Chapter 16-418: More Uninvited Guests (1/2)

My last two weeks had been much more boring than Sama’s.

I had finished off my Engineering Mastery Tiers... and immediately had some great ideas for modifications and upgrades to some Gearsmithing Construct designs that could be implemented in the future, and some really cool PMD kinetic exchanges with exotic materials, and a refined universal joint, and...

Ahem!

Longcaster Mastery was considered an extravagance by most Casters, and, well, it was. Except I had 300 Mastery Tiers to take, so grabbing it for +5 to Caster Level when determining duration of a spell was nice. The Hole in the Haze would last ten more hours...

I was currently on Widecaster Mastery, which improved the area of spells by +1 Caster Level per Tier, if applicable. Get a few extra miles out of the Hole tonight...

Einz had completed his +III Luck Protection, basically finishing out much of his build. At almost 350k of value, he had a colossal amount of power for a Ring, and was definitely worthy of the honor of being a Ringlord’s Ring.

Once I had the Legendary Feats, I would upgrade him further. For now, we had started on my next Named Ring, which would be Lore. I wasn’t planning to make it intelligent at this time, but it was going to be my spell-boosting Ring, with Wizardry and Spell Knowledge built into it to a very expensive degree.

Wizardry meant more spells in active memory, available for use. Spell Knowledge’s power was more subtle... it allowed me to add any spell I saw to it, as long as it was strong enough, and store it as a Spell Known on my Sorcerer List... or other List, as appropriate.

That meant both reading the spell in a Scroll or Spellbook... or watching one get Cast.

It was a way to steal new spells just by seeing them get Cast! Then one Write spell sent it into my Ringbook in Einz, and the spell was mine to do whatever I wanted to with. It was one of the ways around Bloodbonded spells, too, and an easy way to piss off a lot of spellcasters when you stole their proud personal achievements so easily.

My Prime Elemental Command Ring was being worked on by the Warlocks in Heavenbound Hall, who traded it among themselves and worked on the Infusing day by day. Sure, some people might think the idea of a Ring of Elemental Command for all the Elements was extravagant... but money was one thing I had a whole lot of, and I couldn’t really take my ownership shares of the Firezone mines along with me.

If it was going to take a full year to make the thing, then that was what it took. I’d already done all the Runework and design, so there was only the Infusing to complete. It was going to be done right about the time my Masteries finished up...

In the meantime, we had some uninvited guests running about and probably intending to make a nuisance of themselves. It was probably best to stop that nonsense before the Solstice Celebration started.

The day after, the Constitutional Convention of North America was taking place, and wouldn’t that be a rowdy meeting. I was attending on the first day for one reason: I was giving Blessings to all the delegates there after the opening speech. The /tellepathic Markbox they were going to be set up with would increase comprehension speed, speed of discourse, exchange of ideas, and provide absolute context that simple spoken words could not.

Really, the whole Convention could have been held in Markspace. Nobody physically needed to be here, but there was no way the delegates weren’t going to take at least some advantage of being chosen to such a distinguished position.

I had already Blessed hundreds of them, and debates were forming and some positions were being set up. There were representatives of philosophy, religion, businessmen, politicians, entertainers, labor, media, scientists, magi, and definitely members of all the sapient mortal races.

There were also some things trying to infiltrate here, and they had definitely not expected me to use Blessings to organize things. When someone had a phage riding their soul, it couldn’t escape my attention, even if the lower minds wouldn’t notice it.

I was restricting my contributions to viewpoints on the metaview of the Lands, the Gods, and the Alignments. I could certainly give legal and wording advice, and the idea that the document should be written in not just words, but thought itself, gained rapid traction, as intentions of a rule were every bit as important as the rule itself... at least if you weren’t Axiomatic, where interpretation was everything for arguments.

Chaotics would just seek to twist the wording and intent as much as possible, in as many different ways as possible.

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I introduced myself by surrounding the entire clearing they were meeting at in a Wall of Fire. It was Of the Invulnerable World, so it didn’t set the forest on fire, but any of them who stepped close to it were going to burn.

“Before we begin, let me state that any of you who have eaten mortal flesh have no vote whatsoever in your fates.”

Blood spewed out of the mouths and down the chests of something over two dozen of those in the clearing below... including all six who had remained in wolf form. The air chimed with a very judgmental heavenly ring, and they all felt the magic being plucked.

An instant later, the Shardrays came down and swirled through their ranks as if alive. Bodies of wolves and humans ignited, discorporated under the shredding force of impact, and blew into white vapors.

Clothes split and ripped as those remaining morphed into their fighting forms, and magic thrummed and was made ready to release as they looked around for an enemy.

“I will instantly kill any of you who throw a spell at me,” I went on calmly, walking in over the twenty-foot Wall of jet and silver flames that was burning hot enough to melt adamantine, and the leaves of the trees nearby were just ignoring it. The werewolves below snarled and pointed and tensed at me, all forty of them, and I looked down at them with complete indifference.