Chapter 18-474: Some Plans for Dark Things (1/2)

“How bad was the Atonement?” I asked Legion sympathetically.

“Eight thousand could not withstand the removal of so much Sin, and their psyches collapsed entirely,” they replied calmly, resigned to the fact and unsurprised by it.

Well over half. As bad as the draco-demon Bloodline inheritors. They were so hard and invested into Evil that they simply couldn’t endure without it, and the Wrath of Heaven wasn’t gentle to such beings.

Cancelled out and burned away by Heaven instead of feeding the Lower Planes. Well, it was what it was. It cost both forces identically, after all.

On the other hand, it meant several thousand more souls weren’t fated for The Pits, and could participate in Virtue. A win from this point forward, I supposed.

“How do you want to handle those two cities?” I asked them calmly.

“We thought we’d walk around with our top off,” they said reasonably.

I pursed my lips, and couldn’t help smiling at the mental image. “Oh. You got the Nymph’s Beauty working...”

Nymphs were the carriers of nature’s greatest beauty, too great for most mortal minds to actually behold... and absolutely lethal against things which didn’t appreciate that beauty.

Will Save or die on the spot if you saw an unclad nymph and were not her lover, or she had not cut down on her power, as the sight literally blew out your mind. If you made that, Fortitude Save or be instantly blinded as your eyes were overwhelmed by the sight before you.

It was an ability capable of killing armies, and Legion had it now. On them, the power of it would be far, far greater than it would be off a rote nymph. The save was based on Hit Dice and Charisma: 10+1/2 Hit Dice or Level, +Charisma.

Twenty Hit Dice, and 58 Charisma, which they usually kept under wraps so as to not reduce everyone nearby to drooling gawkers. Save DC of 44.

You had a 5% chance of looking away in time not to die if you had a +24 to those Saves. +24 was an incredibly good base Save Modifier for most beings and creatures.

I could hit the Blinding number on a 1, i.e., auto-succeed. I boosted those Saves for damn good reasons... and only hit it because Warded Soul giving me a flat +4 against Death Effects. The Will Save wasn’t an issue.

It also meant I could look at them without any fear of adverse effects, one of a very limited number of people who could do so.

I blew their hair out of the way and kissed the jet skin on the back of their neck. “A question,” I asked softly, as they sighed contentedly.

“Yes?”

“Can that ability be made Thanatopic?”

They blinked, and turned enough that the elegantly swirling and glowing cerulean eye on the right side of their brow could see me. “That... we have no idea...”

The implications were just devastating for the other side of the equation. Nymph’s Beauty took a Valence IX spell to replicate. Having it as a permanent ability was just insanely strong.

And if the other side was undead, normally immune to Death Effects and Fortitude saves based on biology... “You’ve a Pact Mortai. I think you could make it effective against them.”

They began to hum musically, with that multi-layered voice that sounded like a subtle and vast choir was beginning a song. “You think of the most dangerous things, My Lady,” they purred in a much lighter tone.

I nestled into the world’s most huggable shoulder. “I’ll give you whatever help you need or want in clearing them.”

Legion nodded their acceptance. “I think all I would need to know is if there is anything there worth saving, and if they could be spirited away ahead of time.”

I considered that as the secrets under the Sahara unraveled beneath us, and The Map grew. “A spell that looks at bloodline, and another for Aura. Conflate them and Cast them out of VIII with an area that can include a city. I can do that.”

“Then we need but find them.”

Our Wrath intertwined, mine having grown considerably stronger over the last twenty days, and Sleipner tooted merrily as the unending dunes of the greatest desert in the world rolled past...

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“Ladies.”

Their representations were phantasmal, still ensconced in the Binding Gems I’d made for Legion, who’d coughed them all up into them with full knowledge of their Truenames, which had been passed on to me.