Chapter 9-265: Bringing Some Heaven (1/2)

He pointed to himself, the two Illriggers with their automatic weapons, then the big devil with the hellfire eyes, occasional drops of steaming drool falling from its jaws to hiss on the polished blackness of the floor before the hellfire swept them away tracelessly.

I pulled the Orb off of Clavus, and didn’t even bother putting a Baneskull on him, as it wouldn’t be useful. Sleipner fused himself to the clawed tip, turning my Staff into an Alicorn-tipped Spear, the five bands about it promising surprises for the unwary.

“I got the gargoyles while that happens, but there’s no way I can enter the Pattern itself.” I began to remove crystalline vials filled with sparkling stuff, and handed four of them to him. He smiled, and they began to glow before he hung two of them off his belt, and gave two of them back to me. “Also, I want them all alive.”

He gave me a very curious look, but the pale light of Mercy flowed over his Grit as he saw it was also up on Clavus.

I flicked up Sleipner, my Staff reaching a hand over two meters with him tipping it, and sent a pulse through Clavus. It passed into the Alicorn smoothly, and I saw crystalline forcewaves break over the Alicorn in acknowledgement.

Force Reserve and War Domain Reserve at virtua VII working just fine, thank you.

Master Fred indicated that he was ready. I put my hand on the stone, and it fell away as if it was made of water, disappearing into the walls and floor instantly.

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Master Fred stepped out, brought up his Grit, and fired twice.

Wrath is considered a Spell-Like Ability, and the Metas that affect it have their own progression. They are often considered a luxury to pick up by many Warlocks, but if you have the Karma, well, they turn from luxuries into How Could I Live Without This pretty damn quick.

Case in point: normally you could only discharge a shot of Wrath once every six seconds. But if you could Fastcast it three times a day, well, you could do it twice if you needed to.

You could also learn to Top it three times a day.

Master Fred had Profound gunmanship with a Mighty Grit that operated off his Strength. If it wasn’t Silenced, the boom would have been like a small cannon going off.

The guards at the door were naturally totally surprised, which meant Sneak Attack dice.

11d6+10 of Wrath Topped is 76 points. Add on 9d6 from Alchemist and Scout Levels with Way of Shadow III, and his Might, and a base damage of that slug in the 4-32 range, and yeah, it was no surprise when the double-taps of flaring, hotly bright Wrath reached out to intersect their skulls, they both kicked sideways and dropped, their heads all aflame.

The malebranche responded as if it was just waiting for a fight. With a roar of glee, expectation, surprise, and definite amounts of confidence, it flapped its bat-like wings... and crashed right back to the ground in shock.

Master Fred had swapped his City Pact to this mountain, which definitely didn’t want a devil camping out in its heart. Hello, Stillflight!

Master Fred wasn’t the kind to charge, but his strides were covering twice the distance they looked like as he crossed the outer ring, stepping past one of the chained Hellbound whose soul was screaming outside her skin, and striding right into the burning hellfire of the Infernal Circle there.

Hellfire broke over his skin, and to the surprise of the malebranche as it clutched its crackling trident, didn’t do anything to him. It should have looked more closely at his eyes, I guess.

Since it wasn’t charging him, Master Fred promptly shot it.

The round blew right through its massive shoulder, and the malebranche jerked. It resumed raging to the attack, coming down with a mighty overhand thrust to sweep the puny human before it away.

Well, perhaps it should have done some homework.

Master Fred wasn’t built huge, but he was almost done with the Heavy Gravity/5 training, he had a bunch of Classes to help raise his Stats, he had a Strength Mark, and he had gotten the +5 Inherent bonuses to his Strength that I could give him. In addition, Sama had personally scribed the I-Ching Patterns on his arms for Philosopher’s Might, so he could put his ki to some use, and four of them were currently lit up on his arms with hot white light.

His functioning Might was in the neighborhood of 50 or so, while his Power was about 35 or so.

Idiot slammed into the descending Trident, and took the full impact of the double-sized Weapon, and the near-ton of devil behind it, without being forced back, to the devil’s utter shock.

His Grit was back in its holster, and he stepped in to slam his fist into its chest... a fist blazing with Wrath, and holding a glass vial to boot.

Some very, very Empowered holy water joined the Wrath in lighting off against the malebranche’s chest.

It didn’t even get to hit the ground before there was an explosion, and it screamed in agony as a whole lot of holy water ate into a body literally made of Sin. The Wrath of Heaven added a bunch of counterpoints to it.

The butt of its Trident smashed into him, hate lightning crackled over him wildly, and he was pushed back... as he grasped one of those massive clawed wrists, ignoring both hellfire and lightning as he looked into those astonished, burning eyes.

Strength at 35+ all has a TK component. Master Fred heaved, planted Idiot for a pivot point, and as if the malebranche wasn’t twice his height and eight times his weight, made a nice arc with the devil and brought it down onto one of those strange and unhealthily-carved waist-high black stelae sitting around.