The Power of Ten, Book Three : The Human Race

His mouth opened, closed sharply. “Wait a moment, now...” he said softly. Because Bracers were considered an Armor item, and Forsaken could make them, adding Value to the base components, AND tripling the value of the comps.

Or add them by Naming their Armor...

“Soul Ward. Requires five Slots, but only requires seven Ranks of Spellcraft to understand, not fifteen.”

His eyes darted and fingers wiggled, doing the math. I helpfully brought it up on Holo in front of him.

If he could hit a 40 on QL, that was 21k in value, of the 35k required for a Forsaken to do that. That left 14k to be made up... which a Forsaken who crafted the gold first could do for a third of that price.

10 goldweight was still a lot of money, but it was a far cry from the 35 a Powered would require!

He groaned as he glared at the figure, and clenched his fists, knuckles popping like grinding stones. “It’s still too goddamn much money, even if I have to pre-Craft what I have to burn. Anyone who wants to fork up that much goldweight is going to want the final product.”

“So, it’s a revenue question. Revenue is only a short-term issue.”

Briggs sighed again. “You have a plan to make goldweight hand over fist?” he asked calmly, and I had everyone’s attention.

“Commune with Nature is only a Valence V, and I already know where there’s a crapload of raw ore to be pulled out of the ground. With Summoned Elementals, I can probably pull a thousand goldweight out of the ground in a day, easy.”

Everybody stared at me, throwing out that number so casually.

“So, borrow on good faith. There’s no sum you can’t pay back just by staying at your Forge long enough. All I have to do is live six or seven months, and I can pay back all your debts, with whatever amount of interest they charge.”

One of Briggs’ shooters, name of Seaver, blurted out in disbelief, “Are you serious?”

Briggs just raised his hand. “Believe her,” he said firmly, no trace of doubt on his face. The shooters all stared at me.

A thousand goldweight was five thousand pounds of gold. That was one hundred and fifty million dollars of gold a day!

“Okay, let’s assume you can just pull a couple of tons of gold out of the ground. Ideally, we’d still want it all processed by Forsaken to triple its value, before we burn it.”

“Ideally,” I agreed with him. “It’s wasteful, but we need Gear now, not after a few gold pieces of work per day per junior Primos. I’ll be perfectly happy to supply a thousand whitesmiths with the raw material if you can round them up, but I’m not going to be wasting my time waiting for all that to be set up. If that means burning gold and platinum at full value, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

After all, it was going to be my money.

“But you don’t want to lose the time before that happens,” he sighed. “And I admit I do not want to, either.” There was a big shiny sack of gold in front of him. Why wouldn’t he grab it? He smiled grimly. “Someone’s going to be thinking they are guaranteed I will be making money for them forever.”

“Gold is pretty much a strategic resource now, as I recall. How much gold or platinum do you think you can get your hands on?”

Instead, his eyes turned to Master Fred. “Heavenbound Hall tends to sit in the middle of the cooperation of the various churches, Master Fred. While I’ve got contacts in the Church of Aru who would lend me gold based on my past ability to earn it back, Heavenbound Hall can reach ALL the pockets, right?”

I glanced at Fred. Admittedly, my current knowledge of events was much higher than it was before, but what the public knew, the media knew, and the powerful knew... were always different things, unless you were taking extreme steps, and I wasn’t totally familiar with the business world and the society of the wealthy and powerful.

I knew a lot of names and faces now, and had ideas of families, clans, and guilds, and the businesses they controlled. But I didn’t know how those businesses related to one another in actual power and influence.

The Heavenbound having influence with all the Good churches was not much of a surprise, but having monetary pull was something different than influence.

THE HALL IS GENEROUS WITH THOSE WHO PUT MONEY TO GOOD USE, AND DON’T DIE, he confirmed for everyone. BUT I’M AN ACTIVE WARLOCK. I DON’T DO MUCH ON THE FINANCIAL END, EXCEPT WHAT I PICK UP INCIDENTAL TO MY WORK.

“So, you need to ask. Get your contact on the phone, if you would?”

He only tapped twice, and the holo of the gnome came up. Obviously, he’d been on standby. “What’s the verdict, Fred?” the gnome asked quickly.

“A separate matter we are discussing, Master Gregorigori,” I answered for him smoothly. “I have another question for you. How much can the Heavenbound Hall loan us in goldweight or equivalents, assuming guaranteed repayment?”

“Whoa.” The gnome’s holo adopted a thinking position. “Is there a particular number you are looking at?”

“A goldweight a day for at least Master Fred, Commander Briggs, and myself, for up to the next six months.”

“Almost five hundred goldweight?” His voice got kind of small. “Wow, Miss Traveler, you do not think small. How are you guaranteeing repayment?”

