Why are you special?

Only three of the verifications come my way by way of Commune spells. I answer them reasonably honestly with the Yes/No responses specified by the spell.  And yes, the troops come on schedule… or at least the generals do, as do their escorts. Generals generally prioritize war over politics: Infighting is imbecilic when war waits, and almost everyone knows it.

So when the dawn brings with it a platoon of griffon calvary? That's great! Ridden by archers - even better. Archers on flying lions with oversized eagle's heads are going to work out great. The waxwork creature platoon of ogres? Also wonderful; if I ward them up against fire, they're virtually unkillable. I mean, I could do it, but I cheat.  They also bring several ballistae (giant-sized crossbows, basically), trebuchets (they're usually used to throw giant rocks), and a bunch of regular armed and armored soldiers. And don't even get me started on what I plan to do with those dozen invisible stalkers… that think they're sneaking up on me. OK, so… eh, I'll let them get it out of their system. The roiling clouds of invisible solid air can't actually hurt me, nor can anything else they’re showing.

So I spam Fleeting Spell Faerie Fire on the Invisible Stalkers to outline them and let them know I see them, quickly duplicate Amplify via Limited Wish so everyone can hear, and challenge them all, “An ambush, eh? That's fine. Take a few futile shots at me: Get it out of your systems. Seeing how poorly that goes might convince you of my value as an ally.”

I quietly grant myself the Chain Spell metamagic feat via the Paragon Surge spell as they all pause a moment to process that, and then start shooting. The ranged weapons are all completely useless: The Stormrage spell, among other things, sends all projectiles off-course, whether they're boulders, ballistae bolts, or arrows.

They figure that out soon enough, and the griffons start taking turns doing dives at me, going at me with beak and claw.  Those need a twenty to hit me, and there’s enough of them that they actually do occasionally… but I also have a hardness rating of twenty five, and damage reduction of twenty that doesn't have a bypass (more, that does have a bypass)... and their damage caps out at nine: They're outmatched.  The fake ogres don't do any better. They certainly hit harder, but nowhere near hard enough. The guys using melee weapons are funny; the first time a weapon manages to make contact… it just vanishes in a flash of light. That's a combination: Mystic Shield (from Auroch: Empire of Shade) makes all weapons used against me treated as non magical, and Starmantle (from the Book of Exalted Deeds) destroys non magical weapons that hit me in a flash of light.  No, it's not even slightly fair.  A couple of people get the bright idea of grabbing me… but my numbers are very high, and Freedom of Movement negates grappling.

Which all means I walk calmly through the small army attacking me, completely untouched. The commander just sort of stands there as I walk up to him, “Defensively, this is about what you've come to expect from the Champion of The Blessed Mother, yes?  And even if not, the demonstration that I can walk through your military untouched by everything you can throw at me demonstrates that if my mind is set on murder against you and yours, I would not need to bother with trickery or betrayal: I could simply walk through the front door and blow through everything in my path… or maybe open the wall, if I was feeling showy. So you WILL cooperate with me in the defense of this city, follow MY lead, and not question MY orders. IS THAT UNDERSTOOD!”

No, I'm not asking him. And I'm using Intimidate…and thanks to Technological Wonders, the effect will theoretically last forever. I also use a spell (Draconic Malice) that removes immunity to my fear effects and Intimidate checks in living creatures in a small radius around me...  which of course he's in, because I walked up to him.

He is white as a sheet as he gives me two words in response: “YES MA'AM.”

Now this could backfire… if someone manages to convince him that they can protect him from my wrath, they'll be able to enlist his aid a bit more readily. But given that I just ignored concentrated fire from a small army, that's going to be a really hard sell.

Smiling, I ignore the stench coming from his now-ruined trousers as I turn my attention to everyone else, “Line soldiers wait out here.  Commanders and higher, follow me. We have a war to plan.”

The commanders do follow.

I cast a Magnificent Mansion spell to make a quick giant meeting room with a nice tactical map of the area, and we all pile in.  It's not long before I run across a problem, though. In fact, it's basically instantaneous. “OK, so what resources do we have for deployment?”

