Chapter 1-44: Plans Are Made (1/2)
“You can do it?” I raised an eyebrow at Briggs’ question. “You can raise the Haze? Break the Shrouds?” Briggs continued.
“Once I Level and get Geared, yes.”
“You’re certain?”
“There’s no goddamn way just they can stop me, yes.”
His big fists popped, and he looked at Master Fred, who had a similarly grimly expectant look on his face. “HOT DAMN. Getting an experienced PoT gamer with magic is going to make such a goddamn difference. I swore I’d find some way to bring down the Haze and the Shrouds, and I think I just did!”
His Sun swirled around me and past, and I suddenly had the distinct impression that I had been guided here by an external force... the Oath of a Source!
Well, wow. It had been a long time since I’d been blatantly manipulated like that. I was both impressed, and hated being a One. I hadn’t sensed anything...
“I take it you’ve had problems Leveling?” I asked him.
“You have no goddamn idea. Without vivus, there’s no way to perma-kill the undead. With vivus, you’re painting a target on your back from every Dark Warlock, Vampire, Ghoul, loose Fiend, Aberrant, and necromancer alive. The amount of money you need to get proper Gear is so damn hard to earn, and the wealthy naturally conscript all the Smiths they can for themselves. Plus, the Rank limit is basically Six, Eight for the Elves and Dwarves, so there’s severe restrictions on what can be made. For some reason scraping twenty-eight goldweight together so some elf who might not even know the spell can make something with Death Ward so the incorps don’t just gang-drain you is not easy.”
I sat back, frowning. It was naturally a money issue. Gold and the precious metals had value in being burned for making magic items. Naturally this would instantly cause scarcity, even as magic would be recondensing the metals in new veins to be recycled constantly. Said veins would still need to be found and mined, and there was no doubt the thirst for making magic items would make the metals scarce, indeed.
The Power Comps industry that found stuff to serve as supplements or replacements for precious metals was not well-developed, as a lot of it depended on profound timing, natural chances coming together, or the existence of magical beings or objects. Harvesting the last leaf to fall from a tree before Darkmoon on Midwinter’s Eve was worth a gold coin, 1/500 goldweight, towards anything enchanted of wood, or for necromancy. However, you had to catch it before it hit the ground, by hand or magic, not a tool... so no spreading nets, or something.
Such things were ways to make money, if you knew what you were doing, and what such objects could be used for. But you had to know what could and couldn’t be done.
Normally, the fastest way to learn all that was to Call in Soulborn and bargain for common magical knowledge. Celestials would generally be quick to disseminate common knowledge among Good people, so as to help them defend themselves, while other Soulborn would demand prices...
But average Celestials weren’t fonts of arcane knowledge any more than the average soldier would be, and so any that happened to be around and trapped under the Shroud likely wouldn’t have that level of knowledge available.
What had existed before the Shroud... well now, if that was involved with the like of Leng ghouls, that stuff would be maddening to learn and execute...
“What Level are you at?” I asked Briggs directly. While this was a ‘private inquiry’ in the normal world, instantly placing someone in a hierarchy, I was asking as a gamer, not to pigeonhole him.
“Six Expert and Melee, Four Archer, Monk, and...” he trailed off... “Do you have any idea what a Briggs Hagspawn Level is?”
I blinked. “No?” I had to reply. “I remember Sama was working on advancing along some Evolved Levels, she’s the only Hagchild Ael knew... You’re an Ancient, not a Hagspawn, right?” I didn’t see any skin coloration around him to indicate such a thing.
He pulled a Slate out of his pack, spat on it, and the Board glowed. He slid it across to me, and I picked it up with interest.
“Mithar and Sylune?!?” were my first words as I looked at that. I pointed at the Slate, jaw working a little bit. “Oh my freaking Shards, what kind of bullshit Racial Class is that?”
His grin was a little sheepish. “I know, right? But guess how much it costs to advance...”
I looked at the array of things tied to his Racial Levels. Ability modifiers, Natural Armor Class, Speed, Damage Reduction, Energy Resistances and Immunities, Fast Healing, Skill Points, Attack Bonus... and Source Matrix formation for Mana Retention. He got double Cha-based Matrixes as a part of his Racial Class!
And this was on top of his Source Inherent Bonuses!
I stared at the mess of crap he was getting. The goldweight value of it... damn, he only had four Levels in it, and he was getting so much stuff. It was unreal!
“You have a 33 walk-around Strength, double lifting capacity due to size.” Master Fred had to raise an eyebrow at that. He was also unnaturally strong, due to his Angel Weight training, but Briggs’ pure Strength was equal to his high-G Might. They could lift the same amount, but Briggs could throw it twice as far. “And you’re a Six?”
“I will totally say that without the Fast Healing of that Racial Class, I would be dead now after some of the stuff I did to make Six,” he said firmly. “All of those racial bonuses all have to be paid for by Karma. I don’t think you need to think much to realize just how much Karma it takes to advance those.”
I looked at the bonuses. Frak, he already had +8 to his Strength... as a Four! Sure, Ancients got +4 for their build, but that was +1 per Racial Level, and his Con and Dex bonuses were actually keeping pace! That was better than Amazons!
But the problem was that this wasn’t a video game, with endless spawns of stuff to slaughter, and endless monster drops of increasingly better Gear. Without using vivus, popping undead was miniscule Karma, maybe enough to make Four or Five. He had places to put absolute rivers of Karma with this Racial Class... but he couldn’t make the Karma to do so!