“You can choose to think of it as securing it against the Item Construction capabilities of the three of us, but in reality, within that time I will reach Nine and be able to pull out enough raw precious metal without too much difficulty.”

“Hmm. An investment in the future, then. I can pitch it to the higher-ups. It’s a large sum all at once, and they don’t leave that stuff sitting around, I’m sure you realize.”

“They’d be fools to have reserves of it beyond a certain point,” I agreed. “I naturally don’t need it all right now, either.”

“Instead of gold, would you prefer to simply buy Equipment that has been made, or commission it?” the gnome inquired.

“I prefer to be able to Craft every single day I possibly can,” I replied. “I am open to purchases of standardized Gear, but I will still want goldweight of my own,” I replied.

“Send us a list of the Gear you would want, and I’ll run it by the high-ups.”

“Excellent. I will do so shortly.”

I handed back the Vaccine, and turned back to Briggs.

“I’ve been training some of the lads and lasses in their downtime. I’ll see about expanding that and getting more whitesmiths working. Even if what they make just gets burned, it’s still tripling the metal, and they can make some extra income off it.” He studied me calmly. “You going to be okay about Mexico?”

“I am not strong enough to do anything about it now, and it may not even be the right place. I will know soon enough, and when I come for him, a Deadzone isn’t going to stop me,” I replied steadily, and he nodded again.

“And that won’t be long for a Powered who knows what she is doing.” He held out his fist, and I tunked it. “Okay, Master Fred will keep me informed, and I’m sure the Lumins will be contacted by Heavenbound Hall about all this, so I will get a talking to about unseemly ambition or something.” The scoffing in his voice was unfeigned. “You get to Seven, Traveler. We’ll be waiting.”

-------

I sent them all off with thanks and a salute.

ISN’T PATER CHILLIMER OF THE FIRST LIGHT A SEVEN?, Master Fred asked.

“No, he’s a Faux Seven, a boosted Six, taking the Human Racial Level at Four to boost his Clerical Casting. He doesn’t have Seven Ranks in Spellcraft or any other Skill, so he can’t make magic items that require seven Ranks... like Death Ward.” There was no doubt I was going to have to lay out the proper schema to break Six soon... couldn’t leave the Elves with being alone at Eight.

The Fake Seven was so pervasive among humanity. I could only sigh. If you didn’t know how to get around it...

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO NEXT?, the waiting Master Fred asked, leaning against Sleipner.

“Leave here. Make our way cross-country, taking care of things as we go, heading for Yellowstone. I have to Level, and there’s nothing for it but time. If we can take care of our Gear problem as we go, all the better. Briggs should be able to arrange for someone to take care of my house before I go.”

He thought that over. WE SHOULD STOP IN DETROIT. YOU MIGHT WISH TO SPEAK WITH THE ANGELOS DIRECTLY.

“I have no problems with that.” It would probably be a Good Thing to talk to the creature that accepted Pacts for Heavenbound on this world. “Let me get together a basic list of stuff I’m going to be working towards.”

I hopped onto the secondary seat, he swung into the driver’s position, and we headed back to my place.

The neighbors probably had a whole lot of questions. I couldn’t really bring myself to care all that much, as I’d fixed the damage to the condo, and me going away was probably saving them trouble when fanboys or something started hanging around.

I looked again at my Monk Level, having the distinct impression that something very powerful was going on.

I’d had no choices for anything except the Monk Bonus Feat, which I put into Deflect Missiles, an important thing in a society of ranged attacks.

Imperial Sun was the Concentration Discipline, and naturally catered to my ability to Focus. Moment of Perfect Clarity was the first of the Concentration-based Sun Saves, the same thing that had let Aelryinth survive a Death Giant Lich’s Death Curse and split me off. No way I wasn’t picking it up as soon as possible.

But it grabbed Way Mastery in Shadow Stalker, the Stealth/Darkness centered discipline. Way Mastery allowed different kinds of ki from the Seven Dragons to be used concurrently, otherwise they could only be spent on, or support, disciplines of their own Style. In effect, it was mixing light and dark ki...

Going with the jetsilver theme, sure, style points, whatever. But I doubted that was the central reason it was doing this.

I could only go with it, roll my eyes as it assigned my Skill Ranks in another less-than-optimal manner, and wonder what tomorrow would bring.

That should max out my viable Caster Classes. Either it was going to start the pattern over, or it was going to force me to take the Primos Classes that I could, and THEN start the pattern over.

Forcing me to be the most efficient possible, even though I didn’t want to be, right now.

All things could be happening to that little boy, and like it or not, it was my responsibility to go and get him.

I just couldn’t. I’d never make it out of the combat zone around the place, let alone in a dead zone crawling with undead and Sinbound the undead ignored. I didn’t have the staying power offensively or defensively.

I needed to be more than a One...