ALL NOVEL Issue 9 – It’s in the Blood, Baby!
Nnnnh! Okay, I couldn’t add more skill points. Parts of my brain were opening up, but whatever my Expert/Vizard line was on was definitely not the same as my other Classes. If Wizard and Arcane Fist had stacked, I should be getting my Intellect bonus again.
Importantly, I now added my Intellect bonus to my Armor Class to be hit, which in real time meant my view of this guy coming towards me seemed to expand with all the possible vectors he could attack me from.
I felt the pulse of the eight Red Eyes in the back of my brain, and his attempt to Charm me bounced off my Focus as I blew the Sun Save. I could simply NOT afford the risk of failing that.
Yeah, I was definitely going to have to do a thing about mindbenders.
The perm-blond, bronze-skinned vampire flinched in surprise when his gaze attack bounced off the edge of my Sun Save, and I Refocused instantly. I was also very abruptly throwing off the aura of another predator, not a nervous prey, staring back at him with an unfriendly expression.
Bonus Language, Necrus!
“
He seemed startled when he actually understood me, coming abruptly to a halt, wary now. He looked down at my own feet, and his blue eyes widened. “You, you’re alive! But you don’t have a shadow! A daywalker?” he blurted out in alarm... and in English.
Because a vampire talking in Human would have an accent...
I stepped back and thrust a hand out, because those Red Eyes weren’t looking just at him. There was something leaping at me from behind!
Rigid ki turned my I Need A Trim nails into a spear. My hand drove into the throat of the woman warping from bat form to human behind me, and I grabbed her spine inside her neck with fingers like razors as crimson-gleaming blood sprayed.
I clenched my fist. Lightning lit up inside her neck, only visible as a source of light raging up and down her undead spine and brain, and I literally tore her head off her shoulders.
I expected her to explode into gas and head for her coffin. Instead, her corpse just dropped without its head, and I let go of her spine with my bloody hand, while her claws scraped across my face and left no gashes.
My eyes had never left his, even as he leapt at me with supernatural speed, features going feral and hungry as his fangs extended, his nails became claws, and his eyes glowed bloody red.
I had all the vectors plotted out, like I had eight eyes figuring out everything. He was really surprised when I hopped up, whipped myself around and over, and my foot came around like a sweeping axe over his arms and claws, taking his head right off in a writhing crackle of released voltage.
I twisted around and avoided the headless corpse as it flew past me, hit the ground, and the thing went tumbling as blood that was much too red in the night went spraying everywhere.
I frowned as I looked at the pair of corpses there. The woman was in a jogging outfit, too... they probably traded roles looking for lone people to ambush. Long dyed-blonde hair, attractive, with the deep bronze skin she’d had from life still firmly in place. They’d fit right in among the glamorous and gorgeous types.
And they’d thought I was a daywalker. That was pretty amusing.
Most importantly, they’d died pretty fast and easily for vampires. Sure, they would have overwhelmed a normal person almost instantly, but there’s a difference between trained skills and Stats in how something moves, and these two were definitely not very powerful.
Vampire Spawn under a Master Vampire somewhere, then.
L.A. has a vampire problem...
Tied to Fate. Going to be led around by the nose to wherever there were things meant for me to do.
Well, if I wanted an exciting, adventurous life, it was definitely the way, throwing things at the comic book hero for them to take care of. I wouldn’t have to go find things to do; they’d be constantly stumbling over me, probably no matter what I did.
Via Face of the Mage, I removed permission for my image or information pertaining to it to be retained on any form of media. Name of the Mage would act on ALL information, keeping my Name sancrosanct... but that was in the future.
Every picture, report, and information on me anywhere was going to corrode, blur, and be washed into oblivion and uselessness unless I specifically permitted it. Take that, privacy invaders!
It also meant nobody could imitate me successfully... or rather, nobody would believe that such people trying to do so were me. More vestigial anxiety went away.
On the flip side, it would make it very hard for me to pretend to be anyone else... unless I had literally a completely different identity that applied to them.
Maybe someday. For now, I had to get these two corpses of vampires moved somewhere the morning sun would hit them and clean them up for me, because if they were buried again, they just might come back... and I didn’t want the publicity of sitting atop two bodies I’d be suspected of murdering.
The sky was lighter over there, so I needed to drag them out into the middle of the green; looking like they and I were laying down to catch some morning rays should work. Just put the heads near the necks so the really early morning joggers would see nothing too special... and hope the dogs wouldn’t go nuts smelling vampire blood around.
Looks like I’m moving where I’m eating... I took a look around, and noted I should probably go to the bathroom first...
