NOVEL NEXT Chapter Sixty-One - Captain and Commander II
After all the violent excitement in Reality has stopped...
“So, Captain Sama Rantha. You’re a long way from Coralost, Sama,” Briggs noted, not unamused.
He’d swapped out his torn leather shirt for a simpler, embroidered vest that his mother’s sister had made for him. It wasn’t high QL, but the feelings behind it were much deeper, and it conveyed great status in the tribe. He’d been seated with the elder warriors when they sat in council, and he often represented the tribe with the dwarves.
“Why are you keeping the Mask up?” he asked, glancing at the floating Disk next to them, which was still burning slightly. The sight of such naked magic was keeping his kinfolk away, which was probably for the best. The crazy killer girl’s rep had come with the Rangers who had arrived late to the fight, too, and everyone was sharing careful drinks and looks at the two of them.
“Hagsign covers half my face. People tend to react poorly, but it’s buried under the active Tats, and the neck isn’t as off-putting,” she replied crisply, and he nodded understanding. The Mask washed away before his eyes, and he looked over the blue-black mottled flesh, and the devastating blue eyes.
He had images of her biting on his shoulders, and firmly reminded himself that he was still too young for such things. The side of her mouth curled up.
“Those purple eyes of yours are gorgeous,” she told him, leaning in slightly. “How does your tribe see them?”
He was rather embarrassed. “Uh, they thought it was a bad sign when I was born, evil eyes from ogre blood. They were very surprised when I turned out to be smart, rather than vicious.”
“Good!” she complimented him, offering a tunk of her cup of ice water, which he clinked automatically. Her Sword cooling it down made it very nice.
“How are you already at Ten?” he asked, a little aggrieved. “I thought I was making decent progress. I killed my first ogre at four, and my first giant at seven. I thought I was doing pretty good!”
“Ehhhh.” The way her mouth on that side turned down made the Tat’s whiskers exaggerate her frown. So cute! “Well, you’re leading the typical life of a tribal Ancient, you just had sapience when born, and knew what to do and where to put the Karma, right?”
“Pretty much.” He flexed his arms and chest, watched her delighted eyes follow the motion, not at all off-put by his body hair.
“Wellllll, I found out that being a reborn soul destined to be a Hagchild is something right out of a horror flick.”
He blinked. “What? Doesn’t the Ritual of the Silver Queen take care of that?”
She nodded, but that side of her mouth was at a weird angle. “Yeah… if you’re the persona the Curse sets up. For the soul, well, it’s only possible if the soul is refined away.”
Briggs felt his jaw dropping. “What?”
“Hags can’t have true children, it’s an aspect of the Curse. Their children are extensions of their Curse, made to corrupt innocent souls. In my case, the annis Tusk Annie ate some poor fool after having sex with him, bore a Hagchild, and that Hagchild ate and replaced a week-old baby, before living out her life… and I was that baby.”
Briggs blinked, then blinked again. “Holy Hell,” he murmured. “And… it couldn’t refine your soul. Instead of the Ritual cleansing it from without… you Nulled and broke out from within?” He watched her nod. “Then… what of the persona? She…” He followed her eyes to Tremble floating there, watching and listening silently. “Ah, she managed to transfer to your Soul, because of the Soulbind tie…”
“So I’ve been told,” Tremble said softly in her chiming voice. “I don’t have many memories of being human…”
“And you’re being Ten is related to this?” Briggs asked, curious now.
“Mmm. It was like being caught in a video game, where I wasn’t allowed to die, because if I did, the Curse died, too. So, the Curse was trying to wear me down, by pain and killing me over and over again, until I couldn’t take it anymore. I met it head-on, treating it as a game, and I leeched power off of it, growing my soul and tempering my psyche, as I was basically caught in Nightmare.”
Briggs was silent, picturing that. Being caught inside a video game and dying over and over would be a horrible, non-stop cycle of violence, pain, and ultimately dying futilely. Enduring until you were strong enough to break the cycle would take an awesome level of willpower and perseverance.
