Why are you special?

I head back to the Wayward Wench, and hang out in the common room for a while.  And I may need to rethink buffs that include granting me scent. Because the civilized sections of this world reek. Seriously, does no one bathe?

Ugh.

While I'm waiting on Christine and Paula to wake up, I go ahead and put on my Ring of Telekinesis, taking a moment to imbue it with Mythic Power. A hefty amount of tension finally leaves me when I do. I now have double redundancy on my survival, and this one has a major benefit: I can add others.  Eleven others, to be exact. The same folks that put out Spheres of Power put out some expansions for Mythic as well, and one of those is the Soul Vault option for the Legendary Item Mythic path ability; basically, it turns my Mythic ring into an upgraded lich's Phylactery. As long as it exists, killing me is temporary: It will revive me and replace my body in twenty four hours. I have a similar revival already from anything non-Mythic that kills me, and of course my original from level one, Rejuvenation nabbed from a templated Poltergeist. Yeah, a lot of redundancy there… but there’s also an option in standard Mythic rules for the Legendary Item: Flexible Bond. It lets me lend my Mythic ring to a number of people equal to my Mythic tier - and between my nine Mythic ranks and Mythic Paragon, such numbers are treated as eleven for me. Which means I can designate eleven people to automatically revive right along with me.

The rest of the abilities I gave my Mythic Ring were Metamagician so I can trade my unlimited Mythic power for free metamagic, Undetectable so nothing finds me while I'm invisible, requirements for various other abilities, and then I dumped the rest into Intelligence for Spellcasting - so it has a 3/day Wish, and the leftovers tossed into a 3/day Magic Missile. And of course, with three instances of Legendary Item invested, it's a Major Artifact, and simply doesn't take damage. There's still basically two ways to destroy it, but… well, nothing is perfectly indestructible.

And as an intelligent item, it can activate itself. So if we're ever separated, it can retrieve me. Or come to me. Which reminds me… I cast an Interplanar Telepathic Bond, linking us. There. Now I'll always be able to talk to my ring. The intelligence was also why I specifically wanted a Ring of Telekinesis: It can do things for me in the middle of a battle.

Or, like now, mess with the very stinky guys that keep trying to hit on me.  She reties shoelaces, pulls down pants (I nix that one, most of these guys do not have boxers), lifts wallets (I have no need of the money, but it prevents them from buying me drinks I won't enjoy), and in the case of one overly persistent half-orc: trips him, strips him, ties him up in his own pants, picks him up and carries him out the door… all without me doing anything.

My impromptu entertainment ends when Christine, Wendy, and Paula come down the stairs together. Wendy seems normal enough; Paula and Christine are obviously hungover, and Paula looks… well, she's looking down, and not meeting anyone's eyes

Huh, that's interesting… they’re not stinky.  Why… ah.  They all inherited chunks of my "blessing" from Life, and that includes a measure of enforced cleanliness. Huh. Nice of Life to not remove that. For me. Life disrupting for them.  But it’s not like I can change it, so I don't need to feel guilty.

Yet somehow I do.

Still. Things to do. I wave them over, and they come sit down. "So did you lot order faster delivery? I apparently spent enough that they sent one of the big guys."

They shake their heads, and Christine speaks up, "Nah, we usually take a month off between delves anyway."

"Ah. well, I have a few things I whipped up last night…" I pull out the armor, weapons, and shields, giving them to their respective targets, "I had to eyeball your sizes, let me know how it fits."

Wendy looks at me a little funny, "I don't use shields; never learned how, and they interfere with the delicate hand motions for casting spells."

I grin, "Mithril. And it's enchanted for defense. It will not get in your way in the slightest, and should give you slightly better coverage than a Shield spell, except against magic missiles or the sort of attacker that can bypass normal armor." A shield spell gives a four point bonus to armor class, but is natively ghost touch; this gives a six point bonus to armor class, but is just enhanced metal.

