Chapter 8-247: Om Mani Padme Hum... (1/2)
I stayed for a day and a half, because there was so much that had to be done.
The Druids were reluctant to open a dialogue at all, given how many decades of bad blood there was... but the recovery of three stolen children, the news of the Cultivators being slaughtered or Pierced en masse, and stories of a devil Possessing the main advisor to Lord Yamamoto making the rounds definitely perked up their ears, however they might try to hide it. It was plain something really bad had been going on, and the news that the Cultivators had been responsible for fanning the flames between them at least made them suitable scapegoats for everyone’s anger.
They were a good place to put the anger, and old misdeeds needed to be forgiven. The looming threat of the Sydney Shroudzone spilling out was also telling them to direct their energies into a more useful direction than mutual hatred and murder, as was the overarching idea that both Heaven and the Land didn’t give a shit for their racist views, and would punish them for such attitudes.
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It was another five thousand some kliks around the continent to Perth, the last major city we were going to visit... and which didn’t have that much contact with the others, being so far away. Word was infrequent, chalked up to the Druids sabotaging plane flights and making travel dangerous, and the information exchange flow was slow.
The Good Churches didn’t have much presence out there, either. It was a mining area, largely self-contained, and Forj and Trose had the most influence, neither liking the Good churches interfering with their money-making and labor-exploiting.
It was also the city furthest west in Australia, and the major one closest to India.
The Daoists had come south to Darwin. I didn’t have high expectations when I set out for Perth.
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Two days, two advances of Divine magic. Ur-Priest/5 and Mystic Theurgy/5 followed up to give complete access to Divine Level V’s, instead of the ones limited to my Arcane Domains.
This basically gave me full access to the Divine spell list, including specialty spells available only to specific faiths, as Ur-Priests stole from everyone. I had a lot of spells to keep Writing to Einz every day. My Wisdom bonus V’s opened up, Domain Slots, etc.
More Casting Power, that was me. A normal person would have considered me absolutely loaded down with a crippling number of spells. I would have replied that I still never seemed to have the right spell for the occasion so often...
Regardless, the Divine Spells were merged into my personal Arcane spell list, so now all my Spells could be any or all of Arcane, Divine, or Druidic as I needed, slowly blending all the magic types together.
My Divine Stars and Elemental Stars were already complete, so that was good.
It had completed my Extra Divine Domains with the Curse Domain. How fun, giving me more affinity for the Shroud, tying me tighter to the essence of its power. That I didn’t use that power only seemed to make it want to tie me even more tightly to itself.
It did do me the honor of finally giving me Healing Reserve. I had qualified for it while doing the Firezone, but simply hadn’t had the chance to take the Reserve. Now, I would technically need more rep counts to improve the Health I could dole out... but I tended to put Vivic on so much stuff, giving them the Healing descriptor, albeit the Hit Me kind of anti-undead healing, that the rep counts were already there.
So, I only needed to take White Fist, which embraced the offensive nature of Healing Reserve, and my Healing Reserve would go right to V, 10 pts/person/round. Er, 14 points. I would be able to get an army back onto its feet with precious little effort, and if I wanted to punch undead, wow, combined with Positive Edge, I’d have a very frightening open hand bonus against them. They would literally find my touch lethal.
But the other thing was it gave +1 Caster Level to Healing Spells... which, for me, included anything Vivic, including my Shards.
The Mastery was Extra Turning/3, getting me up to +4 bonus uses. I suppose it was fine, although I wasn’t using Turning or Channeling for much aside from a Duskstopped Spell every day, usually Shaping Stone...
Mystic Theurge/5 continued with the theme the next day. The Purchased Feat was Extra Spell Known IV – Inquisitor, and the Mastery was Extra Turning/4, so now +5 bonus uses. The Extra Spell Known V benefit of the Theurgy naturally went into Inquisitor... which wasn’t at Nine yet, so actually no benefit, yay me.
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Once again, we were a mile out in the Indian Ocean when I popped the Commune with Nature, oriented on the edge of Master Fred’s Citypact, and sent it streaming out into the world.
There were unclean things out in the water twenty kliks to the northeast that I really wanted to ride out and shoot emphatically, but that faded before what I was seeing in Perth.
Qi covered a good half the city in a suffocating field of repression, an ethereal variety that I really hadn’t wanted to see, complete with strong biases of enchantment and compulsion, doubtless laden with bright lights and symbols that fooled those watching who hadn’t seen truly Holy magic at work, and couldn’t tell it wasn’t more of the same.
“The Mantra is here.”
Master Fred’s eyes narrowed. -How bad?- he /asked shortly.
-Half the city is under a field of it. How many are permanently damaged, I don’t know. I can break anyone under Four, but if they’ve grown three or more Levels while under Thrall, they’re broken, and I’ll have to vivisize them.- I trailed off for a moment, and put my forehead against his back. -That could mean tens of thousands in a city this size.-
-Why didn’t the Churches catch this?- he /asked, eyes narrowed.
-Those who interacted with outsiders were probably placed under compulsions to report that nothing was wrong, or simply replaced with illusions or other parties. The Mantra can even take Powered, although it’s nigh impossible in normal circumstances to take Divine servants, what with deities watching for this kind of shit. Taking a Warlock is likewise almost impossible, as their Pact won’t allow it.-
-So, you’re saying we have to go in there, and utterly slaughter a lot of people who are going to be chanting and praying and smiling and praising Lord Buddha and urging us to submit to him.-
-And when we don’t, they’ll try to tear us apart once they realize we can stop them.- I finetuned my Awareness. -Confirm for me that there’s a lot less people there, if you can.-