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There were a bunch of people going by as the sun rose, mostly early morning joggers, a few dog walkers. The pooches got a little antsy around the site of the fight, but me and the two corpses were well off the walkway, it would have been an imposition to come over here, and besides, there was dew on the grass.
My worries ended when the first rays of dawn swept past at a thousand miles an hour and the bodies of the two ignited in supernatural fire, catching like tinder and burning away under the vengeance of the sun. Even the blood over there on the grass burst into flame, although it was gone quickly and didn’t even scorch the grass.
Neither did these two dying, both of them leaving their clothing and belongings behind, unmarked by even their own blood.
Those nearby thought it was probably a stunt or a photo shoot of some kind, and just kept right on walking after a glance my way, as I was sitting there with my feet waving, obviously alive and unconcerned.
You could look right over there and see people flying around, after all. It was just special effects on the ground, maybe even an illusion, although I was picking up the clothes left behind... the top, shorts, and shoes of the woman I promptly put on to sub for the nurse’s outfit, and break up the black tac-suit I was still wearing underneath.
Natural Renewal came through as well. I felt the wave of refreshment as my Magical Day started anew, but the Salute to Aru was something I could only say under my breath, as I felt no hint of His presence here.
More to the point, my Pact was making it plain that something else was watching over me instead, and didn’t seem impressed by my ode to the god of Light and Goodness.
I’d tried taking another Level beforehand, but nothing had happened. Now the dawn had come, and what might happen today?
Well, I knew what was going to happen.
Early-entry cheese was what was going to happen!
Arcane Fist was designed as a martial art support Class for spellcasters. It enhanced spells woven by the Caster, not their fists. It was designed to work with Reserve Feats, Sieged spells, and other repeatable things to deliver extra damage, not just grant them some improved ki.
But that download from Number Einz made it plain that a Ki Pool could be expanded immensely, adding great versatility and flexibility to rote spellcasting.
However, to access early Advanced Level cheese required I stay at base Level One. I wasn’t sure how Levels were going to stack, but I could sacrifice one or two for the cause... and to be absolutely sure I could kill two vampires who were attacking me.
Sorcerer/1! Sage! Learned Sorcerer!
Whatever hijinks were going to happen with my Bloodline, an ominous welling sensation rose inside me, and then evaporated in confusion after a moment as the sum total of my Bloodline was tossed so that I had an open Spell Known every level, instead of Bloodline spells.
Hah. Whatever Bloodline this Pact was twisting me to just got no-sold...
I could recover Bloodline Powers with Masteries, so I didn’t really care about them, and I had no idea what they would be, anyways. Maybe a Destined Sorcerer variant, but I was ducking the subject right now, saving it for another time.
In a sense, the Learned Sorcerer was the sum of all Bloodlines, eschewing them all to exploit the same sense of flexibility that Wizardry had... and I simply didn’t trust whatever this Pact might have done to my magical Bloodline.
That was basically it for stuff, save the three elective Masteries and one Feat I could train with extra Karma.
Level One Feat: Precocious Apprentice, a Feat that basically only existed to surprise the shit out of enemies by allowing you to Cast a single II Valence spell of your choice at First Level. When you accessed the Second Valence, it turned into Extra Spell II.
Pointedly, it allowed you to access Theurgic Classes that had a requirement of ‘Able to Cast Valence II Spells’. It was specifically designed to do so, but you had to take it at Level One, ergo, you were rewarded for planning ahead and not advancing to Two.
The fact I could take it meant my Vizard Levels were null Levels that didn’t figure into the Leveling calculations right now, too. In herited base?...
The Spells Known I took were also fully viable, because they came out of the magic of this universe, not the now-very inaccurate understanding of spells I’d inherited from Aelryinth... such as the Cantrips in my Wizard Slots.
I didn’t know when I’d get all the versions of the spells I knew that were viable in this universe, but I could get the ones I wanted for now.
Slot me Assay, Visual File, Prestidigitation, Detect 0!
My Matrix Core sputtered and crackled... with bio-lightning. I stared at the strands reaching out to my Matrix from my Pactspace, and the webbing wrapped around my soul.
There was no mana coming into my Matrix or responding to me, because all the power came from within me, it wasn’t Channeled into me from without...
Eldritch power, supercharging my body, and manifesting as ‘real’ electricity... but, it seemed, also capable of fully charging and supporting a Casting Matrix. Totally the opposite of the Casting I was familiar with.
Still, the Rune Engrams of my Cantrips Known were firmly ensconced in a four-point Pyramid around the Core of my Matrix.
The weblike forms of those spells and the meanings behind them also made me grimace. Traces of power subtle and complex, woven into a subtle greater form...
It was like the Sublime Chord, only Woven, not Sung...