Chapter 8-242: Elemental Theurgy Complete! (2/2)

Well, maybe I could, if they were skeletal, but guess what? I wasn’t going to be Summoning undead creatures and throwing them around. It was better to just kill them directly. I hated Slavemaging...

The accompanying Mastery was Raise Spell/3, Earth Spell. If I was standing on/linked to the ground, I got +1 Potency to all of my spells, yay. If I Raised a Spell, I also improved the Caster Level by every Valence I Raised it. It was just a shame it didn’t stack with my auto-Raise from Burning my Rings...

I Slotted a few of the spells in the Charisma Bonus Slots, the V Druid Domain Slot was filled with Fire Serpent, and I then proceeded to Cast Commune with Nature while we were five kliks out in the bay leading to Darwin’s harbor.

A sixty-klik radius blossomed to slow, lazy life around me, extending far out to sea, and a great distance inland.

The tepid, hazy awareness of the Land permeated through the spell. The Land and the Sea were not conscious by any estimation, sleeping and suppressed by the Shroud, but their awareness was still there, and could be prodded and tapped without any resistance.

I was aware that in a normal situation Casting such a spell would also instantly draw the attention of the relevant spirit, in the same way that someone suddenly wanting to look out your eyeballs telepathically would. It could sense, but it was not Aware, and could not process what the data meant. Me introducing my extremely quick, short-lived thoughts to it just generated an automatic response, with nothing attached.

I was aware of other, minor Spirits in the area quickly, mostly hills, rivers, and some ponds and lakes in my range, some of the forests, as well as the brooding, alien presence of the city and neighboring towns.

The sunken fleet that had brought the Japanese here stood out; it was long scuttled out in the ocean nearby, building up and covered by coral into an artificial reef, slowly being sublimated back into the land as its artificial nature was covered up.

The Land’s awareness of what happened inside a city was very limited, but since its Awareness extended to all the Elements, including Air, it could not be kept out completely.

The key thing I was looking for was, of course, the disturbing and alien presence of Qi.

I sighed as I stared at the mental display, and shared it with Master Fred and Sleipner.

Six different locations, one Major, four minor, and one small but intense. One of the minor ones had a different flavor, too.

I wasn’t going looking for ore veins, but just thinking about the mineral spreads returned me knowledge of how the earth was laid out here, and the touch and feel of the various substances and strata, even their ages and how long they’d been here, how they might have been formed. Fading impressions of inland seas, sediment deposited over ages, rising and falling waters...

It was Big and Old, and we were mites. That’s basically all there was to it.

Six different Qi locations.

It was night-time. It was a time of death.

I took a long, low, ruthless breath. I pried open the memories of the Chinese Rebellion, and what the Cultivators had done, and how many had died, and I looked at them again. I considered the merciless craving for power those artificial souls that devoured others to gain strength had, and how it would not be satisfied until existence itself was as fake and broken as they were.

I Slotted several specific Engrams I had retrieved via Exemplar Surge as soon as I knew there were Cultivators here, and I could Cast them.

“Let’s go. We’ll spare who we can, but if they fight, show no hesitation. Anyone a Four or higher is already dead. Threes might be impossible to save. Only the Ones and Twos can we spare, and only if they aren’t gifted.”

His nonesuch eyes flickered with cold, hard light, seeing somewhere else where Hellbound sacrificed innocents for power.

Sleipner only whuffled once, but it was all he needed to. Although dead and now a creature bound to technology, he’d once been a king of the wilds, and he could feel the unnatural flavor of the Qi even more easily than we could. Sapient magical beasts had no problem slaughtering intruders, and Qi was about as intrusive as it got.

Riding two little stretches of Wards over the waves, we headed for the city. Magic rippled over and cloaked us in Invisibility; there were always night watches up in the harbor, looking for signs of intruders from the sea, but no aquatic intelligences were within five miles of here, the Commune was quite clear on that, so there would be no surprises from that quarter.

Tonight was going to be blood and fire, and there was going to be no stopping it. It had to be done, and I wasn’t going to risk some of them escaping by announcing my intentions first. They were sliding in along a tide of lies and corruption, they were going to be burned out by fire and sword and gun.

We were coming for them. They had to die. It wasn’t Good, it certainly wasn’t Bad; it just had to be done, like killing the rabid dog trying to bite everyone it could.

And I was elected this exterminator. Well enough, I could do it...

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Author’s Note: If you are REAAALLY detail-oriented, you might have noticed the Elemental Theurge Extra Spell Known stood out. To wit, when you take a Theurgic Class, a spell from a Prepared Class involved can be given to a Spontaneous Class as an Extra Spell Known.

I was doing this with Arcane, Mystic, Heartsong, and Pact Theurges properly, by giving them to Sorcerer, Inquisitor, Minstrel, and Binder, which are all spontaneous Casters. Since there was no Druidic Spontaneous Caster, I was ignoring it... until I realized that the other Spontaneous Class was naturally Sorcerer, and face-palmed during this Chapter.

Now, this has absolutely no effect on the story, but this is the kind of stuff on the hellaciously detailed Spreadsheet I keep of Traveler that is so annoying to miss. Literally, the story updates faster than I can do the spreadsheet! Heh!

So consider this a shadow ret-con, and I added Elemental Theurge Extra Spell Known I-IV during all the previous chapters, and um, just didn’t tell you. Her spell list is big enough as it is.

Blossoming Footsteps, Gust of Wind, Call Lightning, and Curse Natural Ability.