Chapter 8-235: A Long Road Outta There (2/2)
He had basically become the most well-known and dangerous undead-killer of the effort. People often wondered why he wasn’t more arrogant and confident about his killing ability.
He would just lift his blue-and-white bowler slightly, get a far-away look in his eyes, and say, “I don’t know the first thing about how to really kill undead,” and walk away.
Maybe someone would remind the person he was friends with Traveler, maybe not. Helix never took it to heart.
He had a build to follow, and he was going to take it to the end.
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Completing the circumnavigation took a day, which meant a night, and a Renewal, before I Waterjumped us all the way back to the island where we’d entered, and we took off on another circumnavigation of the ocean, this one a long circle that soon proved to be following the radius of a roughly 1500-klik circle.
Every thirty degrees another one of those tribute islands popped up. Some were done in inhuman architecture, worn by the tides of time... but they were all definitely different than any of the others. Some were just crumbled and worn away, whether by violent action or just the force of time, it was hard to say.
At the very least, they all still jutted above the waves, and looked like they had once held gateways to somewhere else at their outer edges.
Only two others islands were inhabited, and not by social parties. One looked like some sort of magical society or school, and the other was manned by a tribe of neo-humans with Deep Ones bloodlines... in other words, young Deep Ones, ‘Innsmouth people’, raised here and eventually joining their kin in the depths of the sea.
That one I sighed at, and we pulled over off the sea. I scanned the whole island for any pure-blooded humans, and found none at all.
When we left an hour later, there weren’t any Innsmouth hybrids left, either, and the temple to Father Dagon and Mother Hydra was a burning pit of molten stone.
Let the Deep Ones wonder who did this, as we had come invisibly and left the same way, leaving all the dead once doomed to become soulless Deep Ones burning away in vivus behind us.
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After the Archmage/1 Level, the coming of Hierophant/1 wasn’t that much of a surprise.
Unlike Archmage, it didn’t grant a Theurgic Level. Perhaps because of that, the Gift of Faith it gave didn’t require Spell Slots to pay off.
The first Gift was Divine Power: +2 Spell Power, of course.
The Purchased Feat was Domain Theurgy (Silver Magic): add Cleric Level to Caster Level when spells of the Domain are on a second Class’s List... which much of Silver Magic was, particularly my Shards, and Dispel Magic once again.
I guess it wanted me able to take down hostile magic.
The Purchased Mastery was Holy Scourge/5, finishing out that Mastery: +2 damage per Spell Level of all Battle Magic/Evocation spells. It was a Boost, not a Kicker, but it was damage on the stack, especially with the double Raise on all spells automatic now...
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The next day, as we were finishing up the long circuit of the ocean after a pause on one of the islands at the twelve points that had been abandoned to Infuse for the day, Archmage/2 came up again, and indeed it presented me with the option to take Mastery of Counterspelling: Successfully Counter a spell, send it back at the Caster.
It was a useful High Arcana, costing another set of VII from my Pool, but it couldn’t force it on me, as I had to approve the Pool cost... which I did.
It would be a useful surprise in dueling situations.
Setting it up was Improved Counterspell: Counterspell as a reaction, giving up your next standard action, i.e., you didn’t need to prepare an action to counterspell, it just used your next Cast spell ahead of time, making Counterspelling actually useful.
The Mastery was Water Metas/1, Aqueous Spell, a +1 Meta that allowed all spells to be Cast easily in or into water, able to cross water’s threshold and strike things below or above without a problem. It was something I should have had some time ago, but I hadn’t gone down the Acid tree of Metas at all...
Of course, it didn’t solve the problem of those spells that were neutralized by Water intrinsically, i.e., casting Fireballs underwater required another Feat...
With the circle completed, we arrived back at the rim island with the Road leading back to Earth.