The Power of Ten, Book Three : The Human Race

While the Freemasons had no monopoly on the making of magic items or the foundation items, they set the standard for all crafters and Crafters. Anyone seeking to buck the system by undercutting pricing or doing false QL would come under tremendous, possibly lethal, pressure.

Of course, many crafters complained about monopoly, restricted training, and so forth... but the fact was, with Akashic training via Karma available, there was no way to limit the acquisition of skills. There was Karma, time, talent, and training. BUT... the Freemasons knew how to direct their skills to create synergies, what Feats and Masteries to take, how to take them, what to focus on, and what to let slide and have others handle.

Just that knowledge on what to do was invaluable. Add on the greater lifespan of the demi-humans, even before the Powered Level bonuses, and the master Crafters of the elves, dwarves, and gnomes profited the most. There was no way to stop it if you were a Human, except to Level more and try to equal them.

Elves could easily hit Eight in Wizardry, and with it another Class, giving them a one Rank bonus in pure skill. Dwarves could hit Seven in Expert+Melee, and had a racial bonus when working with stone and metal of base +2, ending up at +4 at Seven with Dwarf/3, which a Human could not equal. Gnomes had a +2 edge in Alchemy and Gemcutting that also increased to +4.

Thus, the highest end of certain professions was held by Gnomes and Dwarves, while the Elves had a one Skill Rank advantage in ANY skill they wanted to pursue.

All three Races also had full Racial Classes, which had no ability prereqs to take, although they had the same problems breaking Six. That meant that thoroughly average members of all their Races could eventually reach Six with time, simply slogging away and putting in their time, something basically impossible for humans to emulate. Granted, humans vastly outnumbered them, and so there were more exceptional humans than there were of any of those races... but when an average dwarf, gnome, or elf hit Four without a problem, the equivalent of a skilled Master or elite human, there was definitely a shift in power.

It meant humans ended up making lower QL stuff, because the other races were better at making high QL. Dwarves sat atop the smithing world, Gnomes led the alchemical and jewelry worlds, and the Elves couldn’t be rivaled in anything, especially making magical items, at the top end.

Except, of course, for the halvyr who had managed to hit Nine, of whom Morningflame had been the first. But their numbers were small, and certainly didn’t skew anything globally.

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I put the book on recent European history down with the others, as it was getting close to closing time. The librarians were looking at me with faces of great respect, disbelief, and some resignation, as I had a crapload of stuff stacked up around me.

With great Concentration cometh great speed reading. My Visual File was chock full of stuff now, and I had more questions I needed to research... which was par for the course.

One of the librarians came up to me, looking at the stacks with some defeat in her eyes. “Are you all done, Miss Traveler?” she asked politely... in Human. She’d seen my video.

“For today. Dewey Decimal System, right?” I asked kindly.

“Why, yes...” Her voice drifted off as I waved my hand and a book lifted off, and headed off towards its proper place in the stacks. A little wide-eyed, she watched as I played maestro, and books, magazines, and newspapers were soon flying through the air, drawing the attention of everyone in delight as they headed back to their proper places.

“Oh, I think I would kill to be able to do that,” she breathed out, eyes shining as a half-hour of traipsing around was accomplished in a couple minutes.

“Cantrip, Prestidigitation. It’s just a slight tweaking to the ‘clean up everything and put it back in its place’ effect, using the Decimal notations as a guideline,” I explained calmly. “You could get it in an Amulet, but it would probably cost half a goldweight... if you could find someone to spend the time to make it.”

“And someone would just want to steal it,” she sighed knowingly, but smiling at the fact that she didn’t have to clean up and file all those books herself.

“I have a question for you.” She straightened up alertly. “Due to being Shroudborn, I can’t manipulate electronic technology without things going very wrong. So, no computers. However, I can certainly read what is on a computer screen, if someone else brings up the information.

