The Power of Ten, Book Five: Versatile Wizardry

“Well? Show us!” Winkle called out, grinning and his tongue hanging like it did when he was at his most amused. The other Beasts waiting to be Healed all turned their eyes on me expectantly, anticipating a good show.

I considered my next actions, looking around at all of them, waiting to see if my words from weeks ago were the boasts of a foolish Human or simple declarations of truth. I smiled lopsidedly despite myself.

“I shall need the Elders to line up somewhat closer to one another. This may infringe on your personal space, but I ask for your patience.” With a wave of my hand, I dropped Faerie Fires on twenty-six of them, indicating who needed to be closer together. The golden-furred, horned hare-like Al’miraj the size of a rhino was my next patient, a Great Commander with several black slices and stained holes in his beautiful fur. He’d been waiting patiently for his chance, and now he hopped forward slightly in expectation.

I raised Noble as I watched all the illuminated Beasts moving into position. “Elders, the power of the Void Phoenix enables the power of Fire to Heal, as well as harm, so that is what we are going to do here. What is going to happen will be painful to you, but you will be able to tell that it is actually helping you, like the pain of healing a wound over a month, taken all at the same moment. I ask that you all relax as much as possible and let the Fire do its work!”

I brought my power up.

Hoooo...!

The air temperature around me plummeted, but a burning light from above was illuminating me. The incredibly pure natural Mana of this world danced, and I wielded the Sublime Chord again, meshing in the power of the Words of Creation, the Holy Metas directly into the spell instead of as Kicker effects, used Zealotry to allow them to affect Neutrals, and all the boosted effects of Healing and the like as I took a set of Improved Shards, their natural damage cap of 10 Delimited to 15, added one more with Shardcaster, Spellwarped them into a Ray, Split the Ray, increased the die size from d6 to d8, added 50%, then Topped it out with Consecrated Spell, and finally used excess Mana to Chain it as I spent Mana to boost a Force-Fire spell with the Cold Descriptor from Snowcasting.

The amount of Fire and Cold Mana that came to my call promptly shocked me a little, the whole of this clearing lighting up as the Sublime Chord thrummed. I had to rapidly adjust the Song on the fly to accommodate the additional energy. The Shards I pulled up had gone from the size of my hand to the size of shortspears, and my Horned Hare of a target widened his emerald eyes at the intensity of the magic burning there.

They started to move, and instead converged just beyond the head of Noble, gathering and forming a beam of fire and force, which hit a prism of Will and Split into two identical Rays, each encircled by Holy and vivic flames, as well as the sparkling fire and frost of the Luan Seeds.

They drove into the Al’miraj’s body, overcoming his natural Resistance with startling ease, which allowed the full force of the Healing Fire to sweep into him. The doubling with the Split Ray offset the half-strength Healing cost, and the stacking doubling effects of the Luan Seeds multiplied the whole thing by four.

The Taint in him was devoured as the Hare-like creature opened his mouth and squealed in pain despite himself... a call that was taken up in many, many voices as the Chain leapt out from him, and those burning Rays, their strength cut in half, leapt to the next of the Great Beasts in line.

Predators and herbivores, fliers and crawlers, runners and stalkers; the Healing Fire treated them all alike. They roared and bleated and squealed and hissed and writhed somewhat, but they took it all as Holy flames exploded out of their wounds and Tainted energies were ejected with them, igniting in midair with the popping of water flashing into steam, and maybe pitiful little cries of the Darkness in living souls burning away before Purity...

“If the other Elders will prepare to take the places of those who are fully healed!” Noble called out for me, as I was intent on the Sublime Chord, and beginning to build up the Resonance of Repeating the spell seven times, at which time I would have to pause to recharge my Stars.

They noticed the short range of the Chains jumping between the Beasts, and so the Great Beasts waiting moved with speed and surety behind those being slammed with Healing Firefrost so harshly. Sparkling Flames were blazing out of wounds, Taint was being expunged, flesh was closing, and twinkling cold mists were spewing out of mouths, noses, ears, and sometimes eyes, frosting and spreading over the ground in chilly white swathes.

But I was now Healing twenty-six of them at once!

Seven pulses flared out, and my primary target was fully healed, as was one of my secondaries, and all of the others were well beyond halfway.

I paused, catching my breath, but keeping the Sublime Chord dancing by Will as I let the Silver Fox watching the show read my thoughts, Elder Winkle, if you could organize the Beasts to change positions quickly so I do not lose Resonance between the spells.

His Tails fluttered and his teeth gleamed as he immediately took up the task of giving orders to the other Great Beasts, who began to gather into lines behind the main targets, who also had to prepare to move quickly out of those lines when they were done being treated.

A Great Commander Gila Monster, scales as red as lava and as dark as obsidian, swayed up to replace the Al’miraj who had hopped away, still twitching and burning and exhaling icy cold vivus.

I paused, breathing as my Warlock Pact thrummed and recharged my Stars. Having to pay for a Chain meant I couldn’t just ceaselessly get the spell off, I needed higher Valences to do that.

