Chapter 7-192: Quiet Considerations (1/2)

“Ah.” His pale violet eyes glittered. “That is indeed pretty useful. I hear a ‘but’ in there.”

“If experience is any guideline, I might be going sideways for some time before hitting Seven. Theurgies.”

“You’re a Fake Eleven, Casting at Thirty-plus, and you’re annoyed at the delay to hitting Seven.” He lifted his huge hands to the heavens. “Why me, Lord? Why me?”

“Meh. Wait until you have an army of ten thousand Sevens and the Karma is rolling in.”

He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Is that something the original has?”

“Sama’s direct army on Terra-Luna is the Bloodguard, all Sevens and higher Primos. Briggs oversees the training of all forces that feed up into the Bloodguard among the Primos, and that is for the entire planet. He’s also the de facto Warlord of the Amazons there, which still astounds everyone, and every single one of those ladies is over Seven, too.”

“That sounds pretty odd,” he said thoughtfully.

“They didn’t want Sama directly in charge of them. Being the personal honor guard of Commander Briggs was an extremely acceptable alternative. He doesn’t actually order them around much, as they are totally capable of taking care of themselves, but they still take the obligation seriously.”

“Yeah, Amazons knuckling under to Hags, probably not the right way to go about things,” he admitted.

“She doesn’t have your Rantha Hag kit back home, either, but she’s been taking Lilitu Racial Levels, just because she can.”

“If I do the math right, that’s probably a foundation for the Rantha Hag Class,” he admitted after thinking about that for a moment. “You know Sama’s almost ungodly gorgeous if she loses the Brand, right?” he asked softly.

The distorting effect of the Brand was powerful, but it wasn’t really messing with me, being stuck between the Shroud and a supremely nasty Death Curse as I was. “I figured. From the back, she’s a knuckle-biter all the way. You can see a hint of it in profile, if you can ignore the Brand stretching her face against the bones.”

“Yeah. Is the Sama back there like that, too?”

“Pretty much. Aelryinth is married, so he didn’t really care.”

“Married!” Briggs huffed at the word. “I don’t even know if we can have kids...”

“If you can, they are going to be really special kids.”

“Ain’t that the damn truth.” He huffed again. “Wait... would they... be like us?”

“That is entirely possible,” I reasoned. “Or, she might only be able to have Hags, and somewhere, that triggers another Briggs to be born. Am I correct in that you basically have the same birthday?”

“Three days apart, but yeah.” He rubbed his broad jaw slowly. “Won’t know until we figure it out, and definitely not right now, aye?”

“You have no maximum life span. When you get around to it, I expect you’re going to have a horde.”

He beamed. “Big family. Bouncing off the walls! That’s what I want!”

“And if it’s all Sama-daughters?” I asked archly.

“I won’t have to do anything around the house at all, given how crazy a work ethic she has!”

“That is true,” I had to admit, him hitting on the key guy point. “You can Warlord, and they literally can take care of themselves as soon as they are old enough to walk...”

“Crazy convenient. Of course, tracking down my cloned future sons-in-law will be a chore...”

“Bah, leave that to them, and just get famous. They’ll look for you on their own.”

“That would make that simpler,” he admitted, considering the point. “Hey, you’ve got multi-world experience wrapped up in your head. How many places you think there’s a Sama and Briggs thing going on?”

“I have no clue, but according to her, the whole thing is Powered by the Hag Curse. So, anywhere it is, there might be a couple of you.”

“That is almost frightening to think about,” he muttered. “That’s a whole lot of us, Trav.”

“Well, considering how much work there is, I think it’s a drop in the bucket.”

He smirked despite himself. “I hear that. I’m going to be busy for at least the next century, the way I’m figuring things.”

“Assuming no setbacks. You’re very hard to kill, not impossible to.”

“Yeah, but we aren’t dumb, and we know how to think big. That’s why we didn’t make big plays until you came along. We can hide in your shadow.” He beamed at me.

“I’m aware of how it works,” I said drily, which only made him chuckle. “But you need those decades to max your Stats, especially if you can only invest a k a day. That’s over twenty years for just your Strength and Con, you know?”

“Thereby encouraging us to cross-Class minmax to our very optimal best,” he said in resignation. “Trust me, we know. Just needing to get to 30 Charisma to take that incarnation dive and find out who we were is so damn annoying!”

“But maxing Charisma will really help your Source ability to Make Fate, cement your Warlord influence, and drive your plans forward. Honestly, it’s your power Stat right now.”

“Yeah, and it’s what all this Karma is going into,” he sighed. “Pinkie promise, no leaving us out of boss fights!”