NOVEL NEXT Chapter 1-10 – Eldritch Theurgy Activate!
The verdant sun came over the mountains, hills, and forests, washing the place with new life.
The Great Stag had made to wander back there at dawn, and there were several curious Owls around, too.
They were all watching as the whiteness faded slowly away, and green things began to grow from the enriched soil around the roots of the great pseudo-oak, and soon a carpet of floral stems had pushed their way up. They grew rapidly to my own height, and only a few minutes after that, suddenly opened to face the sun barely reaching them, the blooms crystalline white, crimson, and electrum in hue.
The Great Stag huffed in appreciation, and being what he was, took a few steps towards the fairly broad swath of flowers, and bent down to eat a few of them.
“Tastes very good. Different,” he indicated, and the herd promptly streamed in around him to try them for themselves. Shortly enough, none of the crystalline flowers remained, and the Deer were all looking very satisfied.
Didn’t want to save them for the cow-sized Rabbits I’d seen hopping around, I guess.
“Do all those Tainted by the Darkness end up like this?” the Great Stag asked carefully.
“If their bodies are Burned by vivic fire, yes. If the ground and air are Tainted, they will also Burn, and feed the Land. The great Corruption... becomes a great tonic. The more comes to Taint and twist, the more the Land feeds, and feeds, and feeds, getting stronger and stronger and stronger...”
The Great Stag turned to the large Owl there. “This Human should be brought to Flowing Silver Emperor. Can you fly her there, Moon Horned Owl?”
The big Bird inclined his head slightly, glancing once over the flowers below. “I will bring her to Cloud Moon, who can convey her to the Emperor.”
The Stag stepped forward, inclining his head, and I knew it was time for us to part. I clambered off onto the big root of the giant tree next to the Owl, and looked up at him, easily fifteen feet high while perched there.
“Little monkeys,” he murmured, looking at me. “You may cling to my back.”
“Woo hoo!” His feathers were at least a yard long, and like the fur of the Great Stag, somewhere between downy soft and steely dangerous as I climbed up them carefully towards his neck region and in front of his wings. “Thanks for your help, Elder!”
The magnificent Stag inclined his golden horns graciously. “You were remarkably polite, for a Human.”
Yeah, we probably didn’t have a good reputation here.
Great wings spread at least fifty feet wide, and beat once. We soared weightlessly into the sky, first getting out from under branches that easily covered most of a baseball field, and then rising into the sky.
I noted the Owl seemed to be flying into the sun, and let the boosted power of my Mask of Clarity flow out my fingers from me to him.
I could almost hear the ploink-ploink of the massive Owl blinking. “Oh! That is... quite nice!” he murmured, his head swiveling back and forth, then all the way back around and over his back to me to blink at me once with huge golden orbs. “The light is not painful at all, and I can see even farther than normal, despite it being daylight!”
“Little things, Elder,” I said quietly, going into the Salute to Aru and humming to myself as the noble Bird continued on his way, seemingly much more content now. I looked over the unsullied landscape below, shaking my head at the unnaturally vibrant life of it, while being pretty sure that there were endless life and death battles between predators and prey going at it.
Certainly there were plenty of Birds in the skies, and not all of them were Raptors...
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Fae
Female* Human/3
Vizard/3**; Wizard/1; Sorcerer/1 (Arcane Sage); Ur-Priest/1;
Theurge: Eldritch/1 (Sorc, Warlock)
Strength (10): 8*
Dexterity (16): 16
Constitution (16): 18*
Intellect (18): 22 (24)
Wisdom (14): 16
Charisma (14): 16
Height: 5'5 Weight: 105 lbs. Hair: White (Sylune's Grace) Eyes: Silver (Warlock Sign, blue) Age: 15
Health: 38
Soak: 35
Movement: 45’
Talent: Naturally Focused
Acquired Powers: Fire Template; Cold Template; affinity for Fire and Cold Magic (1%/1%); Sylune’s Grace; Master Archtheurge Incarnation
Skill Points: 63 (9 Unallocated)
Paid Masteries: 18/30 possible.
Paid Feats: 9/10 possible
Traits: 4
Favored Class Points: 18 (2 unallocated)
Mark: +1 (2) Sacred Bonus to Intellect
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Ah, popped the Human/3, needed another Paid ‘racial’ Feat. Strong Soul this time: +1 to Will and Fortitude saves, +3 against negative energy and undead attacks.
I had a feeling that those were going to be important in the future. More pure Willpower never hurt, even if I was going to grab the Sun Saves.
+1 Health, and +1/2 ‘racial’ Feat from Favored Class. Still had no idea on the triggering conditions for this variant Human Racial Class... but since it was Leveling nicely and giving me some Health benefits, I wasn’t going to argue.
+1 toward Health Max, +1 toward Soak Max. Theurgies gave no Skill Points or Soak, no Favored Class stuff, which only applied to Base Classes, not Advanced Ones.
Three Skill Points in Natural Lore, appropriate for the environment; three Skill Points in Gemcutting and Stoneshaping returned to me, preparing for the future.
Advance Karma to my Ring Zeben from killing the Bat, and to my Mark Tat, aiming for that +1 Intellect bonus on the long road to uberness.
