Chapter 5-137 - Out of Darkness... (1/2)
“The Squids are working with the Knights of the Temple?” a new voice broke in, and everyone turned to look as Traveler trotted up with the artificially long steps of a lightfooter.
“I took on a job last year which involved penetrating into a site with a suspected Felldeep access point. It turned out that the Templars had breached an abandoned Cephalid forward nest there, and were data-mining it. By dint of the equipment they had, they’ve been delving into psionics for decades, probably from before the Shroud. That is a Ceph Brainmold, a tool for spying from within the brain of a hapless dupe.” Sama’s lips twisted.
“Does he have a girlfriend, close family?” Briggs rumbled quickly. Affirmatives and a few names floated back to him. “Call the Temple, and get a team out there to scan them.” He frowned deeply at the nigh-headless body of his dead man. “I confess to being very, very angry right now, Sama, Traveler...” He straightened to his full height, looking around with eyes ready to leap out and kill anything he could hold responsible for this annihilation, finally settling on the rapidly-vanishing Swarm.
“So the Templars are talking to the Imprus. Good to know formally, we always suspected it, and the Templars aren’t into black magic or witchcraft, they’re going into psionics.” Traveler put her hand to her head, while Darts laden with holy energy and Banefire formed up around her left arm, and were sucked away into the bracer there. “Humanity on this world is base Primos, not Mentos. They don’t have psychic potential, it’s not in the genecode. The only way to truly tap psionic power is going to be genetic manipulation and adding it in...”
“Oh, isn’t that a wonderful slippery slope to head down...” Sama swore. “What about the bastards who set this up?”
“An Anotxgin, over thataway a klik or so,” Traveler waved in the direction she’d come from. “And a full Summoning Circle of Lawbound and Imprusar Clerics, boosting the Axiomatic’s Caster Level enough to bring it in... completely ignoring the fact it couldn’t go away and they’d inevitably lose control of it.”
“They sacrificed this whole town just for the chance to kill Sama Rantha?” Sir Pellier asked, a truly ugly expression on his face.
“Yes. There probably weren’t any Imprusar faithful in the town, so no loss to get rid of a major enemy of the faith, right?”
“And they reached out to the Templars for a tool to do it, going right into the ranks of Aru’s faithful to do it,” Briggs rumbled in a voice laden with coming doom.
“I can bring your man back in three days,” Traveler stated calmly, looking over to the whirlwind of the suicidal Swarm killing itself madly in flames of Chaos, totally ignoring the startled looks on everyone’s faces that resulted. “Let me fix up your van and those tires. I’ll fix up his corpse, Repose it, and I’ll be able to Quicken him.”
“P-Pardon me?” Helix had to blurt out in shock. “You’re... going to be able to bring Mulligan there back from the dead? Really?” He could have been looking at something weirder than the brainmold that Briggs had unceremoniously dropped, than booted into a pile of vivisizing beetles to poof into eager etherflames... after Helix snapped three shots of it.
“Yes. I’ll be hitting Nine. I’ll swap in my Healing Domain Slot for Raise Dead, burn a Life Diamond, and he’ll be back, shaken but good to go.”
She totally ignored everyone’s expressions with the calm of someone for whom such events are blasé, and Sama and Briggs were naturally the first to adjust.
“Damn Powered!” Sama grumbled good-naturedly. “How are you finding the diamonds?”
“Making them. Heightened Stone Shape at V, Concentration check at 40, Energize V Positive energy. An associate has a trunk full of crap diamonds for me to use.”
“Damn, that actually works?” Briggs blurted out, rolling his eyes. “So... you will literally be able to make money?”
She reached out with her Staff and knocked on his chest, like a teacher chiding a student. “Life Diamonds. Positive Energy. Singular usage. Useless for making most Gear.”
“Oh, right.” Still, Briggs’ face had a weird mix of joy, regret, and resignation. “Well, damn if isn’t about time we got a Nine with Divine magic running around!”
He didn’t say anything about just changing the Energization, which could allow the Life Diamond to instead be a Fire Diamond, Ice Diamond, Earth Diamond, Water Diamond, Lightning Diamond, and so forth and so on...
And even if that wasn’t true, who wouldn’t be willing to trade ten goldweight to be Raised from the dead, if they had it? They’d part with it in a heartbeat! Life Diamond equivalents just didn’t occur at the drop of a hat, so someone would have to supply them... and if Sama’s method for breaking Six worked, the world could be very quickly waking up to a bunch of Nine’s coming online...
Helix’s eyes were almost popping out. “You’re, uh, going to be a Nine? So soon? So should I...”
Her pointing finger cut him off sharply. “Swallow the envy. Swallow the anxiety. Swallow the impatience. You know what you are giving up if you walk away. Are you going to walk away?”
His mouth flapped, and his sudden overeagerness vanished as quickly as it came. It was just another mountain to overcome. “Nope, nope! Forget I said anything, la la la, singing in the rain, not saying anything here!” He hummed loudly as he walked around to the opposite side of the van, everyone watching him in a moment of amusement, before their faces got grim again.
Briggs’ hand creaked on his Hammer. “Traveler, I’m sorry, but I can’t let this go.”
Traveler looked around at the devastation just once, silver eyes surrounded by the black of Curse magic, reflecting the burning light of the Wrathflames consuming the golden horde of constructed insects. They looked like stars surveying the world from afar.
“A Source does what a Source does,” she replied without judgement. “Sama, you too?” She turned to look at the golden-haired Hagchild, the strongest Null in the world.
“I want to jump on that Karmic gravy train so damn hard,” Sama sighed, crossing her arms. “But, no, I can’t let this ride. You’re absolutely sure it was Imprusar?”