Which is exactly what a Null did. They endured and persevered.
“And you got enough Karma to make Ten from that? Damn, that Curse is strong…”
“It was hollow Karma. It’s like I have it all, but I don’t. The Curse was pervasive and continually sucking in the real stuff, but it’s not like it had enough power to make me an F-Rank Ten, just like that. It had more than enough power to make me the equivalent of an Annis, but above and beyond that, I’ve got to earn that Karma all over again before I can try anything new.”
“So, the structure, filling in the meat.” He got it. “Still, that’s a lot more Karma than I’ve been exposed to,” he admitted. “Although I’ve been killing stuff beyond my means, too…”
“That Hammer Grandmastery kicked in at Five?”
“Yes, not too long ago, really. Adding Ranks in Hammer-using Skills to my damage with a hammer has been very useful…”
“The four Smiths, Miner, Sculptor, Lumberjack, Carpenter…?” she wondered aloud. He grinned and nodded. “+40 damage, at least. You’re just a monster, just like back home!”
“How about you? You’re a Sword Grandmaster, too!...”
“Ah, I didn’t get mine by building on Warsmith. Mine let me use any weapon-related Feat that could conceivably be used with a sword, with a Sword. So, I can Hew and Finish, for example.”
Briggs blinked, turning over those two Feats in his mind. Hew was a nice Feat for Axe-users, as it helped not waste damage while Cleaving. It was only limited by having a Cleave target, so useless against most bosses, and only if you killed something, so more a minion-clearing tool. Finish was just a way of making sure that something that fell down, didn’t get back up. Basically, an anti-healing/regeneration Feat.
But if you could use them together, then…
“A crit once a round, whenever you kill something…” he murmured. The damage would splash to the next target, resulting in a huge opening blow, and if they were weak, probably another kill, and another Cleave instantly...
She flicked a finger at the piles of corpses, most of which had burned down to soft white ash by now, the mists hanging around long eaten by the ever-insatiable Land. “I want to charge the little guy, then hit the boss,” she agreed cheerfully.
“Damn! But, what about your base damage?”
“Well, you took Warsmith’s Class Feature to an extreme. I took Profound Artisan.”
He went dumpster diving through his memory again. “Plus synergy bonus from a chosen Skill to your Focused Weapon damage?” he asked. It wasn’t a bad bonus, but not a great one…
“Started with Mastersmith. Expanded it to every Skill that had a viable connection with any weapon through my Grandmastery. Earned a new Title for it, The Sage of Swords.”
“I, whoa… That… would eat a lot of Skill Points. But any and all applicable Skills, just start stacking the synergy bonuses… That could get really high, Sama…” He eyed her thoughtfully. “Is that how you were such a badass in-game?”
“Twenty-plus appropriate Skills at ten Ranks.” His whistle was low and impressed. “I’ve effectively got just over half that right now as the Karma fills in. It won’t go as high as yours, I think, but it’s got a lot more niche bonuses, like Stealth increasing Sneak Attack damage.”
“Didn’t know you had two Titles, impressive!” Titles weren’t easy to come by.
That cunning smile rose again. “I had three. Now, I’ve got four.”
“Three!” He blinked. “And you earned another?” That was hard to believe!
“It’s more an Achievement Feat, but because it has so many pre-reqs, it applies as a Title.”
“What was the third one from the game?”
She laughed brightly, which raised goosebumps on his skin. It was like birds singing about steel. “I was The Trembling Sage.” Those incredible blue eyes danced in the firelight from her Disk.
“Trembling Sage? Tremorsense?” There was a pulse on the ground, he could feel it perfectly, as Tremorsense was a skill he had also cultivated to the utmost, for both its usefulness in combat and just plain knowing the ground around him.