“Do you know someone who might be willing to make ten dollars an hour handling the browsing tasks for me while I catch up on things?”

The librarian, a slender bibliophile named Cindy by her tag, lifted her finger. “Let me ask around, and I will be right back with you!”

Saving people work generates goodwill. She bustled off energetically, and was back with a positive reply in minutes. One of the other librarians had a daughter in college who had a day off and could certainly use the money... and would be discreet about it. They would be happy to reserve one of the rooms in the back for my use, too...

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Master Fred pulled up outside right on time at 8 PM. Dusk was an hour away, giving us plenty of time to get where we were going. We stopped in at the Aruan temple down the road, where I donated five vials of holy water I had made before going to the library, earning me a beaming smile from the Adept on duty, and I just spent half an hour in Waking Meditation to get the Valences back.

I was good to go, tracing my lived-line as we pulled out on the highway leading from Baltimore to Washington DC.

Unsurprisingly, the road was not all that modernized, because there was precious little traffic along it. For some reason, heavy traffic back and forth from the ghost town that used to be the capitol of the United States of America wasn’t a thing, meaning the infamous Beltway traffic jams I could vaguely recall had never happened, and those roads had never actually been built.

The DC Shroudzone was actually centered on Arlington National Cemetery, not the Capitol, but when the spectral dead had risen up, they had basically wraith-bombed both DC and Alexandria hard, slaughtering basically the entire central government of the country in one fell swoop, including the upper echelons of the military, and pretty much the whole heart of the bureaucracy.

Notably, almost every single person delineated in the Constitutional Presidential Succession had died, with the single exception of Harold Ickes, the Secretary of the Interior, who had been on a trip home to Chicago at the time. He ended up becoming the acting and later elected President of the United States in what was arguably the most stressful period in history.

By what I’d read, he’d done a decent job, despite not being Powered. He moved the Capitol to Kansas, set up the plans for the Walls around the Shroudzones, acknowledged the existence of the new gods, the coming of magic, and did a shitload of reorganizing, diplomatic work, and recognition of the new races, ramming hard into racism and fear and finger-pointing with his “Neighbors” policy.

There had been a lot of lingering separatist sentiment in the South that had wildly thought this was their time, claiming the Apocalypse and Judgement Day and whatnot. The emergence of Clerics and Sorcerers in equal numbers and more among the black, Hispanic, and poor population, and the establishment of the Churches, had crushed much of that movement, although Imprus and Huul got a lot of attention down there.

Perhaps tellingly, the Confederate Flag had been officially condemned by the Good Churches as a symbol of slavers and slavery decades ago. The only people who waved it were Imprusar and Huulites in pointy white hats, and it had been known to cost them their lives to do so... or their careers and livelihoods, when interested Tiirithi tracked them down, outed them, and basically ruined them. Having the God of Justice, the King of Heaven, Mother Mercy, the Celestial Paladin, the Goddess of Silver Magic, The Harvest Queen, Lady Love, the Thunder Knight, and the God of Bards basically tell you to fuck off tended to have a crushing effect on anyone and anything with even a semblance of a good heart.

Too, skin color problems became pretty much a moot issue with all the actual new races and creatures running around, especially vampires and werewolves. Humanocentric movements did arise, and were definitely still around... but so many families now had non-human siblings, parents, children, and other relatives that on a nationwide basis it hadn’t stuck... unless it was Yuan-ti. The serpentine just tended to get dead, and there was just no stopping it. The revulsion for them came right from the bones, it seemed...

The Wall around DC wasn’t as big as the one around New York, mainly because of lower population, and also because the core undead tended to keep to their cemetery. The slain, however, were happy to come to the walls and raise a ruckus, still clad in old style suits and ties and dresses, screaming about how they had done nothing wrong and were condemned to this existence... alongside others looking less and less human who had definitely done something wrong, and undeath was more than just torment to them.

