Chapter 12-333: The Luck of the Irish (1/2)

On March 12 and 13th, two things happened of significance for me.

The first was that Einz reached his cap of functioning Telekinesis, topping off at 750 lbs. Until I got my Spellcraft higher, he couldn’t advance.

Naturally, he turned to his other protective functions to round them out, and his Naming Karma started going into his Sacred and Luck Protection functions. Maxing those out to +3 would also take months of daily effort.

The next day, Clavus finished his Investing as a Staff of the Evoker, and there was a mental Ding! My Stafflord Title was finally awarded to me.

I had actually stripped down much of the power of a Staff of the Evoker, as I didn’t really need it to be storing spells for me to Cast. Extra volume of fire I could either get on Wands inserted into his Wand Chamber, or by ki recycling. I could recharge him quickly enough, so all I really wanted him to be able to do was the two main powers of the Staff.

The first was for non-specialist Wizards, for whom the Staff was designed. It gave the basic School Benefit of an Evoker, i.e., the +1 damage/die to all Evocation spells, to a standard Wizard, who normally did not get that benefit.

Beyond that, the Staff could expend one charge per Valence modifier to add exactly one more Metamagic to any Evocation spell, sort of an emergency booster situation if you really needed some extra bang.

In the future I’d seek to upgrade him to a Staff of the High Evoker, which would give me some ability to absorb incoming spells to use as charges and the like. But that was going to take 18 Ranks in Spellcraft or so, so not a priority.

I could also make him a Staff of the Arcane, able to change the School Benefit at Renewal.

Since there was a time crunch, I opted to start shooting directly for a Legendary Weapon. I had a smith available to do it, and I wasn’t going to be wearing Armor of any kind, regardless. To make Clavus Legendary, I had to get him Refined to QL 41 or higher, and I had to get all ten normal Slots open on him.

He had eight Slots open now. It would take 72 days, 144 goldweight equivalent, to open Slot Zehn and make him ready.

There really wasn’t anything I wanted to add on to him, so I went with straight Enhancement bonuses. More hitting, damaging, and Spell Potency was all I needed now, dependent on what we were going up against.

I was about to head back to Asia when The Mick /called me up and wondered if I might want to take a drive with him.

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Bone Marrow pulled out onto the waters of the Atlantic from the New Jersey shore. Our course was plotted out, The Mick was driving, and we were off. We were taking a more northerly route than I had with Legion and Sleipner.

The Mick had plowed well over 250k in goldweight into his car, instantly making it the single most expensive privately-owned automobile on the planet.

It was his personal pimpmobile, and he was pimping it in pure white style and satiny crimson interior as red as blood.

Amaretta was up in the front seat enjoying the ride with The Mick. I was in the tourist seat, the trunk reconfiguring itself for me with the best of gnomish Artifice, giving the two up front some privacy as I Communed, watching the churning waters behind us closing in as the Parted Water rejoined behind us.

The Mick was going home, for the first time in most of a century. He had his girl with him, and was taking her to meet his folks, and show her the land he grew up in.

He was probably going to be killing a lot of Blooded, too, but who knew? Maybe he could resolve things with the people who had slaughtered his entire family and run him out of his homeland like a dog all amiably and peaceful-like, there’s a good chap.

Smior hummed angrily up in the front seat for some reason. I smirked despite myself.

The Mick had kept himself and the Tomb Clans very busy in China, reaping all the rewards of combat against inhumanly powerful foes on the Karmic meters. He had long advanced to the full Blooded/8 of a Pseudo-Vampire, and poured in the Karma to burn through his Sorcerer and Empty Minstrel Levels to Nog himself to Perfection, minimizing the effects of his Bloodline on his psyche as he did so.

It cut down on his raw Casting ability, but remaining free of the true Thirst was far more important in his mind.

He lacked any sort of real Faith to take up Divine or Druidic Casting, which limited his options tremendously, but he hardly cared. He was in his heart a scrapper, and that wasn’t going to change. He wanted Wizardry because it had a wide toolset he could use, and for Sieging and Reserves it worked as well or better than Sorcerer at lower Levels.

Full +5 Inherent Bonuses and Perfection meant he had 23 in all Stats before his Racial and Level modifiers. He was truly a monster among his people, and he knew it. Now, someone who didn’t want to learn that was going to find out something about a dish served cold...

And they weren’t the only one.

Bone Marrow was purring along at something like 350 kph. That was a lot of engine, a lot of magic, and a lot of QL 35 engineering to make it. He had to Reserve power to it to keep that speed steady, but that was why he had all those rep counts and Double Helix Levels.

Parted Water was all completely smooth, however, so there was no danger of losing control at this speed, and there was nothing out here he was going to run into. The convoys of ships we were passing could only watch us zip on by, slicing through the waves as if they didn’t exist, doubtless wondering if they were seeing things... until Amaretta worked the car horn and waved at the sailors on the decks.

The Mick also wasn’t taking a straight course, arcing this way and that to get us in range of certain key areas down far, far below us.

Sure, it was going to be a long and boring drive. Well, maybe not so boring for some, because both he and Amaretta could feel the Commune and see everything I was bringing up, and there was always something to see when your Dawnstopped Widened Commune with Nature is ninety miles in radius.

The Atlantic’s sleepy perception of sea life wasn’t very precise, only relative size could be seen... or intelligence level, as sapient life had a very different signature then merely sentient. That meant that whales really stood out... and there was no misidentifying those locations on the sea floor that were either strongly Warded against the awareness of the ocean, or swarming with intelligent life down there in the deeps.