“Tremblesense includes the air via echolocation and blindfighting, electricity via lateral line, heat via infrasense, air pressure, and even rough visualization via light on the skin; magic, chi, and psi via Null deletion, in addition to dimensional shifting.” She swished her long golden mane of hair, which he was sure had been moving by itself when he wasn’t staring at it. “Hair acts like a tuned receiver and multiple contact points of reference.”
He pursed his lips, wondering just how much effort it must have taken to put together combined abilities, Skills, and Feats like that. “So, it’s a total sphere, instead of a hemisphere.” He grunted as he thought about that. “Damn. No wonder you were called ‘The Tip of the Spear’. No one had any secrets from you, did they?”
“Any strong chi, magic, psi, ki, or Essence field can mask what’s behind it, but otherwise… nope. Get heavyfoot up, take the Ranks in Tremorsense, Feat to double, magic item to double again, hook them all in together to work on ki vibrations, and I had a sixty-foot sphere where I knew where everything was. Yeah, I was near impossible to surprise.”
“Damn!” He had never realized it could be upgraded to include the air. “And here I practice Thunder and didn’t realize that…”
“Eh, no one did, which was funny, but you only get the Title if you work it out yourself, so I just ruined it for you.” Her lopsided smile was so damn cute.
“I’m just happy I’ve got another skill set to work towards.” Not that he didn’t have enough on his plate. “And your last one?”
“You know how there’s a bunch of anti-monster Feats out there, especially for undead and the like? And they all hook into Favored Enemy Masteries, and Achievement Feats for slaughter, and the Vendetta Feat for stuff picking on you?”
“Yeah?” This sounded interesting.
“Well, I combined them all with Dark Knowledge, poured in the Karma, and got a new Title out of it, working off of my Sage of Swords. Turned all the relevant bonuses to derive from synergy bonuses with a Knowledge check, made them insight bonuses, and they kick in on killing enough of an enemy, instead of straight Karma investing.” She leaned backwards slightly. “And damn, Briggs, did I kill a lot of stuff during those years in Nightmare.”
“Wow.” Insight bonuses were not easy to come by. Dark Knowledge and Favored Enemy were both morale bonuses, coming in to the same effect from different angles. “No more Favored Enemy or Dark Knowledge, then?”
“No, but I don’t much care. I can Wardance or Sing for morale bonuses.”
“I am soooo far behind the curve,” he lamented.
“Meh. We’ve got to get you going with Endure.” She glanced at his Hammer. “You didn’t even Name that. What’s going on?”
“Ah, dwarven Hammers are basically only used by their Priests of the Forge-Father. I found this one buried in the midden of a clan of the Nailclubs, the ogre tribe you saw here. As I was using it to kill ogres so successfully, the dwarves let me keep on using it… but it’s not my Hammer.” He handed it over to her, and she took it as easily as a willow wand.
“Yeah, shaft is too short and thick, the balance is off for your build. I imagine you have to replace this thong all the time.” She snipped off the frayed thing with two fingers, and he said nothing. “Go on, give it back. Let’s get you a starting Hammer.”
He hesitated a moment. “I don’t have the metals for-”
“Starter Hammer. You need to start accumulating Naming Karma,” she admonished him. “You and I both know we’re going to be going after these warbands. A thousand Karma a day cost-free into your Weapon. Every day of combat you don’t have a Named Weapon in your hand is costing you the money you don’t have.
“Once we’ve actually got some pull and gold, we can go about getting some adamant and mithral and stuff.” She motioned Tremble over to him, and he accepted the Sword into his hands, feeling her with hands and Ki and Essence.
“She’s only a 33, and that post-refined.” He glanced at her. “You refined a Sword you found?”
“There’s no real way to get her to 35, so we got her to 33 and made her Impervious. Just waiting on the real metal to make a real weapon.”
He nodded. “And you can make a Hammer?” he asked, his pale violet eyes almost glowing.