The Beasts weren’t complaining. Well, they were venting somewhat, although the cold gushing up out of their throats with the vivus was muting some of the calls considerably.

I lifted Noble, power flared under the twilight sun and coming stars, and all the Great Beasts tensed.

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They were done. All of the hundreds of Great Beasts who had come here to be treated were done.

Word was already rippling out. I was sure that Warrior-Class Beasts, who were both numerous and not important enough to be treated, were going to start making their way here.

There would likely be thousands of them, but it wouldn’t matter. They wouldn’t be nearly as resistant to the Healing as the Commanders were, and their injuries would be smaller and faster to treat, as well. I doubted any of them would take more than one or two spells, even Chained, which meant I could sweep through over a hundred of them a minute before recharging easily, which meant thousands an hour.

These Seeds were really something. Their effects were stacking on one another, so the Shards of Fire and Frost were being doubled, then doubled again. The raw amount of damage, combined with the Divine and Primal energies all stacking on, was bypassing almost every bit of Resistance even the most powerful of the Great Commanders was putting up. The creatures of Fire and Cold, instead of finding themselves more resistant to this type of Healing, instead found themselves more ‘vulnerable’, as Penetrating Cold and Scorching Fire overcame their opposite numbers for an additional +50% effect. They were Healed even faster than those around them, and that was before the higher quality of the Luan Flames beat down and suppressed the Beasts’ own Fire or Cold energies.

The magic here was so damn powerful, it was hard to believe. I was already throwing out spells as powerful as anything Ael had wound up back home, and I still had a lot of growth to do in the local magic system!

Also, Healing a lot of Great Beasts of Tainted wounds was a heap load of Karma. Very satisfied with my work of the day, I moved to Meditate.

After all, I had more work tomorrow, too...

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Days pass as many, many Beasts are Healed...

“You can come out at any time, you know.”

There was no stirring, perfect patience and cunning on display. Sure, it would sacrifice its life to complete its mission if it must, but if it didn’t have to, why would it? Things of Darkness were pragmatic that way.

“I sensed you arrive more than a mile away,” I went on calmly in Necrus, making another Torch while reducing another glittering gem on a small hill of rough sapphires down this time as the Fire-blessed Lights blossomed on rods of stone. “I then notified the Seven-Tailed fellow over there who looks like he’s dozing, and had the waiting Avians slowly withdraw to stay out of danger.

“Elder Winkle naturally notified his father and grandfather and... ah, you understand.”

The Shade slid out from between the edges of reality, turning from formless to flat, to filling out of nothingness into a cowled, robed figure. It bore a scythe in hand, its robed features unclear, only hunched and obviously not having a human bone structure as it stood there about fifty paces away from me, twenty feet tall even slouched over as it was.

It didn’t say anything, its hood turned toward Winkle, who had raised his head and yawned, snapping gleaming teeth absently as he bestirred himself to do his job... not that he hadn’t been completely focused on this Duke of an Assassin for the last two hours as it made its way slowly closer to where I was working.

I didn’t know how it had found out, and it really didn’t matter. Its bosses were sure to have discovered me sooner or later, and try to do something about me.

While I wanted to be out there and contributing to the fighting, Winkle had been growing increasingly uneasy with me doing so, and I was doing enough Healing every day that I totally did not need to. Commander, and sometimes even Noble, Beasts were coming in from all the Emperors, traveling thousands of miles to do so in order to get their injuries completely Healed.

I had taken Ur-Priest to Three, and with the Theurgic boost, I could now access both Remove Curse and Restoration.

The direst of Curses and deepest of spiritual injuries, things that would hound, harry, and hamper these Great Beasts until the ends of their lives, were now things I could initiate a Caster Level check against, flaring and crushing the hostile Magic. With the additional might of my patients, I drove the alien energies forth as Holy Light repaired what had been wounded, succored them of their travails, and relieved them of their pain.

I naturally had to take Wizard to Three to match Ur-Priest, but that was fine. As long as I didn’t skip to Four, I could still keep Sorcerer my Prime Class, and the costs of my other Secondary Classes actually didn’t change, as I’d had Vizard at Three all along.

Probably seeing some Rulers and Commanders coming back to the fight healed of the pain and permanent damage inflicted upon them had likely prompted a reaction, signaling that the Beasts had a Healer with power so great they needed to be removed.

Hence, a deadly competent assassin was dispatched. Even if it cost its life, it should have been able to reach me and dispatch me without too much trouble.

Powerful stealthy creatures naturally had protection against the senses of others like themselves. But they had no experience with or natural defenses against Divination Magic, and Divination Magic bumped up with the local Mana was horrendously powerful and sensitive.

Detect Shadow, ramped to IV and maintained by a Duskstopped Spell, fueled by the same kind of negative energy the Shade itself used, and was even harder to Ward against. The spell had picked out this thing like a dark blot on white paper, so apparent by its power I couldn’t have missed it if I had tried.