The Power of Ten, Book Three : The Human Race

The Ki-Bound Weapon aligned and glittered with the power of becoming +II. It was short for a sword, but perfect for her current height and reach. Weapon Training for her Melee Level kicked in, and her Weapon Specialization doubled it.

An instant +4 to hit and hurt something was not to be looked down upon.

Cover Your Weakness kicked in, taking her choice of +1 to a Stat on reaching Four, and also improving her weakest mental and physical Stats by +1.

Her choice of +1 Wisdom kicked her 13 to 14, adding +1 to her Ki pool, which was at 19, most of it invested in Power Feats at the moment... or her Sword.

But that was enough to get her to 20, and when it dovetailed with her Null Shaman and Null Sorcerer Matrix Levels, brimming brightly with 17 and 11 Valences respectively, her Diamond Vajra came online, Sustained kicked in full force, and so did Sustained Effort, the Feat she instantly bought.

+1 Wisdom became +1 Constitution, too, kicking that to 25. Her lowest physical Stat was naturally Strength, sitting there at a whopping 9, despite years of working out and doing labor on the farm. This improved to 10, the same strength as an average adult human male... and her Charisma went up by 1, also to 12.

Lowest Mental Stat was Charisma, so it and Strength improved again, to 13 and 11, to no further benefit, for now...

She was still far and away the toughest ten-year-old who had ever existed on the planet.

She clicked over the levers to buy +1 to Health and Soak towards the Maximum, the 5-10 Soak of a Melee Level defaulting to 7. Likewise, Melee was her Favored Class, and she bought +1 Soak for it with the Favored Class benefit, plus expanded her Maneuver Defense pool by +2, as a Forsaken bonus.

Weapon Training +1. 3 Skill points + Intellect bonus of 4. Combat Feat. Training Feat. Bonus Forsaken Feat. Buy a Mastery Advance.

Human/2, 6 Skill Points, d8+Con Health, and a bonus Caster Level, or a bonus Feat... which would grant another Feat.

A Caster Level would vanish with Rantha Levels, so the Feats were the way to go.

Combat Genius. All Training numbers from Melee Levels increased by +1. Training Feat.

Soulsword, Combat Feat. Diamond Vajra made it possible, along with Profound Weapon.

Tremble began to chime in a reassuring tone as an additional foot of blade composed of spiritual force extended off her. Base 1-6 of damage was now 3-15 after combined advances from Ki and Soulsword.

Sun Strike, Bonus Feat. Falling Star Strike, Bonus Forsaken Human Feat. Rapid Refocus, Human Feat.

Skills. They all had to be chosen to prepare for Sage of Swords, which came online at Five. Stealth and Perception, which would boost sneak attack damage. Armorsmith, Blacksmith, Weaponsmith, Whitesmith, Bonecarver, Butcher, Athletics, Leatherworker, Woodcarver, Sense Motive, Survival.

She had no Foe Hunter or Favored Enemy bonuses, because she hadn’t been fighting anything to earn them... and sparring with her siblings didn’t count.

She had told her father she had four Classes at Three... which was totally correct. She had ten Classes at Three: the Four Combat Classes of Melee, Monk, Archer, and Scout; two NPC Classes of Expert and Vizard; and four Null Caster Classes, of Null Druid, Sorcerer, Rune Chemist, and Runesmith.

Three beginner Levels for every year she had been alive. That was so slow as to be pathetic... but they had been a wonderful ten years...

She didn’t have much in the way of defensive Gear at all. Simple Drei-Slot Bracers of Force Armor were three goldweight of materials and six goldweight of work, requiring her to make them at QL33. Five damn months to get a pair of bracelets that weren’t as good as wearing a gun vest... at least until she pumped 4 Ki into the Greater Ki-Bound and the Warding/Armory started to get built up. Lots of room for improvement, and she definitely needed all the Ki she could get. All her Twin Moon Ki went into the bracers...

The Crescent Moon and Sword Amulet she wore with her tags was only +I... but boosted her Natural AC and Saves, so worth it, and it was Ki-Bound, too. Her general Wolverine Ki went in there...

Her last true magical item was her Masspack, which would also have shocked her father if he knew how much stuff she was toting around. After all, it was worth four goldweight... over half a million dollars! The stuff she was wearing around casually could have bought the family farm easily, and was just barely the beginning of what she had to acquire.

There was a lot of alchemical stuff in there, and stuff for making more alchemical stuff from a field kit, if need be. The let-off wasn’t much, but it didn’t have to be, as it wasn’t made for transporting hundreds of pounds of loot.

It was, however, eminently suitable for rigging up surprises in the future...

