The Power of Ten

As I'm an American, Happy long weekend for the Fourth of July Independence day. May your fireworks not set the dry fields on fire (which happened across the road last week).

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“Your Fate, your Doom, come all too soon.

Your hate, your gloom, a useless tune...”

“<Grapple her!>”

The Hag gawked as Sama slammed full into her, just as my full Heal got Sama all fixed up again from another shredded mess of bloody flesh. Sama made it really, really hard for the Hag to get off any Counterspells by dint of pouring point-blank fire into her face and Sun Strikes exploding off what used to be a head.

Sama had noticed that extreme display of Countering, too.

My Spellflare hit first, the Repeat Dispel following just in case.

Ho, yes, look at that. At least three layers of Contingencies went exploding, and covered the Hag with arcane backlash effects of dancing petunias, liquid crystals, and off-color pyrotechnics, among the tootling of an ice cream truck and that fresh pine new car smell.

The malformed Hag screamed in rage as her way out evaporated, whatever she was trying to do. Four serrated tentacles whipped out like steel cables, and sent Sama flying. Sama’s feet promptly glowed, inertia vented in Featherweight, then faded, dropping her to the ground only a few paces away as the Hag shot back to her feet using other tentacles.

This time it was a full load-out of Shardrays, preceded by three Stars to make it really, really hard for her to Counter them. I felt the final refrain of that Song also rising unbidden to my lips, and blew it out into the Sublime Chord.

Thunder Sang with us.

“Sung to despair and long-shirked blame

At last now comes your end of game!”

The Heavens lit up in three spectrums, and for a moment, you couldn’t even see the Haze above.

23 Shards into one Ray, 12 Rays, Topped to 15 damage per Shard, +7d6+70 in Kickers per Ray, murderously pure Primal power in each one, and just because I could, a full Smite and Silver Smite together on all of them, a combination I had never unloaded on anything, ever.

And unlike Sama, I had Vivic active on Clavus.

“TREMBLE, SHE COMES!”

Heaven came down on the unnatural bitch.

I had literally never hit a single target that hard with anything. I didn’t know how much Health and Soak she had under that Health Qi, but it wasn’t enough. The Heavens came down with far, far too much cold hard Reality for her Templated ass to deal with, and Reality didn’t much like her.

The unnatural energies empowering her with the Pseudonatural Template blew away and were devoured by the Land, so nice for the Aberrant to give back. The head flopped to the ground, the rest of her body burned away and plunged deep into the ground, leaving the soil there a pristine, sacred white.

Half-warped bone, half blue-black annis, the head was still alive, somehow managing to cackle and roil as it sat there on the purified ground, skin hissing at the contact.

“FOOLS!” she trilled. “All you do is for nothing, nothing! You are mere pawns! I will return, yes, and watch as your doom comes for you!”

Whatever interference she had with the /tells had evaporated, as Sama popped up in Markspace fully again. I didn’t get any closer as Sama glided in closer, the configuration of flames and powers on Tremble settling into something new and pretty ominous.

No more need for Brilliant, but Final Rest, Vivic, and +II blew Tremble into +XII Kill You Forever range, and the Hag’s laughter suddenly seemed less confident.

“You mean that shit your boss is trying to pull in Russia, Grandmother?” Sama relayed from me in a dead level voice, and watched something die in that sickly yellow orb. “How stupid do you think we are? It overplayed its hand ages ago...”

The half a jaw worked in gaping disbelief, looked beyond her to me a hundred yards in the distance, just watching.

The Old God who’d been where she was now leered at her from death on Clavus.

Tremble came down, and didn’t split space; she brought space with her, drove it into the remnants of that skull, and distilled it out.

By the size of the eruption as every living cell and the depths of the Hag’s twisted spirit was went vivic at the same moment, no, she wouldn’t be coming back at all.

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The Old Steed descended to the ground, then trotted up smoothly, ending up next to Sama in seconds.

Tremble’s golden edge was impaling a misshapen skull, half of it clearly bent and twisted unnaturally. Shrill, despairing laughter was echoing around it psychically, fading by the moment as it burned unwhite to crystalline rigidity.

“That’s gonna make a fine Dreadskull,” I observed sagely.

“Yes.” Sama plucked the Skull off of the point of her Blade, Tremble humming in great satisfaction, staring at it. “I think the Rantha Hags extended from her. There’s a link there, although it’s bent. I can feel a really great hate for this bitch...” She hesitated, looking away for a moment, then back at it. “I think it’s coming from my preincarnation.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Not from up your Curseline?”

“That’s a maybe. That Song sure came out of nowhere, and she definitely heard it before.” Her smile was all teeth. “If she had a Hagchild who was a Sama Rantha, it sure seems like she got the shit kicked out of her, didn’t it?”

“And went right into the grip of whatever stuck me here, too.” Pseudonatural Template, from Outside Creation. “Pretty sure it was whatever is left of the Thing that tried to eat Terra-Luna.”

She glanced at me as I flinched while saying that. “That bad, huh?”

“Feeling a billion people die sticks with you.” Even when you get cut off the original record.

