The Power of Ten

I looked at the trembling Valence VI, struggling to materialize around the spirals of the other five. Magic all around me was trembling in reaction at this moment, preparing to do something... but I wasn’t going to let it.

With a lethal effort and all the Concentration modifiers, emulating what Aelryinth had done at this identical moment, my Core pulsed precisely, the dual Matrices of my Blood and Lore sides swirled in interconnected harmony, and in a gorgeous display of thaumaturgic power, lights in three spectra flared out around me.

My five Valences and Core moved in cutting harmony, both defensive and offensive, unwilling to let the Sixth Valence materialize, sensing a threat, but also wanting all the power it represented.

The materializing Valence was shattered like glass, and at the same moment, ignited in polyspectral flames of pure mana. Clavus’ vivic flames blazed like a white star as it devoured the Fire Qi around us, and the light show was doubtless visible a long way off.

That was fine. The more stuff came to us, the less we had to hunt.

I Burned the Sixth Ring, and then the threads of power reaching out to it sucked all the power back to themselves.

My Core and Valences surged with incoming power as they were reinforced and solidified. I advanced on the Foundation, not the Pillar, and V’s were all I was ever going to Cast... but oh, what V’s I could Cast!

My Pool swirled into existence, liquid flames of mana, representing the Intellect bonuses that would have been awarded to my VI Valence. With a 33 Intellect, I only had two at the moment, which broke apart into a fluid stream of power winding among all my Valences... and naturally enough converged on my intermingled Arcana Pool, and the Ki Pool it was interwoven with.

+12 Levels to my posh new Spell Pool. Sixth Ring burned. Upgraded Foundation Valences.

My 0-5 Valence spells now were considered Raised one Level if I chose them to be, meaning higher Potency, bypassing spell deflection barriers, and so forth. Furthermore, they received one of the benefits of being higher Valence, which meant the benefit of one of the +1 Basic Metas... Still, Silent, Reach, Extend, or a+2 Girding.

My Metacap for spells was now VI, if I had the power to boost something there from V... which I most definitely did!

Cold Reserve I was in place. The Dart it could toss was a non-issue, but the +1 Caster Level to Cold Spells went on the stack.

Holy Scourge Mastery/3 was Add Mastery Level to Spell Penetration Rolls against Evil. I didn’t know if that was a sign, but +3 Spell Penetration was hardly a bad thing.

I looked at the High Wizard Title.

You are the first native Wizard to break the Ten Ceiling on this world. The path you forge will be the template for all Casters of the Tradition who follow you.

Mmm. I considered that. It basically meant that nobody could pass me, as I was the one forging the Path. I also got to choose... and I had chosen the Foundation.

I would always be the highest-Level Wizard on this world, until I left. I considered the implications of that, and reflected that it meant that I simply couldn’t stay here, in the end, or none of them might be able to reach Eternal, and that was the ultimate goal of everyone.

After all, I was Sorcerer Primary, not Wizard! I’d have to reach 22 Sorceress to make Faux 21 Wizard, and that was if all went well.

+1 to my Intellect. With the Sacred Bonus from my Mark Tat hitting yesterday, that meant Intellect 35. Base +12 bonus, higher Spell Potency, other Stat buffs, Soak, bonus Spells and Spell Slots...

Favored Class, get one Soak, one Skill Point. Into the slurry it went, I think it found a home in Arcane Lore...

Pointedly, it didn’t raise my Skill Rank cap to Eleven, as I hoped it might. It looked like it would be leaving that to actual Class Levels, perhaps? At this point, I had no idea...

Ah yes, and I got two spells of up to the highest Valence I could Cast, too.

Arcane Fusion and Hallow. The latter was off my Arcane Domain from the Good spells I could access with that Domain Slot, allowing me to sanctify an area, and very pointedly remove a Blight; the former was a powerhouse of a spell that allowed me to cast two other spells of lower Valence I had memorized at the same time.

I would normally be able to just get Hallow from a Domain Slot, but I kept that occupied with Raise Dead, just to be safe, so it was easier to just take it this way, and to grab Cloudkill with Exemplar Surge today to Write in.

------

By the time I opened my eyes, there were a bunch of dead bright red scorpions all around us, crunched and splattered, and Sama and Briggs were munching on a tail each with obvious relish.

She noticed I was moving, and tossed me a six-inch cut of the flaky white flesh, lightly smeared with a fresh cocktail sauce.

Damn, the stuff seemed to dissolve right on my tongue. I made little noises as the spices exploded around my mouth, the hidden fire of the scorp tail bringing them all out excitedly.

Obviously I was not the first one this had happened to, and they all laughed at me. The pot boiling on Sama’s Floating Forge clearly indicated that all this had taken longer than I’d expected.

I gobbled down the rest of the tail, tilted my head back, and let my mouth burn to the sky.

My increasing fire resistance didn’t do a bloody thing for spices, of course.

“Well?” Briggs asked for everyone.

“Faux Eleven. Burned the Sixth Ring,” I confirmed for him, and everyone blinked.

“What’s that, now?” he asked, and it was my turn to blink.

“Oh, duh.” He and Sama’s knowledge stopped at the end of the game. Advancing on the Foundation was discovered after that. “Yes, there are potential Valences after V. No, you don’t want to take them, unless you want to blow your brains apart. The magical structure here will not support higher Valence spellcasting. Monsters can do it with magical abilities, but if you try it with a Cast spell, you will fry your brain.

