Chapter 5-143: The Moon Shining Down (2/2)

Unfortunately, they’d taken their Human/2 advance and the Caster Level increase there already, but once they advanced to Seven in Archer, they could still apply their Human/3.

They would also become Forsaken at that time.

The racial boost would raise them to Faux Nines, regrettably shy of Tens, but that was just another delay until they could hit /5 in their Carry Class, Eight in their Primary. Certainly the Karma to make Ten wasn’t going to be an issue, and with Briggs backing them, there’d be no issues getting there.

More importantly, more craftsmen who could make high QL shit with nine+ Ranks in a Crafting skill was awesome stuff!

They just needed a huge dose of Karma to do all that, and they had already gotten it. This night had certainly satisfied all the Karma they’d be needing to do what needed to be done.

Now it was about Investing in their Named stuff, steady upgrades of Gear, and becoming even more holy terrors in the night.

I was aware that Sama had Marked them, and they were Investing her Marks. Their 16 Dex scores were not going to have any problems getting to 20 one day, but for now they were filling that Intellect Mark up, getting smarter and able to take those neo-Caster Levels...

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One day ago...

“You know what my Marks are?” Sama asked me. We were leaning on Bone Marrow, taking a few minutes to chat before taking off. Briggs was giving heartfelt and moving interviews over in the remnants of Hermitage, and the rest of us were moving along nicely.

“They are copies of Succubi Blessings.” The look on her face as I told her that was impressive. “What, you didn’t know that?”

“It might not surprise you that I didn’t have such things in the game,” she replied, annoyed, giving me the hairy eyeball. “It is so irritating that you remember meeting the original. Does she have the Rantha Curse, too?”

It was my turn to be surprised. “Not at all. She was just a baseline Hagchild... although she started taking Lilitu Levels to shovel in all the Karma she was harvesting. What’s this about a Rantha Curse?”

She was delighted to know something I didn’t. “Ranthas are born as Rantha Hags. We get empowered at puberty, just like other Hags. It’s basically a very advanced Human Evolution template powered up by the Hag Curse.”

“Specs?” I had to ask. A Holo-crystal on her collar glowed, and projected a Level-by-Level advance schema next to her.

I had to blink a few times. “Seriously, that’s as bad as Briggs!” I looked at her, and she just smiled. “Well, someone hit the superpowers lottery!... I noted the Karmic Load is not mentioned, however...”

Her expression fell. “It’s monstrous. The benefits are priced almost exactly like magic items.”

I lifted an eyebrow, and began to run calculations on some of those Stat benefits. Those Very Large Stat bonuses and abilities and whatnot...

“Damn, Sama! If that’s true, you Rantha Hags and Briggs Hagspawn are Karmic black holes...”

She nodded in the direction of the town, now starting to swarm with disaster-aid people and cops who couldn’t do anything for the dead but help manage the media circus going on. “I’m guessing there’s a relationship between our templates and the Hag Curse, naturally enough.”

I found myself rubbing my temples. “Just what the fuck has been going on with you two out here in the multiverse?”

“There’s a progenitor of the Rantha Hag Curse out here, so there’s way more than one of us, if it wasn’t obvious. She left me a message for me when I was incarnated.” She suddenly leaned forwards. “Hey, question. Is the original big on Briggs, too?”

“The Golden Hag and her Fuzzy are the envy of so many Amazons. They can’t believe she took him away from them.” I couldn’t keep it from her. “Yeah, you’re pretty much an item. No kids of your own, though... I’m not sure Sama can have kids, being a Annis-blood, at least not in any traditional sense.”

“Mmm,” Sama agreed, thinking. “The Rantha Curse might manifest on her. Do you think you can get a message to her?”

“To her? A Null? At this range? I can probably get a Sending to someone close to her...” If the Shroud could actually be breached.

“Hags have to steal the souls of a child, they can’t just manifest kids. So she can only have children who have the souls of someone who died to great Evil, if I’ve figured it out correctly by what happened to me.”

I blinked again, going over that. It made sense. “And they’ll be born Rantha Hags... and Briggs Hagspawn?” I glanced back in the direction of the town myself.

Sama nodded. “I’m thinking...”

“I’m not gonna say anything more about how weird it would be to have a child who’s a psychic mirror of you.” The multiverse was strange. “So, you’ve got at least one active Mark, right?”

“Yes. For telepathic contact, once it is powered up.” She watched as I rolled up my sleeve, and gave the Tat on my tricep there a weird look. “Damn. You even know what my Hagmarks look like?”

“Sama gives them out back there, too. The Forsaken and Primos can hold a Mark without any problem, but this is just a Slotless magic item to the Powered. If you could kindly attune it to the operating energy, I’ll start the process of Infusing it.”