055: Level 10
It is, of course, a slaughter. And by that I mean we kill everything in our path that I don't harvest. The eighteen foot tall roughly humanoid stone statues that are Greater Stone Golems? I capture those the same way I did my Adamantine Golems, via using Attuned Mysticism on Command Undead, bypassing their immunities via Primordial Lore. Same goes for their nine foot tall regular cousins, and ditto for the iron golems that are the same, but iron. Mindless creatures like that? I've no problem taking them over. Also, they don’t really require maintenance, so I can simply store them somewhere. We also find a lot of demons… Glabrezus, an eighteen foot tall type of demon with four arms (two ending in claws, two in pincers like crabs). They're a tempter type; they have an ability to grant Wishes once a month, but they twist the wishes, pretty classic game… really bad idea to accept one. Those we kill… also the ropers, a bizarre creature that shoots sticky, numbing strands, and some elder air elementals… giant globs of compressed air given life. My divine sight tells me these dungeon spawned creatures don't have complete souls, which is very weird.
There's no reason to be quiet, so I have the Adamantine golems spring all the traps: Covered pit traps making them fall… but that's OK - they can fly thanks to spells… dropping ceilings that crush them a little before they reform, acid arrow spell traps that sizzle on them briefly, poisoned spikes pits that don't do much due to flight, energy drain spell traps that don't do anything to the unliving creatures, contact poison on locks…the works: None of it really matters.
So I end up with an even dozen stone golems, fourteen greater stone golems, and a hundred twenty-six iron golems. These places make no sense, but I store them all in a demiplane created for the purpose. There's also loot, of course, but nothing I can't do better with spells, so it all goes in the 'sell' pile… Not that we need the money.
And when the last baddie is slain and I step outside the dungeon… it's time. The world goes on pause as I take care of my paperwork in my bungalow by the sea - I'm now doing this in MY office, not my brother's.
I actually have a lot to go over. Now that I'm Life, and my worshippers number… well, a lot… I get nine Demagogue powers rather than just one - so eight more to spend - and with that comes four hit dice and the associated feats, skills, and saves, attack bonus, plus some natural armor from the demagogue powers table. For the Demagogue powers, I just grab Magical Development eight times, as that gives me twenty-four Spheres spell talents to play with, to go with the ones from my domains and Well of Miracles talents.
And it comes out to six feats: Four from hit dice from Demagogue Powers, one from the Oath system, and one from my normal level up. I take Practiced Spellcaster to get my caster level up - no more need to spend an action on Spell Enhancer when I want a ninth level spell; my run-time caster level is now up to twenty-one for default spells… twenty-three with either Spell Enhancer or Wild Arcana, twenty-five with both, and stupidly high if I use Time Clones. For Spheres casting I'm up to sixteen native, boostable to up to twenty six with circle magic and a crafted Spheres Implement … which of course, I have because I can. I also take Obtain Familiar; it enables some nice shenanigans with Mythic talents that I can get via Borrowed Power. For the other four feats I take Maximize Spell (makes a spell do the maximum on it's dice), Empower Spell (increases the rolls by fifty percent… doesn't stack with Maximize, though), and Extra JP twice.
Now, I've been burning my Favored Class Bonus on an extra Job Point each level… and it FINALLY hits the useful threshold at tenth. So with the two instances of Extra JP, I have six things to pick. Well, five, as progressing spellcasting is automatic. I start with more immunities… can never have too many of those. A theoretical young, drunk, degenerate Time Flayer would be CR 9, and I want it's Immunity to Temporal Magic… because it's not just magic, and I really don’t want to be retroactively killed. I also grab Magic Immunity from a theoretical Young (smaller creature variant) Degenerate Dragonbone Golem… because it's 3.0's magic immunity, without any bypasses. Whether it's Supernatural, Spell-Like, or an actual spell… I can ignore it, now. I also grab Galactic Emissary from a Young Vortex Dragon - it renders me immune to things that block Teleportation, so I'll always be able to leave… also cuts Starflight times in half, which is nice as I can get that via Borrowed Power readily enough. For the rest, I grab the Domains from the Cloistered Cleric (that way, I can get three domains, even if one is fixed at Knowledge), picking Liberation (Self-Realization) to finally get Paragon Surge on my class list, and the Animal Domain so I can get an animal companion… because there's a Mythic talent I can pick up via Borrowed Power to basically always flank while mounted on my animal companion. For the last… I switch one of the Extra JP feats back out for Natural Bond. That will offset the level adjustment for my animal companion, bringing it into line with my level: Tenth.
I'll need to do the rituals to summon my familiar and my animal companion… which is fine. For the familiar, I plan on a Sprite from Final Fantasy d20; they're spellcasters, and can learn spells off of ANY list. And it's racial spellcasting, which scales with hit dice… and it's treated as having my hit dice, so fourteen. Which puts her at fourth level spells. For my animal companion, I plan to go with one of the big cats, like a lion or tiger. Big enough to ride, lots of attacks, and Pounce. I plan to boost her, obviously, but mostly she'll just be for riding and triggering sneak attack from spell effects via flanking.
I mean, I pretty much already one-shot everything, but overkill is always handy.
My eidolon also advances… I'm not really getting any use out of the skill bonuses anymore… I trade some of those in for "fun stuff" - Climb and Web. Not for the Entangle (spells do it better), but for the ability to actually place webs. If I decide it's worthless, I can always change it up later with the Transmogify spell.
I also get native access to fifth level spells. My specific choices barely matter - I can grant myself spells known by way of my floating feats from spells - which mostly means my real spell choices need to be ones I can cast in a hurry: Immediate action spells I can use on someone else's turn. I end up going with Open Arms. There aren't many cases where I'll be facing an Inquisitor's Judgment or a Paladin's Smite, but it'll maybe be nice to get a buffer. With those, I also pick up fifth level off-list arcane spells… I pick them out, obviously, but the Arcane ones don't much matter: I can trivially duplicate them via Limited Wish, Wish, or Miracle until they hit eighth level spells. Psionics, though… those are harder to duplicate. Mostly I fill it with lower level powers… but Anticipatory Strike, from Complete Psionic, is quite sweet: It lets me act sooner… or again, if I use it right after my normal turn: I'll get to go first if I don't win initiative, and twice if I do.
There's also numbers, of course. Saves, attack bonus, skills, a new stat point for that twelfth total hit die, a new stat point from my eidolon, more hit points, and such.
The only real downside of doing this myself is I'm not chatting with my brother while I work. Admittedly, it's a little weird thinking of Death, The Comforter of Souls, as my brother now. Still… I can chat with him whenever. Admittedly, I've been able to do that since I got here. Now… any of my adoptive siblings are available for a chat. They need to want to reply, of course - there's no compelling, here - but they're helpful so far… and as a bonus, basically anything I'd like to know is covered by someone... I just need to make sure they'll want to answer truthfully: Whatever I'm asking them about, it needs to be in their interests to answer… so I can be reasonably sure of getting solid intel if I ask Air where the smokestacks are, as getting rid of them will make Air's job easier.
Still, it's a nice relaxing 'office' Dad set up for me.
When I'm done, the me in my bungalow goes back out to watch the waves - Dad did a really sweet job on this place, I haven't seen them repeat yet - while the me stepping out of the dungeon completes the step out of the dungeon.
Cleaning the dungeon is easy enough, but ultimately that's just treating a symptom. I need to untangle the cause….