She grabbed the small Assay Slate she’d made for herself, spat on it, and waited for it to read her, not resisting the scan.

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Samantha Piotrowski, NG Null Human/2, Sustained

Classes: Melee/4 (P), Archer/3, Monk/3, Scout/3, Expert/3, Vizard/3, Null Druid/3, Null Sorcerer/3, Runesmith/3, Rune Chemist/3, Minstrel/1

Strength: 11 +0

Dexterity: 18 +4

Constitution: 25 +7 (+4 Inherent)

Intellect: 18 +4

Wisdom: 14 +2

Charisma: 13 +1

Health: 51 (27 (2x (d8+7 Con) + 4 (Toughness) +20 (Spirit-Reinforced Body)

Soak: 106 (70 (4x (d10+1FC+7 Con)) + 16 (Toughness/2) + 20 (Tough Spirit))

Ki: 20

Valences: 28

Null: 21

Talent: Natural Swordsman

Racial Benefits: Latent Hagchild; Null Forsaken; +2 to 2 ability scores (Con, Int)

Traits: Latent Hagchild

Karma: Current Seven (25%)

Base Abilities...

Feats/Class Abilities...

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Sama smirked at the Soak total despite herself. Ten years old, mwa-ha-ha-hah! Three uses of Resolve/Vigor backed by Battle Vigor... as long as she wasn’t paralyzed or something, she would be very hard to stop.

Time to prepare for those looking...

------

Even looking for it with a +23 modifier, she almost missed the Scrying Focus when it popped up.

It was just a little bubble, a distortion in the light in front of the truck. Buried under the leaves of the brush thirty yards away, she caught the flicker, and focused on it.

So, a connection to a Witch or a Shaman. If they weren’t that strong, well enough. If they were, well, she had a problem. Ten more points of Null on this world would be a lot...

Chomps was further back, with instructions to make sure he wasn’t seen or followed. Actually, he had done something sneaky for them, hauling around a stinky mass of stuff that completely covered up any scent trail that they had left behind. Anything sniffing around for them was going to get a nose full of skunk and weasel in heat, and not a whole lot more.

Chomps had crisscrossed their trail for miles just to mess everything up the more, so nobody would be following a scent trail back anywhere. If they could pick out hoofprints, that was something different, but the thing about creatures with enhanced senses was how much they relied upon them. It was a huge change going from tracking via scent to visually.

Now it was just patience.

------

They arrived in less than an hour. Sama narrowed her eyes as they pulled up in two jeeps.

She identified the four werewolves among the eight men at a glance. They all had a family resemblance, however warped, to the two werewolves or the sheriff.

But the other four... they weren’t human at all.

She blinked as a fluttering aura of concealment passed before her eyes, but seemed to hit something around her that wasn’t her Vajra, and lost its touch on her.

They were dressed in human clothing typical of a workplace, but their heads were smooth, bullet-shaped, and eel-skinned, with flat mouths that gaped open to talk in Aklo with razored teeth.

Werewolves and Aberrants? Wasn’t that like the very epitome of natural corruption? Just had to add in a few twisted Fey and things would be nice and swell...

It looks like I’ve stumbled into a major source of Karma... She had to stop herself from salivating.

The werewolves were particularly upset about the dead guy, of course. However, none of them headed off on the trail where the girl had been camped out, possibly not knowing she was there. They were all swearing at the stench around, certain someone had used it to conceal their scent... but they were talking about rival werewolf clans making moves and sending a message, to the point of using human weapons instead of honorable claws and fangs...

Okay, that was just plain weird. The slug-things just confirmed possession of the human meat in the back of the truck... and since the keys were in it, were completely uncaring of anything else.

Sama watched them radio the sheriff of their discovery, which, judging by how loud the reply was, seemed to get them to investigate off in the direction of the camping trailer, while the truck with the meat and one of the jeeps took off for somewhere else, driven by the eels.

Ah, splitting the party. Sama smirked... but she didn’t go after the one left behind. That was too obvious. Instead she went after the three heading off to investigate the trailer.

She’d already treated herself alchemically to leave no scent, and was perfectly confident in her Stealth modifier of +25 or so in this, her Favored Terrain. The weres still hadn’t bothered to transform, so they didn’t even get the wolf bonus to their senses, and she certainly wasn’t worried about the spirits or something warning them of a Null in their area.

Unworried about scuffs or scratches with DR 4/- and both Force Armor and Natural Armor, she flowed through the forest as little more than an errant breeze, lightfoot moving her further along than the distance of each stride, rapidly catching up to the three werewolves.

Two, when she actually caught up to them a quarter-mile later. One of them had just ducked off the trail to the other side of the road...