She had at least topical sympathy, turning her eyes back on the Skull. “She came really prepared. Shut down my Mark Link, and then the Allegiance Link, which I think surprised her. Came in off an ambush at speed, and had no attack Buffs, only passives that didn’t affect her. Lots of Gear.” She stomped her foot down, and a bunch of Stuff bounced up off from the pure whiteness of the ground.

I eyed the Auras. “Layered effects to do the same thing. No Luck or Insight bonuses. Profane, Enhancement, Stat Boosters...” I turned my head, and she dropped her Stillflight and Interdiction. Einz reached out, and nabbed the Ioun Stones the Hag had made up with his TK from over there, dumping them into Sama’s hand.

“Also, that has to be the first time I’ve ever seen The Rending of the Pole used in a fight, even in Sama’s memory.” Sama gave me a thumbs-up as she rolled the Ioun Stones around in her hand, and I smiled slightly.

“Just another example of a hyperspecialized spell only a Wizard would ever use,” I agreed.

“How’d you know she was listening in?” Sama asked archly.

“Her timing to attack was too good. Briggs was with me, halfway around the world; you were away from my Lived-Line, and coming off a major attack of your own. Plus, did you see how many Counterspells and Dispels she had? Those would ONLY be there if she expected me to arrive somehow.” The Indians who had been warily rushing after Sama in the silence of her Markspeech and the Allegiance had turned back around after it came back online and they saw us both here.

Oh, and after the Whole Damn Sky lit up and Sang with us. Yeah, they’d seen that too, and a light show come down to remind them that Tribulation Lightning was a minor annoyance when Heaven got truly pissed.

Oh, right. Sama and her army had ruthlessly butchered about a quarter of a million Buddhists and the Arhat they’d brought in, plus his servants. That whole area over there used to be a city, and was now ablaze with vivic fire cleaning up...

“Despite that, she was prepared for me with magic items to Absorb and Turn spells. If I hadn’t recognized that particular Stone and shut down her Ring, she’d likely have gotten clean away.”

“She picked an interesting time to attack.” Sama furrowed her Brow. “I’m about to hit Eight...”

“And do your Incarnation Dive with Briggs?” I asked archly.

“Yeah... and I might have seen her there, and she would have been exposed anyways. She must have felt the impending threat, probably after she learned that I existed and what I was doing somehow.” Sama frowned. “She got the drop on me, Sundered one of my Bracers, and suppressed Stand with a Touch Dispel. I couldn’t purge the Dispel until you bought me that time.”

“A twenty-point shift in AC is not insignificant. She had Tats on her... hands with Greater Magic Weapon, Enmity to Good, and Mortalbane. That’s despite a Pseudo having an impressive Insight bonus to hit, and at least a 50 Strength. That’s complete overkill. Something that powerful could blow through any normal fighter on the whole planet in seconds, without needing such a combat Buff... unless she knew the Insight bonus was useless.”

Sama’s grin only got wider. “Someone beat her BAD.”

“And she took steps to make sure it couldn’t happen again. She had some form of Contingent spell that could take her out of an Interdiction, too; just needed to say a word and Ride the Lightning or something out of here.”

“And you pulled the right rabbit of a spell out of your hat and totally fucked her up.” She held up a fist to me, and I leaned over from atop the Old Steed to tunk it.

“Don’t undersell yourself, you did most of the damage. She wasn’t even trying to avoid you after you popped Brilliant like that. I saw the Seven Ripping Dragons going off, and all those Sun Strikes stacking up.”

“Did you see her disperse the Blood Flower?”

I frowned and played back the fight. The two of them had simply been moving too damn fast, swathes of Health Qi were spraying everywhere...

Ah, yes, the splashes... “Ah, she never allowed more than two petals to form...” I shook my head slightly. “That is an insane kill move, and yet she lived through it before, knowing enough to stop it from forming. Damn!” Well, I guess eating a full round of auto-crits from someone like Sama was a VERY good way to drive a lesson home...

“Beat her BAD!” Sama repeated, even more teeth gleaming. “Also, do you have a spare shirt?”

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I left all the loot there, already burning on Sama’s Forge. Some of it was pretty unique, pretty powerful, and all of it was Burned, including the Ring of Spell Turning, definitely the only one on the planet. Each time something collapsed, Sama gleefully informed me that she could hear a little shriek of protest fade away.

A Brother Shadowknife was already coming over to feel up that Skull and track it back to wherever the Hag had used for a lair, to see if there was anything magical and powerful she’d made that needed to be Burned.

Briggs was naturally incensed that he hadn’t been there to stop the assassination attempt, but it was all by design. I was pretty sure Endure was going to have the ability to Teleport beat into him pretty soon, just so this couldn’t happen again, or some form of shared Recall between the two of them would be set up.

Be easier if the Shroud wasn’t there, of course...

I also specifically told them both to let Aelryinth Divine that skull and find out where its homeworld was, if he ever came here after the Shroud fell. That might be important.

It also meant I was going to have to find out what was happening in Russia, since it seemed it had already begun... which wasn’t a big surprise, it was just something I was going to have to do something about.

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