Like New York, this Wall still got incidental shooters, and the military still watched over it and maintained the Protection from Evil effect that effectively kept them inside the Shroudzone. Because it was so much smaller than New York, the corpses of the dead had assembled themselves before the Wall within an hour, lining up in military file as old soldiers cursed and swore at them, and spirits flitted all around the field, enslaved, but trying to flee and pass on their doom to others, never too far from their own animated corpses left behind.

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Briggs was waiting for us in the main parking area, about a quarter-mile from the Wall. Like New York, the lot was basically an extension of the road, just so people could evacuate quickly if needed. Unlike the island, there weren’t as many buses shuttling people back and forth here, and it actually seemed less busy than Long Island had, for some reason.

“Ho, the new Citybound is already making waves,” Briggs said in amusement, earning a glance from me. I looked curiously at Master Fred, who just shrugged. “He walked into a government office, offed two people in the name of Baltimore, and they’re already doing an investigation into overpayments and kickbacks of city contracts. The news is having a heyday, and really pissed they don’t have a picture of him.”

“That’s a Citybound for you,” I agreed, following Master Fred in dismounting. “What did you do for the rest of the day? Clean up vacant lots? Fill in potholes?”

Master Fred gave me a knowing glance. FIXED STREET SIGNS, WARNED THE KIDS WHO PAINTED ON THEM, SENT THEM OFF TO CLEAN UP A VACANT LOT, BURNED DOWN TWO ABANDONED HOUSES, AND DEMOLISHED A CRUMBLING STONE GARAGE ON AN OPEN LOT. AND YES, FIFTEEN POTHOLES AND ABOUT SIX HUNDRED SQUARE METERS OF CRACKED ROADS.

Yep, that sounded like Citybound busywork...

“Gentlemen,” I greeted the other members of Briggs’ shooting team, and they all nodded back at me, making quick introductions that pointedly matched the nametags painted very clearly on their breastplates. See, observant, I is. “Briggs, have you explained how this is going to work?”

“Of course not. They wanted to hear it from you, especially after I made them all watch your video.” He grinned shamelessly, and his team smiled despite themselves.

“Alright. This trip is not about gaining Karma and Leveling, so you might think it’s a waste of time... except for the fact that this trip is going to save you a goldweight in money a day, just for driving out here, shooting for a few minutes, and going back home with an attaboy. In short, this is the fastest money you’re going to make in your life.”

That definitely had their attention.

“Requirement number one... a high QL Weapon with a Name. Has everyone here Named the Weapon they’ll be using? If you haven’t, and don’t, go home. This trip is a waste of time.”

There was emphatic assurance from all the shooters that their guns had been Named properly, and I demanded an introduction from each of them... and got them.

Briggs’ Hammer was still Named Endure, and that portable cannon he called a Shotgun was called Boomer.

“Fantastic, you’re all prepared. What we’re doing today is something simple called Naming Karma. In short, by using your Weapons to kill magical beings, you can apply Karma directly to their Name, and grow their power, exactly as if you were burning gold and power comps to improve them. Doing so requires you to kill somewhere between five and ten undead spirits in the proper manner, or a hundred or so in the improper manner.

“I am here, so we will be using the proper manner, and making a short night of things.” I flicked up my Darts, let them see the tricolor flames around them. “There is an absolute limit on Naming Karma, and while excess Karma will help you Level, for now we are going to keep the Leveling calm, as we don’t want to alarm the undead here, the people around, or forces who just might not want this method to propagate.

“In other words, shoot things, collect your one hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of Karma, and consider yourselves lucky for a short work day... telling nobody of what you are actually accomplishing here.

“In six days, we should be able to take those Einz Slot Weapons you have to Zvei. What you choose to fill that Slot with you will talk over with Commander Briggs. There are some very interesting options available to you. Everyone ready to make some invisible money and help your Weapons grow?”

“Yes, ma’am!” they all called out without hesitation, and I bowed for Briggs to lead the way.