She pauses, "Thank you. You’re an incredibly nice ally to have."

"I try."

Paula nods, "Best 'trapper' we've ever had. Ah… Christine… shall we go test these out?"

I take a moment and quietly tag them all for my ring. Yes, even Paula. I don't much like her, but I also don't want her dead, and this is risky business. And I have lots of room, and can revoke it at any time. No big deal.

Christine smiles, "Let’s. We haven't properly sparred in a while… after breakfast, though."

We all order a bowl of the gruel, and I quietly flavor it with Prestidigitation. Paula gets Pepperoni Pizza, Christine gets caramel ice cream, and Wendy gets watermelon. I try beef stroganoff. It's… EXACTLY as I remember it. Which makes sense, I guess, the spell lets me set the flavor arbitrarily.  Hmm. I'm going to need to actually cook at some point, won't I?

My party mates look at each other oddly as they eat their flavored porridge. Right… spices are expensive and rare here. Good thing I can make stuff easily out of thin air.

After eating, we pay our tabs, and head… to the guildhall, right next door. Of course. They do have that big room…

Francis waves as we walk straight in, not taking his eyes off his smut.  I wonder where the printing press for those is hiding? Paper isn't exactly cheap. Hmm… Secret page and Magic Aura… I glance at the book with True Seeing and Read Magic up… ah. Not smut. It's apparently a book of reports… hidden as …  On a hunch, I use Analyze Dweomer on Francis helmet… yep, True Seeing and Comprehend Languages. Someone's clever.

Paula and Christine get into their new armor, and go at each other a few rounds. The effects of the armor counter the effects of the weapons pretty well, the fight goes exactly as would without the magic.  Well, other than that the hits are a little harder.  But they fight well for a while, then call a halt.

I pop a Heal off on both of them, and Paula looks me over: "You want to go a few rounds?"

I shrug, "Sure. But just to try to be fair, I'll close my eyes, and all three of you come at me at once."

Paula laughs, "OK, you talk good. But that wouldn't be fair."

You're right. It'd still be very one sided, "As you wish. But as long as we're in relative private, I have some more buffs for you all…"

Six base caster levels, five more from Suffer The Flesh, one from the Orange Prism Ioun Stone, four more (temporarily) from the Strand of Prayer Beads I purchased, and the discharge of Adept Spirit gets me to a caster level of seventeen… which is plenty for hitting everyone up with One Step Beyond, an upgraded version of Mind Blank. Because I really don’t want anyone finding these guys to get to me.  I also slap them with Superior Resistance, all five versions of Energy Immunity, Spell Resistance, Mythic Augmented Barkskin, and several other spells both offensive and defensive. I even risk a Body to Body to give them some personal spells, like Shapechange (I dismiss the Body to Body when I'm done buffing everyone up). There's a lot magic can protect against, and by making it all Permanent and non-magical, it cannot be taken from them.

Unless I dismiss it all.

One good thing about Paladins: They’re nice vehicles for buffs. And I have a lot of them. When I drop my personal buff list on others… well. I'm now partying with three high end immortals, who can be dragons at the drop of a hat.

It doesn't override a divine curse, though. As ridiculous as it is, when Wendy turns into a fire breathing lizard, she still has noticeable chest bumps. When Paula does it, she looks like something out of a fetish fantasy porn site. Christine is… also from a fantasy porn site, but not quite as fetish.

After the buff routine, Paula considers, "You weren't bluffing earlier, were you?"

I shake my head, "Not at all. I probably still could pull it off, but it would be much harder now, unless I undid my own work."

Christine nods, "How about we grab a delve and test this out properly?"

I could use the XP, "Sounds good to me."

Paula and Wendy grin, and we go talk to Francis, ordering up the hardest, meanest, highest-tier delve the entire guild has - he uses the crystal ball to find it, and it's quite the effort to convince him to give it to us - and we Greater Teleport there.