They look at each other for a bit, and after about a minute of awkward silence, the guy dressed in Raptors’ house colors speaks up, “Ah… begging your pardon, Ma'am, but the generals stayed back at camp to wait it out. We're just dressed up as them.”

Right. Of course. “That's fine. It's easy to solve…” I concentrate on the Ears of the City spell for a moment: What are the names of the head honchos in the military for each house here?
I collect the names easily - they're fairly public figures - and then make use of them.

Attuned Mysticism has some strange interactions. From inside a Magnificent Mansion, every plane is extraplanar… and Attuned Mysticism(Humanoid) lets the Planar Binding line of spells work on regular people.  And thus, the Greater version of the Planar Binding spell lets me nab any humanoid from whom I have a name.  So I have all six of them in attendance in short order: One woman and two men in uniform, one woman in civilian garb, one man in a bathrobe, and apparently one man has heard of bathing, as apparently I grabbed out of the bath - he is naked, wet, and soapy.

However, I'm a little annoyed right now, so it sucks to be him.

“Thank you all for graciously accepting my invitation to prevent this city from being razed to the ground,” I begin, “Before we go any further, I will give you a moment to get status reports from your field commanders on exactly how well the ambush went.”

They do, and I listen in on one of the whispered conversations:

“Report.”

“She basically ignored it, sir.”

“She… what?”

“She ignored the ambush. She highlighted the invisible stalkers, announced that she'd let us continue, and calmly walked through everything we threw at her, completely untouched. And she had a chat with commander Hutchinson. He's… going to need a new uniform.”

“So she's invulnerable? That can't be right...  The Earthshaker's champion has that one, and they don't repeat.”

“I can't explain it, sir.”

“Right, right… but at least she seems to be interested in protecting us for now. Guess I should play along.”

I should explain divine blessings. There's a normal set of rules for how this world works. When a deity gives a Prophet a blessing, the deity picks some simple phrase “invulnerability,” “the ultimate power of magic,” “immortality,” or whatever, that fits certain criteria (which includes “doesn't seriously overlap another current blessing” and “hasn't been used recently” - there's more, but that'll do for now). In Fredrick's case, that was, “the ultimate power of luck,” and in my case, I get to build my character like I do at the gaming table.  When one of the normal rules could be reasonably construed to violate the blessing on the Prophet in some way, the deity who granted the blessing is permitted to expend power to briefly and locally suspend the normal rule that would violate the blessing.

So in the case of a blessing of immortality, the source deity expends power when the subject would be killed, and restores the Prophet to full health and vigor, despite the normal rule saying deities can't interfere directly like that. It doesn't generally come up very often, so this is usually a very lightweight blessing… provided the Prophet doesn't live overly recklessly. In the case of invulnerability, the deity can spend power to negate anything that could reasonably be construed as hurting said Prophet… and as that doesn't end up on someone who's peaceful, it takes a lot of power. Fredrick's blessing, of course, required power pretty much any time he did anything. Mine only matters when I select something that doesn't normally exist here - when I level up, basically; it's super lightweight as a result.

Now, all that is there to make something clear: The only blessings that are absolute are those from Dad: He has an infinite well of power, nobody else does. Kill the immortal enough times in rapid succession, or hit the invulnerable Prophet enough times, and the backing deity runs low on available power… and for everyone but brother Death and myself, running OUT of power means my brother collects them and takes them to Dad.

Normally it doesn't come up - we're not permitted to tell mortals in this Fractal, deities tend to have pretty deep pockets to pay out power, and most people try something else after a specific thing doesn't work so many times. Fredrick figured this out with some guided questions and carefully chosen non-answers from the prior Life. And as far as I can tell, he's the only mortal here who ever knew.

So for most, trying to defeat Earth's Prophet is fruitless - he holds “invulnerable,” while Water's holds “immortality,” and Air handles the artillery with “The ultimate power of lightning.” And yes, their blessings are declared, so they're on file, and I know who has what.

So while I could bleed Earth and Water out fairly readily via massive numbers of summons, I don't plan to do that. I have a different plan.  

Fortunately, I don't actually need much cooperation from these folks….