She gestured at a couple of cabinets. “I’ve got a set of Shaping Tools, an Anvil of Silent Thunder, and that Disk is a Floating Forge which can melt adamantine. I had two sword-blades of adamant, but once I smelted them down and got rid of the Shadow bias, I was half a pound shy of making a new blade for Tremble.”
“What did you get those off of?”
“A couple svartalfar some Hags contracted to kill me. I’m hoping more show up for me to kill.”
“That would be a convenient source of more adamant,” he agreed. “You want to get started now?”
“You have a Diamond Vajra, you gonna waste time?”
“No.” His hands were suddenly itching as he looked at the Cabinet she pointed out. “A full set of smithing tools?” he asked softly.
“They’re sized for me for now, I’ll grab some leather wraps for you.”
“Good!” He got to his feet, hefting the Hammer she had passed back to him. “Let me go return this, and we’ll get to work.” It was a +II Weapon, he wouldn’t really miss it. An Einz Slot Soulbound would totally replace it.
“I’ll get my materials ready; we’ll pick what you want to work with and get started. We should be able to do 8k of work per eight hours, so twelve-some hours and we should be good to get you a 35 QL Hammer.”
He blinked despite himself, remembered what she said, and then recalled his own smithing set-up from back in-game. She didn’t have the adamant, but she had all the basic Artifice to do it. With him helping her, this should be simple to do…
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“Speaker Hundrek.” The dwarves had seen him coming, and turned to look at him, as much bodies as necks, since they didn’t have a human’s range of motion.
“Young Briggs,” the warpriest nodded at him, the metallic hue of his beard identifying him better than his symbol, since the former covered up the latter. “Haf du news for us? From your young lass, perhaps?” There were some chuckles from those around, as his hanging around the masked girl was totally obvious, and easy to read into.
“Aye. She said she would forge me a new Hammer, and so I’ve come to return this one to the Forge-Father,” he replied, always amused that the dwarves here sounded more German than Scottish.
Armor and leather creaked as the Priest got to his feet, treating the Weapon that was being held out to him with the respect it deserved. “Oh? She cans forge a Hammer more suited for du, lad?” He accepted the Hammer with both hands somberly, his polished eyes interested.
“Aye, she can. She also asked me to inquire if the Rockborn are selling some rare metals. She’s in need of some to forge a true Sword for herself, and some other things. Foremost are adamant and mithral, naturally.”
All the dwarves drinking quietly there looked at him as if they’d discovered a new species. “Du canst bin thinking du can forge star-silver, let alone world-bone, lad,” the Priest rebuffed him firmly.
That was true, for now. “Of course not, Speaker Hundrek. But Lady Sama can. She can probably give you lessons.” After all, Rockborn or no, the Priest wasn’t a Ten, merely a Seven. The +4 Racial bonus was impressive as a Dwarf/3, but compared to a Ten? Especially with her Stats?
Hundrek’s beetly eyebrows flared up to his stiff hairline. “Du thinks so, lad? Mights I bin able to watch this Lady, then, und see er working?”
“Of course, Speaker Hundrek,” he bowed immediately, giving the Priest the respect he was due. “She’s a Master Runesmith, however, not a Runeforger, so the style may be unfamiliar to you.”
“A Runesmith? She canst call nae on dweomer?” His interest, and that of many of the Rockborn there, was immediately piqued. “Aye, I mights wander ofer und see she skillz, young Briggs.” Given how they revered their elders, he was unsurprised the dwarf was subtly putting him in his place. The initial War Council between the various forces gathered here had not included him. After all, he had never been to war…
“At your convenience, Elder,” he replied humbly, before turning to go.
He couldn’t help the partial smile that was tugging at the side of his mouth. Sama was a Ten Master Runesmith from the game, and she’d taken time to make all the right Forging toys, because the speed advantage they gave her was more important than anything else in the building of power. The combination wouldn’t impress the Rockborn, who certainly used such things themselves… but the fact she was toting them around with her certainly would!