“This is probably not true in other places in the multiverse, so we differentiate it by calling it Foundation advancement,” I Holo’d up a Pyramid, advancing a Level by making it wider, “versus the Pillar.” I superimposed a Pillar in the center of the Pyramid, and stacked it straight up, higher than the Pyramid. “In a realm where the Pillar works, you can Cast spells from VI and higher Valences. In the Foundation, your base range of Valences to V get more plentiful and stronger.

“Increase in Caster Level, number of spells, and my Metacap is now at VI. Bonus spells for Valence VI accrue in a Spell Pool you can allocate as you deem fit among spells in memory.”

“Feat and Mastery?” he asked, after thinking about that for a moment.

“My first Cold Reserve, and Holy Scourge/3, Spell Penetration against Evil equal to Mastery.” I didn’t mind relating the details.

“So... your Caster Level basically just went up by two.” Since I could grant any spell the Cold descriptor, even if it didn’t use ice... yes, that was exactly what had just happened, so I just nodded. “Woman, you are utterly insane.”

“Meh. Should’ve been able to do this two months ago.” I had no sympathy for them, or myself. This all was slooooooow. “What’s the sitrep?”

“There are a lot of Fireborn creatures around this place, and we trundled out to kill some of them.” I eyed the trophies of battle piled up on the extra Disks, and just smirked, as did all of them. “We figured it would be good to send it all off before we get serious,” Briggs went on amiably.

“Got it.” I sent off instructions to Heavenbound Hall to expect incoming, and proceeded to start Itemizing some things, and prepped to Tapestry the lot. Once it was all stacked, shrunken, and turned to paper or cloth, I Item Teleported it off to Detroit for them to wonder what to do with. “Any entrances to the caldera?”

“There was one tunnel that probably goes through it. Feel like entering?” he asked archly.

“I see Sama is still here. If the Tip of the Spear doesn’t feel like going through a trap-filled murder hall, I will demur.”

Sama clenched her hands, and one of the few remaining scorpion claws, as long as her forearm, shattered in her grip. Like she was eating lobster, she pulled out the muscle inside and proceeded to munch down, giving me a wink.

“We’re Casters! We have alternate means of ingress!” Helix piped up with spirit.

“We do indeed.” I turned my eyes up to the volcano, unnaturally tall and steep, fairly radiating the fact there was magic involved in its making. I could feel the waves of Fire Qi spilling down off it, our vivic Weapons burning at its presence. “Lord Sleipner, I’m ready to go. Everyone else?”

Affirmations rang out as broken red carapaces and shells were tossed aside, Weapons were raised, Potions checked, and everyone nodded as they boarded their Disks, including me.

“Stay close to the stone in case they have anti-flight defenses up,” Briggs ordered calmly, Endure in one hand and Boomer in the other, standing on the Disk which looked so small under his mass. “Take us up, Lord Sleipner.”

Master Fred put his hands on the handles of the Bike, and gold materialized under the Cycle’s wheels. With a spirited neigh, the unicorn started forwards, forward wheel rising rapidly to ten, twenty, forty, and finally a full sixty degrees, completely unnatural for any kind of real slope like this, and ignoring gravity, dragged us towards the top of the volcano.

------

We were watching closely, and a few flocks of birds and swarms of bats at staggered intervals along the way were blown apart by concentrated fire de la Swarmkiller Clasp. A massive spider the size of an elephant leapt down on us, legs spread out wider than our whole circle of people... and I poured a line of Shards down its middle, which Sama followed up with an invisibly quick Sharding. Burning unwhite, the separate halves fell to either side of us, and Sleipner didn’t even slow down as they plummeted and bounced down the razored slopes below us, spreading splashes of purity.

I narrowed my eyes. “There’s an ambush up at the lip,” I said, glaring at the edge a couple hundred yards ahead and above us.

“Oh, good. Can you thwart reasonably?” he asked, both hands on Boomer, Endure in warhammer form hanging at his side.

“No clear targets, but I can throw you and Sama at them.”

“That sounds like a fast way to thwart,” he admitted with a perfectly unmoved face.

I flipped up a flat black door between the two of them as their Disks moved closer together, and they both leapt through opposite sides of it before it disappeared.

One Raised Valence IV Dimension Door, dropping two monstrous Rantha whatever-they-were on top of some hapless Cultivators!

“Who needs Fireballs?” I muttered to nobody in particular, and dry chuckles broke out all around. “Lord Mick, why don’t you make sure whatever the Cultivators over there are trying to surprise us with doesn’t work.”

An explosion of white wings spiraled up and away from us instantly, taking a different tack than we were. He’d seen the motion off to the side too, while on our current path ahead of us lights were rising, illusory forms of giants and lions and serpents delivering Qi attacks, flames raging, cold shooting, poison shooting into the air...

“Helix, back up The Mick.” Without a word, Helix took off in a woosh of motion, using his Wind Reserve to kick up his speed as he chased after the white bats, staying low and close to the slope as his hands clutched his windbow. “Gentlemen, center yourselves as we come over this ridge.”

They all knelt into shooter positions as I arranged their Disks, and Master Fred unlimbered his Grit with one hand as we rose up past the edge of a streaming crimson firefall of lava, a gorgeous two-hundred-meter drop of scarlet flowing off into a red river down the slope.