorrow...
But so would they.