My Ring hummed and lit up as Sustaining kicked into effect. I closed my eyes and sighed in relief as my energy level returned to brighthappyyayitsanewday and my feelings of hunger and thirst evaporated. I’d still have to relieve myself, but Prestidigitation could take care of that problem, another great use of the spell.
I addressed the worm in the room, and nodded to myself.
Eldritch Theurgy could refill a Sorc Slot, but not directly charge up a Valence, which matched what the Stars were doing. I needed to use Meditation to recharge them.
Because I didn’t have Arcane Theurgy, which brought together Wizardry with Sorcery.
Which sent me into further analysis as I considered the Divine magic circling around my Matrix, and how stand-off the Stars were to those Valences.
I had the distinct impression that any kind of non-Arcane-tied Theurgy just wasn’t going to be possible here. That fact was that the energy represented by those Seven Stars was head and shoulders in raw power above what my Valences, Core, and Matrix represented, it just wasn’t refined for shit, and I had no way of tapping them for Casting other than my Valences.
The creatures here used incredible amounts of magic for their effects without batting an eye, using gross overpaying to sub for control to some degree. There was also a clear tier of power break, some kind of boost, between animal Tiers.
This Moon Horned Owl was a full Tier higher than the other Owls I’d seen. Those creatures had been within the same Tier as the rats, only the Rats were the bottom, and the Owls were the top. This fellow was simply far more powerful, and the Great Stag was a whole other Tier above this Owl.
I could imagine it was flying me to an Owl at the same level as the Great Stag. From there I would be heading to some other creature, this Flowing Silver Emperor, who was probably a full Tier above them.
They were fully sapient, and so there was a hierarchy of pure power based on relative strength among them, undisturbed by human philosophies, ideas, and the like. It was elemental, primal, and ruthless, but also seemed to be fairly rigidly adhered to, and not abused as it would be in human governments, with a clear-cut clarity to it that humanity just didn’t have. It was absolutely ruthless and nigh-inviolable if you were weak, but that was Nature for you. If you weren’t strong enough, you weren’t getting above your station, and those who inherited power had all the advantages, sucked to be you.
On the other hand, it was clear the weaker species proliferated more, where the strong ones did not. Which probably meant they were prey for other higher Tiers, and the power which raised those higher Tiers had to be concentrated to work.
Distilled out of the flesh of weaker animals or plants, perhaps? I wondered if I qualified with these Stars inside me.
A Racial Class was all about Health and reinforcing of the body. I was pretty sure that I did constitute prey to something. I grimaced at the thought of enhanced Humans being basically ideal monster food, and realized that it was exactly the same as all these other creatures here...
Humans were just another Beast in the eyes of the Beasts, albeit focused far, far more on use of intelligence and tools than any other Beasts were, which also upended the power structure of inheriting a Bloodline and growing strong and dominating. That wasn’t a reason for humans to obey one another, it was a reason to fight back and circumvent such power!
They thus considered us weird and unnatural, and our abuse of the environment probably didn’t help. Relying on brains instead of power was so odd, as power and brains were likely the same thing to the Beasts, whereas we were all basically full sapient, but power didn’t come naturally.
Intelligence upset the apple carts, and altered the balance of power in remarkably short periods of time.
Our intelligence was why we considered ourselves superior, and the Beasts probably found that highly amusing, and at the same time confusing and worrisome, not really realizing the implications of an entire species who were all as smart as they were. Even if we died in droves to the power they unleashed, all we did was get better and more dangerous over time, without a ceiling of bloodline or power held by stronger Tiers of animals...
That meant the Racial Class I was following... probably had the same Tiers!
I considered the Rats and the Owls, the larger Stags among the Deer, and the Great Stag. Three obvious Tiers, and Humanity probably followed the exact same progression...
And here I was sitting in the bottom one, and because I was smart, I was able to associate with a much more powerful Tier because I was able to communicate with them.
Humans not being able to communicate with the magical Beasts they shared the world with was probably a big stopper, too...
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We seemed to be heading for a mountain ahead. I ransacked my brains for scale, and yeah, it had to be at least thirty thousand feet, standing above the surrounding peaks by a good amount. On the horizon, forty, fifty miles away... we’d be there in twenty minutes, tops, judging by how unnaturally fast this Owl was moving.
We’d covered hundreds of miles at great speed, always with a tail wind. This Owl was as fast as a small plane, easily.
I carefully turned over, keeping a grip on his feathers, looking up at the sky and sun above us.
“Just so you know, Elder, there are two Eagles pacing us further up in the sky,” I said softly.
His head spun all the way around to look up in the sky, black and silver lights glowing on his feathers as he looked harmlessly and easily up into the sun. “Owls are generally not about during the day, and there is some rivalry between us. They can see where I am going, however, and will not attack, lest Cloud Moon and my people come after them in the night in response.”
It made sense. Owls were big birds, and generally could bully around Eagles and Hawks as they liked. Only the very biggest Raptors outsized the larger Owls. One would clearly hunt during the day, and one the night, minimizing conflicts. Just traveling about shouldn’t generate too hostile a response, and even doing so meant something important.