Chapter 5-127: Einz and Four (1/2)

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...

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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.

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...