Chapter 8-211: The Fifth Pact (1/2)

The waves of the Gulf of California lapped gently at the shore ahead of us.

It was a mild, grey day, as normal, on the cool side with the sea breeze. The gulls were raucous about our presence, I told them to shut up as we’d be leaving soon, and they did.

Briggs and Sama were here, too, as was Master Fred. This was going to be The Big One for all of us, a gluttonous Karmic Feast that should satisfy taking Class Levels for a long time, and pay for massive, massive chunks of their Stat boosts. It didn’t grant them the extra TIME, of course, but I had a theory I floated past them.

“I think you only have to pay for the one Stat, and you should be fine,” I mentioned to the two of them, as we all watched Master Fred walking out over the waters. This was a fairly deep beach, dropping off fairly quickly, but with hidden outcroppings and undertows, making it highly undesirable for anything resembling a port, and with the prevalence of sharks and hostile marine races, the number of casual boaters in this world had taken a precipitous hit regardless.

Serious boaters were basically restricted to the Great Lakes and big rivers, now. Anywhere else was just tempting fate, although the Mediterranean wasn’t all that bad.

“Elucidate?” Briggs asked, thick brow furrowing.

“You’re basically paying for a Legendary increase in capability, just like making an Eternal-level magic item, right?”

They both made thoughtful faces. “Sure, that’s what the pricing is at,” Sama agreed.

“Well, doesn’t that by default make you Legendary, if you can DO that?”

Both of their eyes got really narrow, really fast. “I’m dense. Make sure I understand what you are saying,” Briggs said slowly.

“Take Legendary Stat Boosting as a Feat, and you should be able to allocate 10k a day to upping your Stats, instead of just 1k, since you’ve already broken into Legendary with at least one of your Stat boosts.”

They both stared at me. “Is that even a Feat?” Sama had to ask.

“Legendary Crafting most definitely is, and I’ve got confirmation on that from a Solar. It does exactly that. As for whether you qualify,” I rolled my eyes, “take a goddamn good look at your Rantha Racial Levels, and tell me if those weren’t boiled down to a Template they wouldn’t be Legendary.”

“Take a Feat yet?” Sama asked Briggs.

“Hells, no. I’ve got too much other stuff to spend Karma on. But that Glory Award should definitely be enough to pay for a Legendary Feat, no?” he mused thoughtfully.

I made a hurry-up gesture, watching Master Fred moving out into open waters. Normally, something like this would properly be done far offshore, in the deeper ocean or sea, but he was already a Warlock with multiple Pacts, and this could be seen as him being very cordial about an intrusion into a Place Spirit’s territory.

He was a Multi-Pact Warlock, and Spirits paid much, much more attention to him than they did other Warlocks. If he was moving between cities, there’d be no comment, but he was going to be doing an extensive amount of traveling over open waters, not between neighboring cities. It ‘could’ be seen as an infringement and an excuse, and given how coincidences worked, none of us believed it wouldn’t be seized on as an opportunity.

He only had the one Elemental Pact, why couldn’t he have another? He preferred Citybound over Landbound, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t still room to negotiate with other Place Spirits.

Something huge and immense interrupted that thought process, spinning and revolving down out of possibility right next to me; a couple massive amounts of Karma were abruptly spent and gone together, and something descended out of the Akasha and plopped down right next to me in a possibility wave of Yowza, HOT DAMN!

“FUCK ME!” Briggs and Sama both chimed out at the same time. It was pretty cute, especially the cheek-splitting grins on both their faces.

Investment time for Stats, now 1/10th!

“You’re welcome,” I said out of the side of my mouth, and then was airborne.

The literal wave of hydromana deposited me twenty feet back as a solid wall of the stuff blew through the manafield like a tsunami.

Briggs and Sama turned back to look at me laying on my back on the ground, spluttering with the sensation of water getting in everywhere, and then looked back to where the Gulf had risen up.

Way up. Like, several hundred feet up. Anyone who could see the massive Standing Wave sitting out there, frothing and falling in this direction, would likely be panicking if they had any sense.

Briggs politely stepped over to me as I was spitting, and the warm sun of his Source washed over me, shooing away all the excess hydromana, and chasing away the impression of drowning. I took his proffered finger and pulled myself up, blowing out my nose, which contents thereof were sparkling blue, while blinking my eyes free of glittering sapphire teardrops.

“Hey, I think he made contact with the Gulf!” Sama pointed out helpfully.

“Thanks, I might not have noticed. I don’t even want to know how bad it is going to be if The Pacific pops up, but hopefully He’s suppressed and still asleep.” Because my memories of a similar event were something along the lines of miles high, and The Pacific was a greedy twat.

“That reminds me, I was going to ask... couldn’t we just Waterjump to our destination?” Sama asked, completely amused at my situation.

I spat out the last of the gleaming blue stuff to dissipate on the sands beneath us, and pointed up emphatically. They both looked up, and sighed.

“What’s it doing this time?” Briggs groaned. Damn Haze, making us natural world travelers slog along with everybody else!

“Same thing as Teleport, it’s suppressing curvature dimensions and the like. Waterjump can’t form the true ‘all waters’ connection that makes it work, which operationally is skimming along the edge of the Elemental Plane of Water before getting dumped at a boundary of the Waters with something else. It’s restricted to the same natural geometry as Teleporting, which follows the land... but Teleporting is currently limited to line of sight, as the halvyr Nines and a lot of the Soulborn trapped here have proven. Waterjumping has the same problem.

“So, without a Lived-Line, you can Waterjump exactly to the horizon, no further, just like Teleporting.”